One of the proofs of the onset of reaction during the reign of Emperor Alexander III is usually called the famous "circular about the cook's children." According to a widespread point of view, this circular contained recommendations to directors of gymnasiums and progymnasiums to filter children upon admission to educational institutions. The purpose of such recommendations was quite understandable - to provide a kind of segregation on social grounds, not allowing children of low-income strata of the population to enter the gymnasium and gymnasium.
But in reality, there was simply no official legislative or other normative act called the "circular on cook children". These recommendations were only set out in a report that was presented to Emperor Alexander III by the Minister of Public Education of the Russian Empire, Ivan Davydovich Delyanov, on June 18, 1887.
The famous Russian statesman Ivan Davydovich Delyanov (1818-1897), who previously headed the Public Library, took over as Minister of Public Education on March 16, 1882. The choice of the emperor was not accidental: Delyanov was considered a leader of a conservative orientation, so his appointment was lobbied by Count Dmitry Tolstoy, Konstantin Pobedonostsev and Mikhail Katkov. At one time, when Count Dmitry Tolstoy held the post of Minister of Public Education, Ivan Delyanov was a comrade (deputy) of the Minister of Public Education, which led to the protection of the Count.
It is interesting that while Emperor Alexander II was in power, who pursued a fairly liberal policy, if Delyanov could be called a man of conservative views, then he was very moderate in his conservatism. He did not particularly stand out among other government officials, and when he was the head of the Public Library, he was noted for extremely positive deeds in this post, taking care of the comprehensive development of the institution entrusted to him. It was he who authored the extremely liberal library charter, which stated that "the library, with its mission to serve science and society, is open to everyone who wants to do it." This charter was rejected, by the way, then it was just Count Dmitry Tolstoy, and the liberal community at that time highly appreciated this project.
Since after the assassination of Alexander II, there was a clear conservative turn in the country, the sphere of public education was recognized as one of the most important in terms of combating revolutionary sentiments. The education system had to be monitored very carefully in order, firstly, to exclude the possibility of further radicalization of student youth, the spread of revolutionary ideas among them, and secondly, to limit as much as possible access to education for the lower strata of the population. At the same time, if we talk specifically about the educational component, then during the reign of Alexander III, it developed by no means badly - so, special attention was paid to improving technical education, since this was required by the tasks of developing industry, railways, and the navy.
After becoming Minister of Education, Delyanov quickly grasped the changed vector of domestic policy and reoriented to extreme conservatism. He reassigned primary education to the Holy Synod, under which all parish schools and junior literacy schools were transferred. As for higher education institutions, in 1884, university autonomy was limited, professors began to be appointed, and students now took special state exams.
In 1886, Delyanov ordered the closure of the Higher Courses for Women. True, in 1889 they were reopened, but the training program was significantly changed. In addition, Delyanov seriously limited the possibilities of admission of persons of Jewish nationality to higher educational institutions of the empire, introducing percentage rates for their admission.
On May 23, 1887, Delyanov turned to the Emperor with a proposal to introduce a legislative ban on the admission of children of most Russian estates to the gymnasium, except for the nobles, clergy and merchants. However, Alexander III, although he was a conservative man, was not devoid of common sense and was not going to take such harsh measures. After all, such a law would deprive the children of bourgeois and peasants of the opportunity to receive a quality education.
The adoption of such a law would be a serious blow to the country's economy, since it required more and more qualified specialists in various fields, and only the nobles, clergy and merchants were no longer able to provide these needs, and the children of the clergy and merchants usually went in the footsteps of their parents, and the children of the nobility - in the military or government service.
The emperor understood this perfectly, but conservative leaders were not going to give up their position - they saw in the mass gymnasium education a very serious danger to the existing system. Although noblemen, including the titled ones (for example, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin), often became revolutionaries, the main force of the revolutionary movement was nevertheless the students, who came from the bourgeois and peasant environment.
During a meeting of the Ministers of Internal Affairs, State Property, the Head of the Ministry of Finance, the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod of the Russian Empire and the Minister of Public Education, it was concluded that it was necessary to limit the "vertical mobility" of the "ignoble" strata of the population by creating barriers to education for the bourgeois and peasants. Thus, Delyanov enlisted the support of Pobedonostsev and key ministers, which gave him even more confidence.
As a result of the meeting, the emperor was presented with a special report "On the reduction of gymnasium education." It was in it that the so-called "cook's children" were discussed, although this term was not used. Delyanov emphasized that, regardless of the payment of tuition fees, it is necessary to recommend that the management of gymnasiums and gymnasiums accept for education only those children who are in the care of persons who are able to vouch for proper home supervision of them.
The report emphasized:
Thus, with the unswerving observance of this rule, the gymnasium and progymnasium will be freed from the admission of the children of coachmen, lackeys, cooks, laundresses, small shopkeepers and the like, whose children, except perhaps gifted with genius abilities, should not at all strive for middle and higher education.
These words of Delyanov subsequently gave grounds to the dissatisfied public to call the report "a circular about cook's children." How the cooks, laundresses and small shopkeepers did not please Delyanov and how their children were less reliable than the children of peasants or industrial workers, one can only guess. For some reason, it was the listed professions, whose representatives, by the way, did not play any significant role in the revolutionary movement, were chosen by the Minister of Public Education as the personification of social ill-being and political unreliability.
Minister Delyanov asked for the final approval of this recommendation by the emperor himself, explaining that this would allow the Committee of Ministers to come up with a proposal to limit the known percentage of admission to the gymnasium and gymnasium of Jewish children, who could be subject to the measure of excluding Jewish children from the gymnasium and gymnasium. the lower classes.
But strangely enough, the report of Minister Delyanov did not lead to any real consequences for Russian gymnasium education. Firstly, education in gymnasiums was paid. Accordingly, in any case, only those parents who were able to pay for the education could send their children to the gymnasium. There were practically no such people among the representatives of the listed professions.
Secondly, Delyanov's report emphasized the possibility of granting the right to education in gymnasium to gifted children of the listed professions. By the way, gifted children, and so on a limited quota, could be admitted to study at a gymnasium at public expense. That is, the empire still did not deny their training, although it is clear that it was very, very difficult to prove your talent.
The only measure capable of really limiting the opportunities for people from the lower strata to enter a gymnasium was the closure of the preparatory classes at the gymnasiums. Since the representatives of the ignoble strata could not independently prepare their children for admission to the gymnasium, for obvious reasons, the closure of the preparatory classes was indeed a serious blow.
Nevertheless, the "circular about cook's children" caused an extreme storm of indignation in Russian society. The revolutionary and liberal circles were especially indignant. This was understandable - Minister Delyanov used a tone in his report that would have been appropriate in the 18th century, but not at the very end of the 19th century, when the whole world had already changed, and it was very short-sighted to engage in open discrimination against his own subjects on social grounds.
Nevertheless, the text of the report was sent to all trustees of the educational districts. After that, in the Russian Empire, most of the preparatory classes at gymnasiums were abolished. In addition, there have been cases of expulsion from gymnasiums of children from the "ignoble" classes. Naturally, this policy received comprehensive coverage in the revolutionary and liberal press, which was able to once again denounce the reactionary component of the political course of Alexander III.
Summarizing the educational policy of the Russian Empire during the "period of reaction", one should note its extreme shortsightedness. The ruling circles of the empire were convinced that public education was one of the main threats to the existing order. Education for broad strata of the population was associated with the "decay" of the population, it was believed that education was supposedly "harmful" for the workers and peasants. At the same time, it was not taken into account that almost all the key figures of the Russian revolutionary movement came either from the nobility, or from the clergy, or from the merchants, and the commoners only followed them and accepted the ideas popularized by them.
The direct consequences of restrictions on education include, for example, the radicalization of the Jewish population. Most Jewish youth from wealthy families traveled to Western Europe for higher education, where there were at that time almost unlimited opportunities to get acquainted with new revolutionary ideas. Young students and graduates of universities returned to Russia not only with higher education, but also with “full baggage” in the form of revolutionary ideas and personal ties established with Western revolutionaries. Meanwhile, maybe this would not have happened if they were educated in the Russian Empire.
The restrictions on education for representatives of various ethnic and social groups directly harmed the country's economic development. Instead of creating all-round conditions for increasing the literacy of the population, receiving secondary and higher education, especially in the technical specialties that are in demand, the government artificially preserved outdated social orders, hindered vertical social mobility, sought to keep peasants and burghers in a degraded social position and prevent them promotion to some significant positions. It is clear that the ruling elite feared for their position, sought to preserve the maximum of their privileges, while not possessing political foresight and the ability to predict further developments. Thirty years later, she lost everything.
As a result, Russia received a technological backwardness and a shortage of qualified personnel against the background of an overabundance of unskilled and illiterate labor, which was reproduced in the peasant environment. The natural result of this policy of extreme social polarization and discrimination was the three revolutions of the early twentieth century, the second of which destroyed the autocracy, and the third became the starting point for a colossal and previously unprecedented socio-political experiment - the creation of the Soviet state.
