V. Belova A.

THE POSTNATAL PERIOD AS ELEMENT OF A MATERNITY RITE IN THE RUSSIAN NOBLE CULTURE AT THE 18TH – THE MIDDLE OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Authors

V. Belova A.

Keywords:

history of everyday life, women’s everyday, women’s history, gender, gender studies, gender anthropology, maternity rite, Russian noblewomen, the Russian noble culture.

Abstract

The article is an analysis of the unexplored problem of the postnatal period and the period of breast-feeding as elements of a maternity rite in the Russian noble culture at the 18th – the middle of the 19th century. Basing on archival materials, sources of personal origin - letters, notes, memoirs, diaries, - literary texts are analyzed congratulations after childbirth, family communications about an outcome of childbirth, custom to visit the woman who has just had a baby, restoration after childbirth, complications, women’s death at childbirth or soon after them, influence of many child-bearing on women's health, babyminding, mythology and pragmatist of a lactation, their perception and description by noblewomen as experiences of women's everyday life. Special attention is paid to the issue of establishing of the motherly breasteeding practice in Russia, its difference from professional work of wet-nurses. Methodological approaches of history of everyday life and gender history have allowed to rethink the influence of the postnatal period and the period of breastfeeding and the relation to them on the system of values of the noblewoman and consolidation of existing gender system. The author arrives at a conclusion about correlation of natural feeding with mythology of motherly love.

THE POSTNATAL PERIOD AS ELEMENT OF A MATERNITY RITE IN THE RUSSIAN NOBLE CULTURE AT THE 18TH – THE MIDDLE OF THE 19TH CENTURY