Two years later, in 1862, the new draft project for the reforms in hospital care was introduced. The special committee was set up again and this time the debates over the necessary changes lasted for over seven years. At last, the new hospital statute was approved by the Emperor and it was officially put into effect in 1869, more than 13 years after the Crimean War. However, this new hospital statute did not do much for the development of nursing in military hospitals yet again. Nurses were allowed to be engaged in taking care of the patients in military hospitals, only provided that the chief doctors found it necessary, which definitely put nurses under strong dependence on the personal attitudes of the chief doctors. At the same time, according to this document, nurses did not have responsibilities of supervising the other medical staff, maintenance and supplies. Their activities were confined to distributing drugs and taking care of the patients.

Meanwhile, similar to what had been observed before the Crimean War, nursing went on developing as a private initiative in the society. New communes of nurses were set up in St. Petersburg, Moscow and many other different cities all over the Russian Empire. The work of the Krestovozdvizhenskaya Commune of Nurses and other nurses during the Crimean War set an example of the noble impulse and devoted labor and it also shown a possibility of a career for women. The nobility and some of the members of the Tsar family provided support for the nursing communes and even attempted to gain the employee status for nurses in hospitals.

In 1856, the Great Duchess Elena Pavlovna, the founder and the patroness of the Krestovozdvizhenskaya Commune of Nurses, sent a memorandum to General Sukhozanet, the Military Minister of the Russian Empire, suggesting engagement of nurses for taking care of the sick and wounded in the military hospitals. The Military Minister submitted a relevant report to the Tsar, who, in his turn, ordered to appoint a special commission for discussing the issue on October 17, 1856. The commission, chaired by General Knoring, consisted of top military officials and some members of the state medical council. The only woman that represented nurses’ interests at the commission’s sessions was Ekaterina Bakunina, the head nurse of the Krestovozdvizhenskaya Commune of Nurses. The majority of the officials did acknowledge importance of nurses’ care and some of them even believed that nurses would revamp hospital care. At the same time, none of the officials agreed to allow nurses to interfere in hospital management and all of them insisted that nurses should never be allowed to partake in any administrative bodies or supervising councils of hospitals.

After a few months’ work, the commission elaborated a set of rules and regulations for the nurses’ activity in hospitals, as well as the relations between nurses and hospital authorities, but the officials decided not to submit the draft project of the rules for nurses for the Emperor’s approval until the new hospital statute was implemented. However, the debates around the new hospital statute lasted for a few more years, so that the draft project of the rules for nurses was shelved until 1865, when the special commission returned to the draft and suggested a few more changes to the initial set of rules.

The bureaucratic games around the status of nurses in the military hospitals continued until the end of the nineteenth century. Every time a new military campaign started, the officials would remember about nurses, but they would forget to establish the proper status of nurses every time the campaign was over. Although the number of the religious communes of nurses was increasing, there were also many women who wanted to become nurses without joining a religious commune. Nurses and nursing remained a private initiative and it was mainly supported by private individuals and charitable councils until the Society for Assisting the Sick and Wounded Worriers, which was later known as Russian Red Cross, was established in 1867.

1. Rodina (Motherland, historical magazine), July 2000. 

2. Ob Otpravlenii Serdobolnykh Vdov v Krim (On Sending Compassionate Widows to the Crimea), RGIA, fond 758, opis 13, delo 161, 162; RGIA fond 759, opis 31, delo 1147, 1148, 1149, 1150, 1151.   

3. Krestovozdvizhenskaya Commune of Nurses, St. Petersburg’s City Archive, fond 392.  

4. On Typhus and Fever in the former Southern Army in the end of 1855 and the beginning of the 1856 by Sokolov M. and Kiyakovsky. F., St Petersburg 1857. 

5.  On Typhus and Fever in the former Southern Army in the end of 1855 and the beginning of the 1856 by Sokolov M. and Kiyakovsky. F., St Petersburg 1857. 

6.  Glavny Voenno-Sanitarny Komitet [Historical Survey of the Main Military Sanitary Committee], St. Petersburg 1902. 

7.  Glavny Voenno-Sanitarny Komitet Historical Survey of the Main Military Sanitary Committee, St. Petersburg 1902. 

8.  Istoriya Moskovskogo Voennogo Gospitalya 1707-1907 [History of Moscow Military Hospital] by Alelekov A.N., Moscow 1907   

9. The Full Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, vol. XXXV, article 35688.

10.  Istoriya Moskovskogo Voennogo Gospitalya 1707-1907 [History of Moscow Military Hospital] by Alelelkov A.N., Moscow 1907.

Ed. Note: Yuri Bessonov is a Russian physician who works as a translator, independent researcher and a freelance journalist in the fields of nursing history and history of hospital care. He has carried out extensive research in the history of nursing in Russia and in some European countries. 

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