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The architects of theories of vospitanie, as we have seen in the previous two chapters, were keenly interested in saving the lives of infants and children. At the heart of their prescriptions and plans were two rather modern premises. First, these reformers posited infants and children as a special category of the population—a vulnerable group requiring protection. Second, these reformers promoted themselves as the saviors and patrons of this special group. In advocating for reforms in the care and upbringing of young children, these writers and statesmen set out arguments that anticipated the emergence of public health policy. Saving the lives of children and improving their physical wellbeing became part of the pursuit of a greater good. In this sense, the architects of reform promoted an abstract notion of a public good—and, indeed, a body politic—through the discourse on vospitanie. Thus, while constructing a notion of the newborn and immature body as distinct from an adult body and therefore in need of special care, the Russian Enlighteners constructed both a notion of childhood itself as fragile and a conception of the responsibility of state and society to protect children. The indignant and impassioned treatises on child rearing reveal the extent to which these men believed that society, state, country , and even humanity writ large were harmed when infants and children suffered or when their physical infirmities threatened to produce immoral adults. These Enlighteners did not present a uniform set of prescriptions, but they were united in their tendencies to hold women responsible for the shortcomings in the existing practices of child rearing and to believe that radical interventions in everyday family life were necessary to promote the public good. Most also attributed a supervisory role to men, whether in the home as fathers and husbands or in institutional contexts as medical personnel or directors. These men understood the intellectual aspect of upbringing—the training and education of the mind—as typically reserved for the children of the nobility, and then mostly 75 4 the child’s body and the body politic for boys. However, the reformers explicitly promoted other components of vospitanie, identified as physical and moral development, as critical for all children of the empire, regardless of social estate or sex. The Russian Enlighteners perceived the child’s body as supple raw material, ready for molding for good or for ill, and gave advice accordingly. Russian Enlighteners and the Child’s Body In the flourishing book market of Catherine’s reign, advice manuals were popular. In 1781, Nestor Maksimovich-Ambodik, statesman and author of several medical texts, translated and published Louis Sebastien Sauserotte’s work addressing pregnancy, birth, and newborn care.1 Similarly, a Russian translation of The Lady’s Doctor addressed health issues specific to women, as the title suggests .2 In texts like these, authors identified women as both the subjects of and the audience for advice on managing pregnancy, infant care, and all aspects of child rearing. Written in the vernacular and marketed in a context in which physicians were still a rarity, medical and health manuals appealed to the reading public. In 1789, Mark Gorokhovskii, a doctor and member of the Medical Collegium, explained that he translated the medical handbook of the famous Austrian court physician, Anton von Störk, because “in Russia there are few places where medics and doctors are sufficient in number, and in the case of illness , with no one to turn to, it follows that one would make use of printed medical knowledge.”3 Novikov’s library contained thirty-six medical titles, which is perhaps an indication of interest among educated readers.4 Readers of middling means found most medical books fairly affordable at a price of one to three rubles and pamphlets even more so at six to ten kopecks.5 The first journal to publish exclusively on medical topics, The Saint Petersburg Medical Register, also appeared during Catherine’s era. In its very first year, the journal devoted considerable space to the issue of vospitanie of infants and young children , signaling the importance of this topic to the emerging medical establishment and to the readers of its journal.6 While writers focused most on reforming the practices of women who provided direct care for infants and children, they also called upon fathers to assume a supervisory role over upbringing. The famous English physician William Cadogan, whose treatise appeared in Russian during this era, urged men to take an interest in how mothers and nannies raised...

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