Industrial education in Russia from 1860 until the death of Lenin in 1924

Mark William McKenzie Bannatyne, Purdue University

Abstract

Any study of industrial education in Russia must start with a review of peasant society. It was the peasants who became the backbone of Russia's industrialization and were the people who would become the key targets for educational reform. The lives of the peasants was seen by Russian nobility to be ones of servitude to their betters. Even after the emancipation edicts of the 1860s, many of the nobility still held the serfs in their control by virtue of the redemption payments which the serfs owed them. The era of reformed enlightenment begun by Alexander II was soon reversed during the reign of Alexander III, and it seemed that the peasant's future would be dismal. With the ascension of Nicholas II to the throne of All the Russias, government ministers saw their opportunity to end the feudal control exerted by Russian nobility, and make Russia an industrial giant. The work done by Count Sergei Witt and Peter Stolypin in the Duma played a large role in the introduction of land reforms which allowed industrial training and jobs to be made available to all classes of society. The standard set for industrial training in Russia was the work of Victor Della Vos, Director of the Imperial Technical School. Through his direction, industrial training adopted the teaching methods used in traditional educational subjects. But, with the advent of the Revolution, the Bolsheviks tended to education, and a new system of training emerged.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Russell, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Inservice training|Vocational education|Education history

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