Enlightenment and Religion in Russian Education in the Reign of Tsar Alexander I

Abstract

Contemporaries saw the educational legislation of Tsar Alexander I (1801-25) as a sign that the new emperor intended to raise the cultural and material well-being of his countrymen. The establishment in 1802 of a ministry of public education and the division of the country into six great educational districts to administer a network of schools-elementary, intermediate, secondary, and university-extended the initial reforms of Catherine II (1762-96). Her grandson Alexander employed some of her advisers and looked to other reformers, who shared the two monarchs' interest in the intellectual fashions of the Enlightenment. Russian educators, who reflected the ideals of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, and their followers, saw public education as a means whereby advanced European thought would contribute to native virtues and lead to national progress. If the creation of schools did not match the publicity for public education, there was at least no doubt that the government encouraged the formation of an educated population. However, that mood changed after the Napoleonic wars when, in fear of revolution, educational authorities saw the school system primarily as a means for inculcating obedience and Christian pietism. Obscurantism decimated the staffs of universities and darkened schools on every level.' All historians have agreed on this general picture of Russian education in this period, but too much reliance on the directions of central authorities has led to a deceptively simple picture of the views of educational officials both in the earlier and the later parts of the reign. Official statements, legislation, and contemporary literary journals with their