Enlightening the urban poor: Adult education in late imperial Russia, 1859-1914.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the development of activities designed to educate the urban adult population in late imperial Russia. From the 1860s until the start of World War I, Russia witnessed a variety of efforts to close the gap between educated Russians and the people, seen as backward, culturally bereft, and potentially dangerous. Adult education was one of the means through which educated society sought to bridge that divide. Educators were motivated by diverse views of the nature of the challenges posed by industrialization and urbanization. This project examines adult education as a discourse that illuminates the meanings of education both for different educators and for those who were being educated. How different groups and individuals defined the purpose of education reveals what they viewed as the central problems facing their society and how they defined their relationship to the urban, working masses. Although many educational advocates saw themselves and their work as apolitical, education was part of all political programs and the struggle to educate the urban poor was played out in a highly charged political atmosphere. At the same time that activists looked to education to variously uplift, moralize, discipline and radicalize the urban, working classes, they were engaged in a constant struggle to transmit their values to their constituencies. However, the urban working classes were not the passive recipients of the values of their educators. This dissertation explores the popular responses to adult education. Adult education organizations became an important part of a new urban landscape providing alternative gathering places, entertainment, dances, theater, excursions, and libraries. Sunday and evening schools, people's universities, and people's houses provided some education for thousands. Initially conceived by a wide variety of teachers, professors, professionals, merchants, industrialists, and progressive gentry as part of a solution to pressing problems of the day, adult education ultimately meant different things to different people. The tensions between alternative meanings of education grew as the political environment became more highly charged following the 1905 revolution. Adult education reveals the fundamental tensions in Russian society on the eve of World War I.