Urban communities in the fight against cholera epidemics in the 19th - The early of the 20th centuries: European and Russian experience [Городские сообщества в борьбе с эпидемиями холеры в XIX -начале XX вв.: европейский и российский опыт]

In the 19th century, the Russian empire, along with European countries, first encountered cholera. Regular outbreaks of cholera with a high mortality rate were an indicator of the sanitary ill-being of populated areas. A particularly unfavorable situation with morbidity and sanitary conditions was in cities where water bodies and the territory had been systematically polluting by household waste. The question about the urban crisis caused by sanitary and living conditions was raised at the Russian's medical congresses 1890-1910s, which indicated the severity of this socio-environmental problem. This issue is given extensive attention in modern historical research on social history, the history of social medicine, environmental history, and urban history. The article is devoted to the analysis and generalization of modern research on the history of solving socio-environmental problems caused by cholera epidemics in European and Russian cities, as well as identifying possible prospects in this research area. The research's relevance is due to the growth of social tension in cities and the increased interest of the scientific community in similar problems in the historical past. The research's results allowed us to reveal the role of urban communities in the institutionalization of sanitary surveillance and solvation local socio-environmental problems. © 2020 by International Network Center for Fundamental and Applied Research Copyright © 2020 by Academic Publishing House Researcher s.r.o