Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794855874

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-179223

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Polner, Tichon I. http://d-nb.info/gnd/172311195

Title:: Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Place of publication:: New Haven

Publisher:: Yale Univ. Press

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: XXV, 317 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter II. Activities of the zemstvo institutions on the eve of the war

Collection:: Economics Books

ACTIVITIES BEFORE THE WAR 39 school teachers became a very prominent feature of the work. These conventions were held under the auspices of the district zemstvo boards, were organized by experienced teachers, and discussed all questions pertaining to school life. Summer courses, both of a strictly professional and more general character, were now held every year under the auspices of provincial zemstvos for the benefit of the elementary school teachers. Nine provincial zemstvos (Vyatka, Ekaterinoslav, Kaluga, Kursk, Poltava, Smolensk, Tambov, and Taurida) maintained exhibitions of up-to-date school equipment. These institutions also supplied the teachers of the elementary schools with equipment, besides teaching the making of such equip- ment. Special workshops devoted to this purpose existed at some of these exhibitions, and that of the provincial zemstvo of Vyatka, which supplied schools practically throughout the Empire, became justly famous. In the out-of-school educational field the zemstvos also developed a vigorous and extensive activity. During the winter months the dis- trict zemstvos generally organized popular lectures, with lantern slides, on various branches of knowledge, and in many places the schools established evening classes for adults. During the years im- mediately before the War several district zemstvos in the provinces of Nizhni-Novgorod and Samara had taken the initiative in opening social halls in the rural centers. Library work, likewise, developed rapidly. An inquiry conducted in 1914 by the Society for Library Study in thirty-five out of the forty-three zemstvo provinces brought out the fact that there were then in existence 12,627 public libraries in the villages. This figure, to be sure, is not very impressive when compared with those relating to western Europe or America. However, when we consider the low educational level of the Russian peasantry, illiterate almost to a man only fifty years ago, and when we consider, furthermore, the fact that those provinces which had no zemstvos did practically nothing for out-of-school education, we shall have to admit that the achieve- ment of the zemstvos in this domain was truly remarkable. The same inquiry established the fact that the sums spent on out-of-school education by the provincial zemstvos in these thirty-five provinces in 1914 amounted to 1,020,000 rubles and the sums spent for the same purpose by the district zemstvos to 1,639,000 rubles, or a total of 2,659,000 rubles.

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