Private sources on popular education in the 19th-century Upper Volga region

The paper tells about a complex of private sources (diaries and journals, reminiscences, travel notes and others) on the popular education in the Upper Volga Region at the end of the 19th - early 20th centuries which played an important role in studying the popular education history. The author analyses the sources devoted to the different grades of the popular education: church parish schools, grammar schools, higher educational institutions; her attention is attracted by the diaries and reminiscences of top officials who either initiated reforms of the popular education or implemented them. An important place is given to the teachers’ and pupils’ reminiscences. The author analyses the notes of A.A. Velikopolsky who worked in Rybinsk uyezd, Yaroslavl Province; he stressed the fact that reality often corrected teachers’ ideal ambitions. The author has considered the memoirs of the Vladimir Ecclesiastical Seminary graduates, S. Arkangelsky, N. Solovyov and A. Klucharev who reveal the peculiarities of the educational reforms realization in their institution. Special attention is paid to the heritage of the Yaroslavl Demidov Lyceum faculty. All the authors noted both positive and negative tendencies in the development of Russian popular education. Attention is drawn to the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and bishops (e.g., Joanaphan, the Archbishop of Yaroslavl and Rostov) in the development of ecclesiastical education. The author notes that literary works of the outstanding Russian writers of the 19th century N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov and others are a peculiar source on the life and experiences of pupils, students and teachers of secular and ecclesiastical educational institutions from the elementary school to the higher one. The well-known Russian writer Aksakov’s reminiscences about his grammar school and university years are analysed in detail. The complex of private sources (reminiscences, diaries, travel notes and others) makes it possible to show the state of the popular education in the Upper Volga Region in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. It reveals the problems that teachers and students / pupils faced at the time, depicts everyday life, tells about the facilities condition in educational institutions, their prospects etc. Teachers and pupils of various educational institutions left a heritage that allows the researcher to use the comparative method in studying the history of popular education.

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