The Demands of the Disabled: Masculinity, Disability, and Citizenship in the Late Imperial Russian Military

Abstract In the years after 1905, catastrophic war, widespread political and social unrest, and rising demands from across all segments of the empire’s population forced the Russian imperial state to develop a rudimentary social contract with military personnel and implement a series of reforms to prevent the reoccurrence of military disaster and mass social unrest. These reforms entitled disabled veterans to some forms of state support that were denied to their civilian counterparts, including assistance finding work, pensions, and free prosthetic devices. These entitlements were part of a broader shift away from paternalistic approaches to social welfare provision toward the early germinations of a gendered and selective welfare state. Disability support was dependent on proximity to the military, which cemented the idea that civic inclusion—and by extension, Russian manhood—was something achieved only through military service. This article examines interactions between veterans with disabilities and representatives of the Russian imperial state to explore shifting conceptions of masculinity and the development of new political subjectivities in the aftermath of war. The Russian imperial military can be regarded as a test site within which masculine identities were negotiated and reconfigured amid the social, economic, and political transformations of the late imperial period.