Soviet myths about the illiterate Russian Empire

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Everyone who graduated from the Soviet school was "aware" that the Russian Empire was a country in which the population was almost universally illiterate. As the Soviet textbooks said, the revolution itself was made in order to realize the "age-old craving" of the people for education. On the path of which was "reactionary tsarism".

For many years these propaganda attitudes were hammered into the school heads of Russian children. And in reality they turned out to be deeply false anti-imperial myths.

Is the Russian Empire a country of illiterate peasants?

Education in the Russian Empire was extremely diverse. And highly specialized. The Ministry of Education was not a monopoly in education. Many ministries had their own educational institutions. Therefore, when they talk about education and show only the figures for the Ministry of Public Education, you are being deceived. Imperial education was a more complex state-social mechanism that did not dream of the bureaucratic republican school of the next hundred years.

In general, there were four levels of education in the Russian Empire: primary schools (from 2 to 5 years of education); general education or post-primary schools (the period of study together with primary schools was from 6 to 8 years); gymnasiums (classical, real, seminaries, cadet corps) - secondary educational institutions, where they studied for 7-8 years; and higher education institutions (universities, academies, institutes, specialized schools, etc.).

The expenses for the Ministry of Public Education in 1914 amounted to 161 million rubles. But this was a small part of what was spent on the organization of education in the Russian Empire. The total expenditures of all departments on education amounted to almost 300 million (See: D. L. Saprykin Educational potential of the Russian Empire. M., 2009).

But that's not all. The empire was not a democratic state, but this in no way prevented the huge participation in the formation of zemstvo and city governments. Their investments were even more - about 360 million. So the total imperial budget reached 660 million gold rubles. This is approximately 15-17% of all the Empire's expenses (of which 8-9% of the state budget). There has never been such a share of spending on education, neither in Soviet times, nor in post-Soviet times.

At the same time, the budget of the Ministry of Public Education increased even during the war. So, in 1916 it was 196 million. In general, during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, the budget of this ministry increased more than 6 times. Although the total budget of the Empire increased from 1 billion 496 million (1895) to 3 billion 302 million (1913). The education budget grew significantly faster than the general imperial spending on other government tasks.

The number of students at the gymnasium level of all types and all departments in the Russian Empire was about 800,000 people. And about 1 million students were in all kinds of post-primary institutions of the Empire. …

And this despite the fact that, according to the calculations of the famous British economist Agnus Maddison (1926–2010), the GDP of the Russian Empire (excluding Poland and Finland) was 8, 6% of the world GDP, and the population - 8, 7% of the world population. (See: Agnus Maddison, Historical Statistics for the World Economy).

Population literacy

In the Russian Empire by 1916 there were about 140 thousand different schools. In which there were about 11 million students.

By the way, there are about the same number of schools in Russia today.

Back in 1907, a law "On the introduction of universal primary education in the Russian Empire" was introduced to the State Duma. But the Duma's red tape constantly postponed the consideration of this law.

Despite this opposition from the "people's" representatives, the state and the zemstvo, virtually without a formal law, introduced universal, compulsory and free primary education.

The sovereign, in the order of the 89th article of the Basic Laws, which made it possible to bypass the clumsy deputies, issued a decree of May 3, 1908, where the Highest ordered to allocate additional state funding for the development of free education. In particular, a program to increase the number of schools and their accessibility (no more than 3 versts within a radius of each other) began to be implemented.

As a result of the measures taken, by 1915 in the Moscow province, 95% of boys of 12-15 years old and 75% of girls were literate (New Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, 1916). In another 7 provinces, 71-80% were literate, in 20 provinces - 61-70%.

According to the partial school census of January 1915, in the central Great Russian and most of the Little Russian provinces, virtually complete education for boys was provided. The picture was "spoiled" by the non-European regions of the Empire.

Zemstvos were very actively involved in the transition to universal primary education. Of the 441 district zemstvos, 15 zemstvos had already been completely transferred to it by 1914, 31 were already close to its implementation, 62% of zemstvos needed even less than 5 years, and 30% from 5 to 10 years to implement this program (Primary public education, Pg., 1916. T. 28).

It is interesting that the penultimate Minister of Education of the Russian Empire (1915-1916), Count P. N. Ignatiev, already in exile, cited a figure of 56% of the literate of the entire population of the Empire in 1916.

Full literacy of all children in the Russian Empire at this rate would have been achieved by the period between 1919 and 1924. All the children of the Empire would have undergone primary education in 4- or 5-year elementary schools and, if they wanted and were gifted, would be able to continue their studies in gymnasiums or higher primary schools.

These figures are confirmed by the data of the Ministry of War. In 1913, 10,251 recruits were drafted into the Imperial Russian Navy, of which only 1676 were illiterate and only 1647 were illiterate (See: Military Statistical Yearbook for 1912 (St. Petersburg, 1914, pp. 372-375.). out of 906 thousand people, there were only 302 thousand illiterate in the rank and file of the army, while the illiterate were not at all.

But the revolution, embodied in Russia, put a bold cross on the pre-revolutionary school (or rather, a bold red star) and threw away the solution of the question of universal education for almost ten years. Only by the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On universal compulsory primary education" of August 14, 1930, the communists were able to introduce universal compulsory (four-year) education.

Pre-revolutionary teaching corps

In the Russian Empire, in 1914, there were 53 teachers 'institutes, 208 teachers' seminaries, in which more than 14,000 future teachers studied. In addition, more than 15,000 teachers graduated from the pedagogical classes of female gymnasiums in 1913. In total, there were 280,000 teachers in the Empire.

By the way, one should not confuse primary schools and parish schools. These are different schools. But both there and there worked teachers who received professional pedagogical education. In parish schools, the priest taught only the Law of God, the rest of the subjects were taught by professional teachers.

The salary of a teacher in higher primary schools (something like the Soviet seven-year school) was 960 gold rubles a year, which is more than a million for our money. And a professor, for example, at the Tomsk Technological Institute, received 2,400 salaries plus 1,050 rubles for canteens and 1,050 rubles for apartments. That is, more than 5 million for our money.

Meat then cost from 15 to 60 kopecks, potatoes 1-2 kopecks per kilogram. And to build a brick house with finishing area of 150 sq. m. cost 3-4 thousand rubles.

In conclusion, I must say a few words about the students. There were 141.5 thousand of them in the Russian Empire by the beginning of the world war. Twice as many as in Germany. And if you count the number of students per 10 thousand inhabitants, Russia has caught up with Great Britain.

The growth was especially noticeable in technical universities. During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, their number increased from six thousand to more than 23 300. Far ahead of Germany.

So the great liberal-Soviet myth about the uneducated Russian Empire can be thrown into the dustbin of history as untrue.