Uniformly in shape: an institutka's uniform as an item of clothing and an ideologem. Part I
This article explores the history of the first school uniform in Russia. The school uniform established for «institutki» (girls from the schools of Empress Maria) was created in 1764, when the first girls' boarding school was founded, and it existed through to 1917. The authors, who previously looked at the history of school uniform, focused primarily on its formal characteristics as a means of suppressing students' personality. The main task of this work was the study of the existence of the uniform in certain historical conditions, based on authentic documents. A school girl's uniform, which replicated the dresses of the adolescent noble girls, also had its own peculiarities and reflected inter-school hierarchy. It remained practically unchanged for 150 years. The traits of uniforms at different schools, the materials, of which various parts were made, its costs, the protocol for wearing, daily and ‘special' versions etc, and also the discussions of all related issues at the Department - all these details are being resurrected based on archives and documents of personal origins. The same uniform common to all schools throughout the Russian Empire, from Warsaw to Irkutsk, highlighted the unity of common school space, aided the order and equalized the differences between the rich and the poor. Girls' schools, which were under the protection of the emperor, were one of the symbols of Imperial Russia, whilst the unaltered and constant image of a school girl was a symbol of the ethical and moral stability of the existing order. Mariinsky schools existed for over 150 years, undergoing many transformation, aiming to bring up their students in accordance with the changing demands of the time - except the uniform. Traditional institutka's uniform became a prototype of a school uniform of a later period, and consequently, of a Soviet school girl.