countries. The 'golden age of Russian literature' has been dated roughly from 1820 to 1880 - from Pushkin's first major poems to Dostoevsky's last novel - most of it thus falling in the period preceding the 'great reforms.' While the arts in Russia did not keep up with Russian literature, they too advanced in the first half of the nineteenth century. Music, for example, developed along creative and original lines, leaving far behind the imitative efforts of the time of Catherine the Great. Russian science and scholarship also showed noteworthy progress. If the eighteenth
century had its Michael Lomonosov, the reign of Nicholas I witnessed the epoch-making work of Nicholas Lobachevsky. Moreover, whereas Lomonosov had remained something of a paradox in his age, unique, isolated, and misunderstood, learning in Russia in the first half of the nineteenth century gradually acquired a broader and more consecutive character, with its own schools of thought, traditions, and contributions to the total intellectual effort of Western civilization. Even philosophical, political, social, and economic doctrines grew and developed in a remarkable manner in spite of autocracy and strict censorship.
Although people from the lower classes began to acquire prominence on the eve of the 'great reforms,' Russian culture of the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I was essentially gentry culture. Its tone and charm have been best preserved in magnificent works by its representatives, such as Tolstoy's
University education, as well as secondary education in state schools, became more readily available after Alexander I's reforms. With the creation of the Ministry of Education in 1802, the empire was divided into six educational regions, each headed by a curator. The plan called for a university in every region, a secondary school in every provincial center, and an improved primary school in every district. By the end of the reign the projected expansion had been largely completed: Russia then possessed 6 universities, 48 secondary state schools, and 337 improved primary state schools. Alexander I founded universities in Kazan, Kharkov, and St. Petersburg - the latter first being established as a pedagogical institute -
transformed the 'main school,' or academy, in Vilna into a university, and revived the German university in Dorpat, which with the University of Moscow made a total of six. In addition, a university existed in the Grand Duchy of Finland: originally in Abo - called Turku in Finnish - and from 1827 in Helsingfors, or Helsinki. Following a traditional European pattern, Russian universities enjoyed a broad measure of autonomy. While university enrollments numbered usually a few hundred or less each, and the total of secondary school students rose only to about 5,500 by 1825, these figures represented undeniable progress for Russia. Moreover, private initiative emerged to supplement the government efforts. It played an important part in the creation of the University of Kharkov, and it established two private institutions of higher education which were eventually to become the Demidov Law School in Iaroslavl and the Historico-Philological Institute of Prince Bezborodko in Nezhin. Finally, it may be noted that the celebrated Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo, which Pushkin attended, was also founded during the reign of Alexander I.
The obscurantist purges of the last years of Alexander's rule hurt Russian universities, especially the one in Kazan. But Magnitsky and his associates held power only briefly. The many educational policies under Nicholas I that proved to be noxious rather than beneficial to Russian schools and learning were of greater importance. During the thirty years of Official Nationality, with Uvarov himself serving as minister of education from 1833 to 1849, the government tried to centralize and standardize education; to limit the individual's schooling according to his social background, so that each person would remain in his assigned place in life; to foster the official ideology exclusively; and, above all, to eliminate every trace or possibility of intellectual opposition or subversion.
As to centralization and standardization, Nicholas I and his associates did everything in their power to introduce absolute order and regularity into the educational system of Russia. The state even extended its minute control to private schools and indeed to education in the home. By a series of laws and rules issued in 1833-35, private institutions, which were not to increase in number in the future except where public schooling was not available, received regulations and instructions from central authorities, while inspectors were appointed to assure their compliance. 'They had to submit to the law of unity which formed the foundation of the reign.' Home education came under state influence through rigid government control of teachers: Russian private tutors began to be considered state employees, subject to appropriate examinations and enjoying the same pensions and awards as other comparable officials; at the same time the government strictly prohibited the hiring of foreign instructors who did not possess the requisite certificates testifying to academic competence and exemplary moral character. Nicholas I himself led the way in
supervising and inspecting schools in Russia, and the emperor's assistants followed his example.
The restrictive policies of the Ministry of Education resulted logically from its social views and aims. In order to assure that each class of Russians obtained only 'that part which it needs from the general treasury of enlightenment,' the government resorted to increased tuition rates and to such requirements as special certificates of leave that pupils belonging to the lower layers of society had to obtain from their village or town before they could attend secondary school. Members of the upper class, by contrast, received inducements to continue their education, many boarding schools for the gentry being created for that purpose. Ideally, in the government's scheme of things - and reality failed to live up to the ideal - children of peasants and of lower classes in general were to attend only parish schools or other schools of similar educational level, students of middle-class origin were to study in the district schools, while secondary schools and universities catered primarily, although not exclusively, to the gentry. Special efforts were made throughout the reign to restrict the education of the serfs to elementary and 'useful' subjects. Schools for girls, which were under the patronage of the empress dowager and the jurisdiction of the Fourth Department of His Majesty's Own Chancery, served the same aims as those for boys.
The inculcation of the true doctrine, that of Official Nationality, and a relentless struggle against all pernicious ideas constituted, as we know, essential activities of the Ministry of Education. Only officially approved views received endorsement, and they had to be accepted without question rather than discussed. Teachers and students, lectures and books were generally suspect and required a watchful eye. In 1834 full-time inspectors were introduced into universities to keep vigil over the behavior of students outside the classroom. Education and knowledge, in the estimate of the emperor and his associates, could easily become subversion! As already mentioned, with the revolutionary year of 1848 unrelieved repression set in.
Still, the government of Nicholas I made some significant contributions to the development of education in Russia. Thus, it should be noted that the Ministry of Education spent large sums to provide new buildings, laboratories, and libraries, and other aids to scholarship such as the excellent Pulkovo observatory; that teachers' salaries were substantially increased - extraordinarily increased in the case of professors, according to the University Statute of 1835; that, in general, the government of Nicholas I showed a commendable interest in the physical plant necessary for education and in the material well-being of those engaged in instruction. Nor was quality neglected. Uvarov in particular did much to raise educational and scholarly standards in Russia in the sixteen years during
which he headed the ministry. Especially important proved to be the establishment of many new chairs, the corresponding opening up of numerous new fields of learning in the universities of the empire, and the practice of sending promising young Russian scholars abroad for extended training. The Russian educational system, with all its fundamental flaws, came to emphasize academic thoroughness and high standards. Indeed, the government
