Conceptual Approaches of G.N. Potanin to the Development of Education in Siberia (the Second Half of the XIX - Early XX Centuries)

G.N. Potanin (1835-1920) was not a professional teacher, he delivered only several lectures on natural sciences in the male and female gymnasiums of Tomsk in the spring of 1865. However he made a considerable contribution to the development of education in Asian Russia in the pre-revolutionary period. Grigoriy Nikolaevich believed that the key element for intelligentsia's formation and preservation in the region was the establishment of a University. Together with his friend and follower N.M. Yadrintsev he defended the option envisaging the university's location in the city of Tomsk. He believed that the periodical press, theater and university must become indispensable attributes of provincial life. In the end of August, 1880 G.N. Potanin and his wife Alexandra Viktorovna were present at the ceremony of breaking ground for the main building of the University, so he left a pen picture of this significant event in Siberian history. While in exile in Nikolsk, Vologda Province, in 1871-1874 he launched a scientific and educational project of "concentric local studies" including the scientific knowledge of the pupils' "small motherland", of the region and of the country in general. Besides, the course of local studies was supposed to include the list of basic reforms necessary for the progressive development of the territory in the future. From 1902 until his death in 1920 Potanin lived in Tomsk being actively involved in the cultural and educational life. He was an active member of the Guardian Society for Elementary Schools, one of the co-founders of the Society for Establishment and Maintenance of the Siberian Higher Education Courses for Women. He had complex relationships with members of the corporation of University professors. He actively collaborated with such liberals as M.N. Sobolev, I.A. Malinoskiy, V.A. Obruchev, Ye.L. Zubashev and others. Potanin paid attention to how deeply they understood their region's interests. The last project proposed by Potanin became his letter to the Minister of National Education S.F. Oldenburg with a proposal to establish the regional ministry of education in Siberia (1917).

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