“Efforts and labour defeat all resistance”: autobiographies of Jewish female students of the early twentieth century about the path to higher medical education in the Russian Empire

ABSTRACT

In this study, autobiographies of Jewish students of the medical department of the Kyiv Higher Courses for Women, stored in the State Archives of Kyiv, have been analysed. The focus is on the study of the inner world of young Jewish women of the modern period, their educational trajectory and motivation for socio-professional fulfilment. Behavioural models of Jewish parents and daughters – subjects of educational processes of the early twentieth century – demonstrate the humanization of relationships, emancipation of personality and individualization as a meaningful result of the modern era; specify the autonomy of the woman’s inner self due to the lack of external motivations on the way to higher education; awareness of responsibility for the chosen path. The social character of Jewish women was tempered by both their own life incidents and literary heroes whose images were imitated by teenagers of the modern period. Understanding the autobiographies of young Jewish women convinces us that it is the daily actions of ordinary citizens, aimed at active adaptation to the world around them, that gradually changed the society in which they lived.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiography
• Jewish female students
• educational trajectory
• Russian Empire
• higher women’s education
• medical department of Kyiv higher courses for women

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Adler,“Rediscovering Schools,” 140–141; Adler, In Her Hands, 112; Parush, Reading Jewish Women, 88; Ivanov, Evreyskoe studenchestvo, 47.

2 Avrutin and Greene, The Story of a Life, XVII.

3 Pietrov-Ennker, “Novye lyudi,” 160–161; Avrutin and Greene, The Story of a Life, XXI; Rudneva, “Rol' vysshego obrazovaniya,” 132.

4 Sobolevskaya, “Problema preodoleniya,” 376; Yarmak, “Evreyskie svadebnye obychai,” 86–87.

5 Sobolevskaya and Goncharov, Evrei Grodnenshhiny, 303–305; Yarmak, “Etnopedagogicheskie traditsii,” 84.

6 Yarmak, “Uchastie zhenshhin,” 101.

7 Balin, “Jewish Women,” 6.

8 Drach, Vyscha zhinocha osvita, 436–438; Kobchenko, “Pochatky vyshhoji medychnoji,” 131–132.

9 Khiterer, “How Jews Gained,” 179.

10 Dneprov and Usacheva, Srednee zhenskoe obrazovanie, 8, 236; Drach, Vyscha zhinocha osvita, 423.

11 DAK, f. 244, op. 15, d. 32, 90 l.

12 Ibid., ll. 27–28 оb. [Avtobiografiya Sinyavskaya].

13 Lejeune, Le pacte autobiographique, 14.

14 Nelson and Fivush, “The Development of Autobiographical Memory,” 90.

15 It is noteworthy that in the 1880s in St. Petersburg, where the residence of Jews was strictly controlled, Jews made up to 10% of female students in urban schools (Natans, Za chertoy, 138).

16 Adler, In Her Hands, 114; Parush, Reading Jewish Women, 89.

17 Talking about schools, the term “grade” corresponds to the educational stage. Primary public schools in the Russian Empire were represented by one-grade and two-grade educational institutions. One-grade schools (three-year term of study) were primary schools, where the pupils were taught only to write, read, count etc. Most of the zemstvo and church-parish schools, schools of city self-government, and parish specialized schools were single-grade. Two-grade schools (five-year term of study) represented an extended primary school. The first-year curriculum was similar to a single-grade school. The second grade (with a two-year term of study) included additional subjects of primary education. Children of both sexes studied in primary public schools. In the late nineteenth – early twentieth century, most single-grade schools were reorganized into two-grade schools. In joint primary schools, girls were not to be over the age of twelve. In case of gymnasiums, the term “grade” corresponds to one year of study. In the early twentieth century, the age limit for admission to the first grade of a women’s gymnasium was twelve years old, second grade – thirteen, third grade – fourteen, and fourth grade – fifteen years old. However, in the realities of the time, even girls two years older could attend the gymnasium, which is shown by the protocols of gymnasium pedagogical councils.

18 DAK, l. 43 [Avtobiografiya Malka Gershevna Zbarskaya].

19 Ibid., l. 59 [Avtobiografiya Roda Nukhimovna Fil’kenshteyn].

20 Ibid., l. 73 [Avtobiografiya Udel’-Rukhlya Baydyk].

21 Ibid., l. 62 [Avtobiografiya Khaya Khienikson].

22 Ibid., l. 73 [Baydyk].

23 Ibid., l. 45 [Avtobiografiya Sofiya Leytman].

24 Whittaker, Graf S.S. Uvarov, 155.

25 Khoroshilova, “Zhenskoe obrazovanie,” 347.

26 DAK, l. 73 [Baydyk].

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., l. 44 [Avtobiografiya R. Krimer].

29 Ibid., l. 58 [Avtobiografiya Sarra Stremovskaya].

30 Ibid., l. 35 [Avtobiografiya Fruma-Sarra Berman].

31 Ibid., l. 47 [Leytman].

32 Ibid.

33 The commission formed under the management of the trustee of the educational district, where people with home education could pass the exam for the course of women’s gymnasium and obtain a certificate of secondary education.

34 Ibid., l. 72 [Avtobiografiya Avist-Vant].

35 Ibid., l. 21 [Avtobiografiya Dukhina].

36 Ibid., l. 27 ob. [Sinyavskaya].

37 Ibid., l. 74 [Avtobiografiya Mariya Braver].

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., l. 33 [Avtobiografiya Shekhtman].

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., l. 47 [Leytman].

42 Ibid., l. 44. [Krimer].

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., l. 25 [Avtobiografiya Khasya Roninson].

45 According to the trustee’s report, as of 1905, 32.12% of female students in women’s educational institutions of the Kyiv educational district were Jewish; in some private gymnasiums Jewish students made 2/3 and over (see Vinogradov, “Kievskiy uchebnyy,” 45).

46 See details: Veremenko, Dvoryanskaya sem'ya, 626.

47 DAK, l. 47 ob. [Leytman].

48 Ibid., l. 48. [Avtobiografiya Beylya Berkovna Lokshtanova].

49 Ibid., l. 45. [Leytman].

50 Parush, Reading Jewish Women, 91.

51 DAK, l. 27 ob. [Sinyavskaya].

52 Ibid.

53 DAK, l. 80 [Avtobiografiya Dashko].

54 “Iz obschestvennoy khroniki,” 877.

55 Markov, O shkolnoy molodezhi, 20.

56 DAK, l. 9–9 ob. [Avtobiografiya Khaya Pauzner].

57 Ibid.

58 Markov, O shkolnoy molodezhi, 58.

59 Zubkov, Rossiyskoe uchitel'stvo, 51.

60 Surovcova, Spogady, 39.

61 DAK, l. 86 [Avtobiografiya Nekhama Savranskaya].

62 Ibid., l. 28 ob. [Sinyavskaya].

63 Ibid., l. 59 [Fil'kenshteyn].

64 Ibid., l. 48 [Lokshtanova].

65 Ibid., l. 47 ob. [Leytman].

66 Ibid., l. 73 [Baydyk].

67 Ibid., l. 62 а. [Khienikson].

68 Ibid., l. 35 [Berman].

69 Ibid., l. 21 [Dukhina].

70 Ibid., l. 30 [Avtobiografiya B. Freydina].

71 Ibid., l. 33 [Shekhtman].

72 Ibid., l. 47 ob. [Leytman].

73 Ibid.

74 Lejeune, V zaschity avtobiografii.

75 Gerasimov, Glebov, and Mogilner, “Gibridnost,'” 174.

76 Parush, Reading Jewish Women, XIII.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oksana Drach

Oksana Drach is Professor in the Department of World History at the Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, Ukraine. She is the author of Female Higher Education in the Russian Empire in the 2nd Half Of The nineteenth Century – Early twentieth Century (2011), and of numerous articles on the history of education and schooling in the Russian Empire and Ukraine.