Educational Districts of the Russian Empire, Their Demographic and Scientific Potential (late XIX - early XX centuries)

The article examines the demographic and scientific potential of the educational districts of the Russian Empire. The attention is paid to the composition of urban residents and gender balance among the population, the number of higher educational institutions and pedagogical periodicals published in the imperial period. The research source is based on specialized reference literature. Thus, to analyze the demographic situation in the Russian Empire, the author used the materials of the First General population census, namely, "The population of the Empire according to the census of January 28, 1897. By counties". To analyze the pedagogical periodicals of the imperial period, the works of N.N. Ablov, L.N. Belyaeva and other reference works were used. In conclusion, the author states that in general, there was a gender balance between men and women on the territory of the Russian Empire (63253131 males and 63158605 females). However, when detailing by school districts, we see that in the regions of the European part of Russia the number of women slightly exceeded the number of men, and in the Caucasus and Asian regions there was a significant quantitative predominance of males over females. By the beginning of the XX century, almost all densely populated educational districts of the Russian Empire had their own higher educational institutions, the only exception here was the Orenburg Educational District. As for the pedagogical periodicals, almost half of the publications (114 titles) were published in St. Petersburg (first place), another 43 journals were published in Moscow at various times (second place), and Kiev was on the third place with 16 journals.