Daily work of children of Kazakhstan during the war (1941-1945)

Abstract

The article explores the issues of labor children's everyday life in the Kazakh SSR during the Great Patriotic War. Labor during the war years became an integral part of children's life in the rear areas of the USSR. Children’s involvement in labor, both domestic and public, was a common practice in the USSR, but during the war years it became an objective necessity. Based on archival data, the authors study the types of pioneers’ social work and schoolchildren in the regions of the Kazakh SSR and their real contribution to the common cause, the role of propaganda and agitation of selfless labor of the younger generation. Based on interview materials the authors investigated the issues of children's labor in everyday life in the cities and rural areas, revealed the specifics of the volume and degree of severity of children's labor depending on the place of their residence, family composition and its material well-being. A unique source for the study of children's labor in everyday life was a boy's diary, where the child told about the hardships and difficulties that befell his family, also his help for the relatives. The authors of the article studied the issues related to the labor education of adolescents at schools of factory tutoring, vocational and railroad institutes, and what was the main reason for the growth in the enrollment of these educational institutions.

Keywords: labor, childhood, the Great Patriotic War, agricultural work, pioneers, schoolchildren, Kazakh SSR.