Language and Education in Late Tsarist Russia: Between Reform and Control

• In Event: Education, Ideology, and the Making of Knowledge in the Russian Empire

Abstract

This paper examines efforts to unify the Russian Empire through the teaching of humanities and languages during the final years of the tsarist regime and the resulting impasse. It traces the shift from the liberal educational policies that permitted native-language education in 1905–1906 to the reassertion of state control beginning in 1907, focusing on practices in the western frontier regions. I analyze the period under Education Ministers Aleksandr Shvarts and Lev Kasso, considering the unification of the educational system, the dysfunction of the core ideological framework, and the increasing reliance on strict state control.

Author

• Yoko Aoshima, Hokkaido U (Japan)