Childhood illnesses and epidemics duringthe inter-war period in the Ukrainian SSR: causes, nature, attempts to overcome

Abstract

Our research is devoted to the correlation between the government’s declared care of children and the situation regarding child health protection in Soviet Ukraine during the Inter-War Period. We pursue to characterise epidemiologic status, determine the infection rate among children, ascertain reasons for worsening epidemiologic conditions, as well as define the efficacy of government measures directed towards their elimination. First of all, governments of civilised countries have to care about their citizens and children’s health. For this reason, the slogan “A healthy family is a happy country” was formed and popularised in modern times. Therefore, we have attempted to do the research on the efficacy and impactfulness of the communist regime regarding children, who lived on the occupied by Bolsheviks territories in the newly created pseudo-state of the Ukrainian socialist soviet republic, how objective communist slogans about “happy soviet childhood” appeared to be. Methodology of the Research. There have been applied general scientific methods of research – analysis, synthesis, the principle of historical approach, and also used interdisciplinary methods: psychology and medicine. Scientific Novelty. For the first time, the study found out the reasons for the deterioration of the epidemiological situation in the Ukrainian SSR. It was determined which epidemics spread from among children and the causes of diseases were indicated. We came to the conclusion that the epidemiological situation among children during the interwar period was extremely unsatisfactory. The reasons were both objective in nature: the consequences of World War I, the mass artificial famine of 1921 – 1923, and purely subjective: the communist officials were unable to create an effective system of medical care for children, to organize the vaccination process. The Holodomor of 1932 – 1933 became a genocide. The Holodomor took millions of victims. The children, exhausted by starvation, were unable to resist diseases and infections. Organized by the Bolshevik communist regime, the Holodomor became the aggravating factor that prevented millions of children from living full lives. The authorities not only failed to save the children by providing the necessary medical care, vaccinations, and medicines. On the contrary, the communists used the Holodomor as a scourge to destroy disobedient Ukrainians and their children.