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We know that Russian boys wore sailor suits in the 19th century. We suspect that the pattern was somewhat similar to Germany. Connections with the Danish royal family were factors here. We see sailor suits being worn in the Tsar's family and aristocratic families. And not just occassionally, we see them wearing sailor suits as standard every day dress. We are unsure how common they were with the public at large. We suspect that the style became very well accepted by the middle- and upper-classes. The working class is another matter. In the restr of Europe, sailor suits were less common among the working class. We suspect this was the case in Russia as well. We are not sure just why this was. Cost may have been a factor, but we suspect that more was involved. In most European countries, the styles set by royal failies strongly influenced popular middle-class styles. This was very prevalnt in Eyurope, still almost enturely ruled by monasrchies,which were not figureheads. Our 19th century Russian archive, however, is not very large and we can not yet assess how popular the sailor suit was in Russia during the century. Of course this was only after mid-century when the style was introduced and popularized by the British royal family. We see substantial numbers of Russian boys wearing sailor suits in the photographic record during the late 19th century. .
It was in the 1849s that Prince Albert and Queen Victoria began dressing the princes in saior suits and launching the sailor suit as a boy's garment.
We note royal fanilies thriughout Europe followung the precedent set by the British royal family amd dressing the boys in sailor suits. This included the Russian royal family. A good exmple is the younger sons of Tsar Aklexabder II, Grand Duke Sergei and Grand Duke Paul about 1865.
We note Russian boys wearing sailor suits in the 1880s. We see a CDV portrait of an unidentified Russian boy wearing a sailor suit with non-traditional syling styling. The portrait is undated, but the dealer suggested the 1880s. We do not have enough information on Russia 19th century photography to make any other assessment. The bioy is pictured wuith a cannon and a sea backdropm. The studio was Gerasimov in Pskov, close to Estonia, at the time part of the Tsarist Empire.
We note the children of Tsar Alexander III wearing sailor suits into their teens (1890s). Here we see two Russian brothers wearing identical sailor suits (figure 1). The portraitb is dated 1896. There is a very Russian back drop with virch trres. Notice the distinctive large ancors on the dicky. The writing on the back reads, "Photographer Dmitry Ivanovich Orlov. City of Tver, Russia. Peasant of the village of Negulino, Slavinsky volost, Makaryevsky district, Kostroma province. In the photo are the brothers Volodya and Serezha. August 26, 1896." Tver is a town west of Moscow. It would have a tumutuous 20th century history. As part of the Soviet atheist campaign, the NKVD blew up the Saviour Cathedral (1936). The NKVD murdered more than 6,200 Polish policemen and POWs from the Ostashkov camp (1940). A similar action to the Katyn massacres. The Germanas as part of the Barbarossa campsign entered Tver (renamed Kalinin bu yhe Soviets) (October 1941). They burned diwn the city. Kalinin was the first major city in Europe to be retaken from the Germans. We do not understand why the ophotographer would be identified as a peasnt. It could be a translation issue or something related to the Tsarist social structure.
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