Moscow University
Anthropology
Bulletin
Anthropology
Bulletin
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of History, Pr. Lomonosovsky, d. 27, 4, Moscow, 119992, Russia
Ponomareva Varvara V., PhD; ID ORCID: 0000-0003-1707-2281; varvarapon@mail.ru.
Introduction. This article was based on materials from official documents of the Mariinsky establishments; personal documents, such as memoirs and diaries, both published and those kept in the archives and used in the academic study for the first time; anniversary articles dedicated to the history of the schools, periodicals, and pre-revolution pedagogical literature. Results and Discussion. From the second half of the 18th century, girls’ boarding schools were established throughout the Russian Empire. They were meant to prepare future educators: enlightened mothers, preceptors, and teachers. During their time of existence, the schools had come a long way, undergoing a significant transformation. If during the 18th century ‘the arts’ played a particularly important role (music, singing, dancing, needlework etc), from the beginning of the 19th century ‘sciences’ were gaining significance. In the 18th century, schools were imposing the understanding of nature as an embodiment of the divine, while in the beginning of the 19th century scientific knowledge was considered above all from the educational and moral, and at the same time utilitarian point of view. At the same time, it was deemed important for the girls to be introduced to “the most crucial compositions of the Natural Kingdom’ (fauna, flora, and minerals), and to physics, a science useful for overcoming superstitions. From the start of the Great Reforms era in the 1860s, the teaching of the natural disciplines was becoming more serious. University professors were involved in developing the curriculum, and best teachers and authors of innovative study texts were teaching at the schools. Every school had a physics laboratory equipped with appliances, models, tables and other educational materials. From the end of the 19th century, the Mariinsky establishment was working continuously on improving the teaching process for natural sciences, which was connected, among other factors, to the necessity of preparing the girls for their future working life. The teaching methods in those girls’ schools (teaching programmes, textbooks, study texts, and supporting materials) are still not examined and studied properly in our historiography even though those schools were the first public educational establishments for girls and have influenced greatly all types of Russian girls’ and women’s schools.
historical anthropology; girl’s boarding schools in Russia; department of Empress Maria establishments; science education at female institutes; syllabus in female institutes
DOI: 10.32521/2074-8132.2018.4.110-118
Цит.: Ponomareva V.V. Natural sciences lessons in closed girls’ boarding schools of the Russian Empire (18th century – 1917) // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2018; 4/2018; с. 110-118
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