Popular Response to Public Education in the Reign of Tsar Alexander I (1801-1825)

Abstract

promulgated lawrs to provide schools for all classes of the population from the level of the primary parish school to supply the most elementary educational needs of all children, to the more senior elementary district school in each county, to the gymnasium (the advanced provincial secondary school) and finally to the university.' The successes and failures of his reform provide excellent measures of the aspirations, as well as the practices, of imperial Russia. Whatever differences may exist among historians on aspects of educational policy, there has been nearly unanimous agreement that while gains were made on the secondary and university levels, the results were dismal on the elementary levels.2 The village or parish schools especially were failures because the government did not fund them and local initiative was lacking. Adam B. UJlam has asserted that education was as yet on so small a scale that it could contribute little, whether good or bad, to national life.3 Yet there is a substantial amount of evidence to support a challenge of that common view. It cannot be argued that the educational reforms were wonderfully successful, transforming the lives of the populace in a generation or two. The public did, however, actively participate in the funding of schools at every level. Interest in education included the elementary schools: considerable local initiative was demonstrated in the opening and maintenance of district and parish schools. Assemblies of the nobles (dvoriane or gentry), individual landlords, merchants, officials great and petty, clergy and even private and state peasants supported lower schools. This concern not only reflected the ambitions and programs of the central government, but