Teachers, Politics and the Peasant Community in Russia, 1895–1918

Abstract

Literate societies generally measure the effectiveness and social value of schoolteachers in terms of their success in educating the next generation. Despite being entrusted with the nation’s future, teachers in such societies are not highly regarded, since their expertise is often perceived by the community as little more than surrogate parenting, and their classroom role is believed to be easily within the grasp of any literate adult. Ultimately, the status of teachers, like that of any profession, is conditioned by public expectations.¹ This was as true of Imperial Russia as anywhere else, but in Russia expectations of teachers went well beyond the classroom. The demands imposed on them were considerably weightier, more urgent and often conflicting, so much so that the very process of defining the place of teachers in Russia, particularly in the rural community, came to involve not only professional and educational issues, but was above all a political contest involving the disparate social and political forces contending for that country’s future.