Charitable Entertainment and Intra-Imperial Cultures of Giving in the Late Imperial Baltic Provinces

• In Event: Help at All Costs?: State, Community, and Individual Charity in the Late Nineteenth Century Romanov Empire

Abstract

This paper examines various forms of popular charitable entertainment which emerged in the late imperial Baltic provinces to raise money to help inhabitants of other parts of the empire. Drawing on archival materials from the National Archives of Estonia, the paper analyses the diverse motivations for organising lotteries, bazaars, and concerts to support different causes, as well as how these fundraising events were organised within communities and regulated by the authorities. It argues that paying attention to charitable fundraising initiatives enables us to shift our focus from examining solidarities developing in the late imperial period between different social, ethnic, confessional, and national groups in particular vicinities, to also consider parallel forms of intra-imperial charitable solidarity which were developing between donors and beneficiaries living in geographically disparate regions.

Author

• Catherine Gibson, U of Tartu (Estonia)