Reflection of Russian History in Literature Course (Based on Example of Ust-Medveditskaya Women's Gymnasium)

The paper focuses on the search of specific characteristics of gymnasium education in the Russian empire in the last quarter of the 19(th)century. It also depicts a historical picture of Russian education of the time based on scientific research and archival records covering the subject. The latter are documents reflecting the functioning of Ust-Medvedickaya women's gymnasium during the above mentioned historical period. The authors of the paper compare state curricula on literature and their implementation in the course of real studies. As a result, they suggest a hypothesis according to which a large part of the state curricula corresponded to the events of Russian history, including not only the main studying programmed but also chrestomathies and so-called "books for reading". Employing various archival records and other scientific sources the authors argue that the study of the content of history curricula is more scientifically meaningful when it is compared with a literature curriculum as well. Besides that, the paper maintains that the study of the relations between history related elements of Russian literature curriculum on the one hand and Russian history curriculum on the other facilitates further research in the field of Russian education of the second part of the 19th century studies and development of educational system and Russian culture as a whole.