«В видах пользы обучения детей…»: особенности организации церковно-приходских школ на северных окраинах Российской империи в конце XIX - начале XX вв.

Abstract

In the pre-revolutionary period, parochial schools were a special stage in the educational system of the Russian Empire. The active work of the Russian Orthodox Church laid the foundation for the enlightenment of the northern peripheries of the Russian Empire. The article focuses on the peculiarities of the organization of primary education in schools of the Kola District of the Arkhangelsk Region in the 19th - early 20th centuries. The article is based on the analysis of the documents of the Kola District School Department, which are kept in the State Archives of the Murmansk Region (fund I-133) and the documents of the Kem’-Kola District School Department, which are represented in the National Archives of the Republic of Karelia (fund 419). These documents include teachers' reports on the progress of studies, correspondence between the School Board and village administrators regarding the organization of schooling, the supply of books to schools, lists of learning aids for teaching in parochial elementary schools, annual reports on the progress of students, as well as reports of inspectors and supervisors on the work of parochial schools. It demonstrates that the main difficulties in the organization of education in the North were: the dependence of the study cycle on the seasonal economic calendar of the population, the ignorance of the indigenous (Sámi) population of the Russian language, and the low interest of the students in receiving a certificate of completion of the course which entitled them to IV grade military service exemption. The article reviews the content of school educational programmers and peculiarities of educational process in elementary parochial schools of the Kola North in 19th - early 20th centuries. A conclusion is made that education in parochial schools had a practical value.