Formation of ethno-confessional Muslim education in the north of Kyrgyzstan in the late XIX-early XX centuries

Abstract

This study comes as an attempts to summarize the published data and archival materials on the formation of the system of ethno-confessional education in the north of Kyrgyzstan, especially in the city of Tokmok. Due to its geographical location, this city was destined to become an educational center of Kyrgyz societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1897, Tokmok Russian-native school was opened, which was mostly named Rovnyaginskaya after the name of its head. Here, Muslim children were taught the basics of Islam and their native language, as well as Russian literacy and crafts – carpentry, bookbinding and shoemaking. According to the plan of the officials of the Russian administration of the region, such schools were supposed to train translators and small officials from the indigenous people. At the same time, in 1901–1902, the Jadid madrasah “Ekbal” (“Progress”) was opened in Tokmok, where, in addition to teaching the native language and religious disciplines, geography, arithmetic, anatomy and other disciplines were taught according to a new method. The article also provides a brief training program in this madrasah.