REFUGEE SCHOOLS IN TULA PROVINCE DURING THE WORLD WAR I

Currently, due to the difficult geopolitical situation, the interest of the world community in refugees as a complex historical and social phenomenon has increased significantly. Therefore, turn-ing to the experience of Tsarist Russia in solving such problems can be interesting and instructive. The article considers the process of organizing and implementing the evacuation of educational institu-tions from the territories covered by military operations during the World War I of 1914 – 1918. The basis for the study is published sources and materials of the State Archive of the Tula Region (hereinaf-ter GATO). As archival sources when writing the article, the authors use documents from the fund of the Tula Governor's Office (Fund 90), the fund of the Tula Provincial Gendarme Department of the Po-lice Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Fund 1300), as well as the fund of the Prague Boys Secondary School evacuated to the Tula Province from the suburbs of Warsaw (Fund 547). The au-thors pay special attention to the legal and regulatory basis for the existence of ‘refugee schools’, the measures of state care towards refugee children, teachers and their families, as well as the influence of public organizations and national committees on the activities of these educational institutions. Using regional material from the Tula province, the authors identify a number of problems that evacuated educational institutions faced. First of all, these included: domestic difficulties, lack of special educa-tional facilities, teachers, many of whom were drafted into the active army. In addition, the problem of enculturation of non-Orthodox people in the Russian central provinces socio-cultural space was also topical. The authors come to the conclusion that, despite the hardships of wartime, the Russian Empire authorities paid great attention to organizing the evacuation of educational institutions, their employ-ees and students from the western front-line areas. The communities - national committees and public charity organizations to assist refugees – were often involved in solving existing problems.