УДК 93/94

ЕDN CDSPAW

 

Original article

 

Graduates of the Smolny Institute in 1836: socio-economic characteristics (according to archival data)

Ponomareva V. V.

 

Abstract

Introduction. The Smolny Institute was the oldest women’s educational institution in the Russian Empire, serving as a model for others. In two departments of the Institute, the Educational Society of Noble Maidens and the Petty-Bourgeois College, girls of different classes studied. The purpose of the article is to analyze the social composition of graduates of the Smolny Institute in 1836, the status of their families, their financial situation, quantitative data on the intention of the graduates to receive special pedagogical training or enter the service.

Materials and methods. The main source was the archival business, which was put into scientific circulation for the first time, deposited in the funds of the Smolny Institute. The principle of historicism, formal statistical and historical-biographical methods were used in the preparation of the article.

Results and discussion. According to the institute’s rules, parents or guardians, when admitting girls to an educational institution, gave an obligation to take them back without fail at the end of the study. However, often over the long years of the girls’ stay at the Institute, circumstances could change. The death of parents, the ruin or destruction of the family made it impossible for the students to return home. The Council of the Institute collected information about the financial situation of the families of their wards, trying to determine in advance which of them would need help in getting into the service, and who would express a desire to enter the Pepinier class, where special pedagogical training was given. The article provides specific data characterizing this situation.

Conclusion. The studied data make it possible to trace the trend of an increase in the number of institutions of different classes who needed to earn money.

Keywords: Age of Enlightenment, modernization, Russian empire, pedagogy, women’s education, Smolniy Institute

Acknowledgements: the work was performed according to the research AAAAA-A17-117112850249-9 “History of national culture”

For citation: Ponomareva VV. Graduates of the Smolny Institute in 1836: socio-economic characteristics (according to archival data). Bulletin of the Research Institute of the Humanities by the Government of the Republic of Mordovia. 2024;16(3):38—47. ЕDN CDSPAW

 

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The article was submitted 28.12.2023; approved after reviewing 06.02.2024; accepted for publication 12.02.2024.

 

Information about the author:

Varvara V. Ponomareva, Senior Research Fellow, of the Laboratory for the History of Russian Culture of the Faculty of History of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (27 Lomonosov Prospect, Moscow 119192, Russia), Doctor of Historical Sciences, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1707-2281, varvarapon@mail.ru

 

Conflict of interests: the author declares no conflict of interests.

 

The author read and approved the final version of the manuscript.