The "Down with Illiteracy" Society: A Public Initiative or an Ideological Campaign? (On the Example of Orenburg Oblast)

The aim of the article is to analyze the emergence and formation of a voluntary society "Down with Illiteracy" and its role in raising the level of the population's literacy. The following objectives were set: to analyze the research on this issue, for this purpose a wide range of all-Russian and regional works was identified; to consider the reasons for creating the "Down with Illiteracy" society; to reveal the peculiarities of the work of the Orenburg branch of the society; to consider the role of campaigns for eradicating illiteracy at the turn of the 1930s in raising the level of the population's literacy; to show the incompatibility of strict centralization and command in the methods of eradicating illiteracy with public initiatives. The study was carried out on the materials of Orenburg Ob-last extracted from the funds of two regional archives, and also on the basis of published sources. As a research method, a comparative-historical method was used to compare the course and result of educational work at various stages of the activities of the "Down with Illiteracy" society, and a problem-chronological method to examine the evolution of the society's activity in the region under study. In the course of the research, the author came to the following conclusions. (1) To promote the work in eradicating illiteracy in every way, a voluntary society "Down with Illiteracy" was created, the Orenburg branch of the All-Russian Society "Down with Illiteracy" was organized in April 1924. In March 1925, the first provincial congress of the society was held, by this time the region already had 145 cells of the society with 7,292 people. (2) Campaigns to eradicate illiteracy in the late 1920s significantly stimulated the pace of this work, all practical work was developed under the slogan: "Every literate person must find and educate an illiterate one." In October 1928, at the district congress of the "Down with Illiteracy" society it was decided to organize a cultural campaign. (3) Survey of the cells of the district in the late 1920s and early 1930s revealed large-scale violations of work related to the lack of practical work; in addition, there was a lack of finance, and the personnel issue was also a problematic one. (4) In the mid-1930s, it was recognized that the society fulfilled its task and was liquidated. (5) The author concludes that the lack of funding for the education of the illiterate population was compensated for by administration, organization of mass campaigns, wide involvement of the public in voluntary organizations, a vivid example of which was the "Down with Illiteracy" society.

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