Social Security Practices of Students of Stalingrad Higher Education Institutions in the First Post-War Years

This article is a comprehensive study of the practices of social security of higher educational institutions’ students of Stalingrad in the period of post-war reconstruction (1945-1953). The methodological basis of the work was the analysis of a wide range of archival documents and works of researchers, which allowed to carry out a multidimensional reconstruction of socio-economic conditions of life of students of Stalingrad youth in the first post-war years. The study identifies and systematizes the key factors that determined the material situation of students, including the peculiarities of scholarship provision, functioning of the card system of food distribution, and the state of housing and living infrastructure. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the dynamics of changes in the sphere of social security during the period under consideration. The article presents a critical analysis of the effectiveness of measures taken to improve the material and living conditions of university students in the context of general socio-economic processes of the post-war period. It is established during the research that despite significant efforts and achievements in the field of restoration of the higher education system in post-war Stalingrad, this process was accompanied by a set of problems that required a systematic approach to their solution. The analysis of the situation with food provision for students in post-war Stalingrad demonstrates a significant differentiation between higher education institutions due to both objective factors (the presence of subsidiary farms) and the effectiveness of managerial decisions of the educational institutions’ leadership. The housing problem remained one of the most acute for the student contingent in the post-war period. Housing and living conditions were in direct dependence on the general socio-economic situation in the region, which was determined by the degree of material damage caused by military operations, the level of development of urban infrastructure, as well as the general state of public utilities in Stalingrad.