Female education in post-reform Russia as a social lift

Abstract

A significant expansion of female education for the representatives of different classes was a progressive phenomenon of the “great reforms” of Emperor Alexander II. Against the background of social changes in Russia, women thus received additional opportunities for their socialization and work. The study of the use of female education as a social lift is of interest from the point of view of the history of social modernization. The study aims to study the experience of using female education as a social lift on the example of the Tver province of the Russian Empire. The study uses a set of methods of female and gender history and the local history approach, which collectively make it possible to focus on the regional specifics of the modernization of the female education system in the context of the individual’s everyday practices within the framework of an interdisciplinary field. Published statistical data are involved in the research; unpublished documents from the funds of regional archives are also introduced into scientific circulation. The novelty of the article lies in the recreation of the practices of using female education as a social lift in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries using the example of the Tver province. Various levels and forms of female education in Russia in the era of “great reforms” and the period that followed them have been studied. The mechanisms of socialization of Russian women of different classes are revealed, depending on the level of education received.