The Perils of the Historian: Edward Dneprov and Experimental Educational Reform in the Tsarist and Gorbachev Eras

Abstract

One neglected aspect of the Gorbachev perestroika era in Russia [1985–1991] was the remarkable “pedagogy of cooperation” (or pedagogika sotrudnichestva) movement, a renewal of the experimental tradition in education. Central to this was Edward Dneprov, a brilliant and forceful individual whose views and personality substantially shaped the Gorbachev-era educational reform movement. Dneprov, who served as Russian Minister of Education (1990–1992) was also a product of his times and his training as an historian These characteristics informed but also limited his ability to understand the forces at work resisting educational change—especially the resilience of “the culture of the classroom.”

Notes

1 For a condensed version of his portrait of the period from 1855 to 1914, see Chetvertaia shkol’naia reforma, pp. 14–32; and on the Soviet era, pp. 33–50.

2 See his Ocherki istorii shkoly I pedagogicheskoi mysli narodov SSSR: konets XIX-nachalo XX v. (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1991) pp. 297–312. By 1916 there were 304 pedagogical journals functioning in the Russian Empire (p. 298).

3 This is a vastly expanded and revised version of a work published before the perestroika era.

4 An informative study of competing visions for education in late Imperial Russia is: A.P. Romanov (2009), esp. for our purposes, pp. 98–127, 153–209.

5 Such views differed, of course, from progressive liberal thought in the United States at the time, which then as now rejects private education and envisions a large role for the federal government. In conversations, Dneprov argued that his support for private (“alternative”) schools, and even vouchers, was situational, a tool by which the iron grip of Russia’s central government could be loosened, and local control inserted in the system.

6 Such views differed, of course, from progressive liberal thought in the United States at the time, which then as now rejects private education and envisions a large role for the federal government. In conversations, Dneprov argued that his support for private (“alternative”) schools, and even vouchers, was situational, a tool by which the iron grip of Russia’s central government could be loosened, and local control inserted in the system.

7 There is a considerable literature on the post-1905 intelligentsia. A persuasive work is by Daniel Beer (2008) See also Tatiana Saburova and Ben Eklof, Druzhba, semi’a, revoliutsiia (2016), pp. 304–309. On the vocabulary of the late Soviet and post-Soviet eras, see Mary Buckley 1993); Natalia Kovalyova, 2014. One promising further avenue of research would be to examine the ways reformist educators at the turn of the twentieth century and in the perestroika era used and understood words and concepts; how such terms “articulated their horizon of expectations” while also reflecting their historical experience. What are the long-term continuities and transformations to be found in the word and concepts deployed by members of the experimental education movement over the course of a century? Reinhart Koselleck (2004).

8 There is a considerable literature on the post-1905 intelligentsia. A persuasive work is by Daniel Beer, Renovating Russia: The Human Sciences and the Fate of Liberal Modernity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008) See also Tatiana Saburova and Ben Eklof, Druzhba, Semi’a, Revoliutsiia (Moscow: NLO, 2016), pp. 304-309. On the vocabulary of the late Soviet and post-Soviet eras, see Mary Buckley, Redefining On Russian Society and Polity (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993); Natalia Kovalyova, Unlearning the Soviet Tongue: Discursive Practices of a Democratizing Polity (NY: Lexington Books, 2014). One promising further avenue of research would be to examine the ways reformist educators at the turn of the twentieth century and in the perestroika era used and understood words and concepts; how such terms “articulated their horizon of expectations” while also reflecting their historical experience. What are the long-term continuities and transformations to be found in the word and concepts deployed by members of the experimental education movement over the course of a century? Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).

9 The topic of “closed cities” and their relative access, or lack of, to information about the outside world, remains to be thoroughly examined, especially as the question pertains to the Soviet era educated public.

10 A concise biography of his life and summary of his contribution to Russian pedagogy is in Russkaia pedagogicheskaia Entsiklopediia, pp. 497–8.

11 On his life and works, see the excellent introduction to a compilation of his works, Izbrannye pedagogicheskie sochineniia, ed. by A M Arsen’ev (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1982).

12 For a penetrating early evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the perestroika era reform movement, see the work of one of its participants, I.D. Frumin 1998, esp. pp. 199–270. Frumin came to Moscow from one of the regional hotbeds of educational reform, Krasnoiarsk. The other was the Estonian republic.

13 See, for example, the biographical essay on the brilliant philosopher-turned educational innovator, A. A. Pinskii, by V. K. Zagvozdkin (2007), pp. 15–68. It is also the case that Dneprov actively sought out reliable and scholarship depictions of the society. In his first visit abroad to the United States in the perestroika era, Dneprov spent most of his time locked away in a room reading the manuscript of the prominent sociologist Tatiana Zaslavskaia’s biting criticism of Soviet social problems, The Second Socialist Revolution (1990)—testimony to his exclusive focus upon the gripping drama enveloping his own country, and at the sametime relative disinterest in a comparative perspective, for she showed little interest in looking around him where he was.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research University Higher School of Economics [the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5-100’].

Notes on contributors

Ben Eklof

Ben Eklof is Emeritus Professor of History at Indiana University and Senior Research Fellow at Higher School of Economics in Moscow, author of numerous books and articles on modern Russia.