Features of Teaching Humanities in the Institutes of Noble Maidens of the Late XVIII — Mid XIX-th Century (Based on the Material of the Ego Documents)

Abstract

Based on the analysis of ego­documents of the 18th–19th centuries (A. Levshina, G. Alymova (Rzhevskaya), A. Sokolova, M. Uglichaninova, A. Eshevskaya, E. Vodovozova) the authors examine the main strategies for teaching humanities at the Smolny Institute. Using the methods of cultural-historical, comparative-historical, and gender analyses, the authors look over the changes in teaching methods of these disciplines, starting from the era of Empress Catherine II, when the dominant aspect of teaching was the installation of utopia-eupsychia, the utopia of creating a “new breed” of women, where a significant attention was paid to theatrical culture. The last pedagogical subject of the article is the reform of K. D. Ushinsky in the memoirs of E. Vodovozova, carried out at the very beginning of the 1860s, when women’s education in Smolny, primarily related to the humanities, lost its exclusivity and elitism due to the emergence of female gymnasiums in Russia (starting from 1857).