Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

 

 

521

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the Russian Academy of Sciences. Moscow. 

Voprosy Istorii 

- Voprosy Istorii. Russian academic journal for historical 

studies. The Institute of Russian History of the Russian 

Academy of Sciences. Moscow. 

Voprosi Literatury 

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Moscow. 

Voprosy filosofii 

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Moscow. 

VTP 

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Voprosy teorii i praktiki. Tambov. 

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Terra Sebus: Acta Musei Sabesiensis, Special Issue, 2014, p. 31-44 

 

 

THE ESTABLISHMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL 

SCHOOLS IN RUSSIA (19TH-21ST CENTURIES):  

AN ETHNOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE



 

 

 

Veronika Jur’evna ARESTOVA



 

 

 

Analysis of the establishment and development of rural schools in Russia 

requires a clear understanding of rural education from a historical 

perspective, in order to reveal the reasons behind the specific characteristics 

seen in them today, and from there identify opportunities for further 

prospective changes. 

The challenge of rural schooling has been an important problem 

throughout the history of the Russian education system. It is well-

established that all reformations in rural schools depended not only on the 

political decisions of government, but also on the ethnocultural traditions of 

the community where the schooling being was organised. 

The first attempts to create public schools were made in 1714 by 

Peter the Great, who decided to create schools for basic education in 

mathematics and geometry for children (boys) of certain estates.

1

 These 

arithmetical schools did not exist for long, as they gradually merged with 

garrison, religious and metallurgy schools and in 1744, after passage of the 

Senate decree On consolidation of arithmetical and garrison schools in provinces into 

one place, they disappeared.

2

 Peasant children were not trained in arithmetical 

schools, so this particular case does not have great relevance to the question 

of rural education. However, it should be noted that peasant children were 

sometimes able to learn to read and write thanks to the initiative of their 

parents, who employed fellow-villagers, retired soldiers, exiles, clerks or 

vagrant teachers to train their children. Peasants also organised so-called 

                                                 



 The research is conducted with financial support of the Ministry of Education and 

Science in Russian Federation within athe basic scope of the governmental project 

Ethnocultural Education as a Foundation for Civilian and International Concord in Russian Society, 

project no. 2473. 



 The Chuvash I. Yakovlev State Pedagogical University, Russian Federation; e-mail: 

[e-mail]. 

1

 The social estates of the Russian Empire (sosloviye) defined four major demographic 

groups: the nobility, the clergy, urban dwellers and peasants, as well as more detailed sub-

cateogries, such as priests and monks, merchantry and guilded craftsmen. 

2

 Frumenkova 2003, p. 136. 

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V. J. Arestova 

 

32

“Spontaneous Schools.” Sometimes clergymen or other church members 

(former peasants) took the initiative to organise a school for peasant 

children.

3

 It is well known that some nobles (such as Sheremetev, Yusupov, 

Golitsyn and Orlov) taught some of their serfs. According to the census of 

1858, the peasantry represented 34% of the overall population of the 

country.

4

 

In 1802, in the days of Emperor Alexander the First, the Ministry of 

Public Education was founded, and in the following years a new system of 

public education was implemented with a remit to make education free, 

continuous and available to all estates. These changes made education more 

available to the rural public, meaning the children of peasants could learn in 

parochial schools. But the number of schools established by landowners for 

the children of serfs did not increase after this change; indeed, following 

abolition of serfdom numbers started to decrease. However, the 

establishment of zemstvos (local governments) in 1864 enabled the 

government to establish and develop schools through the rural zemstvos 

system.

5

 

Documents issued by the Ministry of Public Education, such as the 

Regulations for public elementary schools of 1864 and 1874 regulating the legal 

relationships and the zemstvo school management system, tell us much 

about these systematic reforms.

6

 Also around this period, a number of 

documents were created in which the disadvantages of zemstvo schools 

were analysed and recommendations on issues of educational processes 

were given. For example, in 1906 N. F. Bunakov published Shkol’noye Dyelo 

in which he analysed education from 1872 to 1902. He wrote that the native 

language should be the most important subject in school because it enables 

the child to “think and feel in the spirit of the people that created that 

language.”

7

 Bunakov also emphasised the importance of nurturing love for 

one’s neighbour and seeking truth, kindness and moral beauty.

8

 

The 19

th

 century is of particular relevance to this article, because at 

that time the concept of a national character was emerging in education. For 

example, a report from the Minister of Public Education S. S. Uvarov to 

Emperor Nikolay the First (19 November 1833) explains the idea of 

“Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” as a defining principle of public 

education, stating that in actions related to public education, a true national 

                                                 

3

 Gromyko 1991, p. 171. 

4

 Ibid., p. 5. 

5

 Veselovskiy 1909, p. 449. 

6

 Katuntsev 2005, p. 116. 

7

 Bunakov 1906, p. 3. 

8

 Ibid., p. 156. 

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