Women in charitable and educational activities Kyiv’s Old Community (70–80 years of the nineteenth century)

The article is devoted to cultural, educational and charitable activities of the wives of main figures of the Gromads' movement in Dnieper Ukraine in 70-80-th years of the nineteenth century. Relevance of the study determined by contemporary historiographical trends, the vision of the phenomenon of Gromad's movement in national historiography is partly one-sided, because in spite of numerous studies devoted to various aspects of the functioning of the Gromads (beginning from social, educational and scientific activities to theoretical considerations and political attitudes of the Gromads' movement activists), a lot of personal, gender and family issues are not examined. However, poorly understood is an issue of participation of the intelligent women in cultural, educational and charitable areas of the Gromads, which was an extremely important form of the work for the benefit of society. This paper will not only add something new about the history of Gromads' movement, but will be worthwhile in the fields of gender, intellectual, and family history. In historiography this problem is highlighted very fragmentary. Concluding, the participation of the wives of main figures of Gromads' movement in charitable and educational, cultural activities concluded mainly four parts: teaching in Sunday's school, active work in the «Society of daytime shelters for children of the working class», the collection of ethnographic material and participation in the drafting of the «Dictionary» and in amateur productions of Ukrainian drama. Activity of the women had a great importance as in the history of women's activity in the Russian Empire as a whole and in particular in Ukraine and in the history of educational and cultural activities of the Gromads, family and personal history. Multidirectional character of this problem leads to further research of this subject.