The Development of Russian School Education in the Pre-Reform Period (the Uralsk Army School as an Example)
This article is dedicated to the history of Russian public education. Mostly it is focused on a school established in the Uralsk Cossack Army. Its history reflects common development trends of school education in the late 18th - early 60’s of the 19th century, first of all its estate and administrative characteristics. In this period different types of educational institutions not presenting interrelated and coherent system were founded in Russia. Generally they were isolated, not successive with each other even as part of one administration. However, they were closely associated with production, administrative, political, military requirements. One of those schools was the Uralsk Army School. For the first time ever the school was opened in 1812 in Uralsk. But in 1821 it stopped working because of material needs and unpopularity among the Old belief Cossacks. Nevertheless the school restarted its work in 1831. The Uralsk Army School was under the authority of the army chancery and the Orenburg governor-general; it belonged to military administration schools, where most of military officials’ children studied. Pupils took general subjects but much attention was given to physical and military training. The school was not very popular among regular Cossacks, they preferred to teach their children with the help of domestic Schismatic teachers. At the same time the history of the Uralsk Army School in the prereform period indicates the tendency of the government to create a system of educational institutions. The Ministry of National Education was aimed at unifying schools of different administrations, promoting their requirements for education process organization, and getting the quality under control.