From Imperial Russia to the Soviet Union: formal and non-formal vocational education in Kyrgyz lands in 1917–1918

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine the vocational training activities carried out in Kyrgyz lands during the transition from Imperial Russia to the Soviet Union and the role of these activities in the construction of a new society. The study focuses on the norms and institutions involved rather than on the curriculum of these schools introduced by the Soviet reform. The role of agricultural vocational schools changed after the February and October Revolutions in 1917. Two prominent vocational schools, Pishpek Agricultural School (1890), established by the Russian Empire, and the Zhetysu Agricultural School (1918), were operated in Kyrgyz lands. These schools aimed to meet the need for qualified workers in the field of industry and food production. After Russia’s defeat in World War I (1914–1918), the most urgent problems addressed by the Bolsheviks were regaining the trust of the peoples in the lands controlled by Imperial Russia, solving the consequences of the economic crisis, and transforming society by using, among other means, vocational education.

KEYWORDS:

• Ideology and education
• sociology of education
• socialism
• vocational education in the Soviet Union
• Kyrgyz lands

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Alan DeYoung, “Redefining Students and Universities in the Kyrgyz Republic”, in Post-Soviet Kyrgyz Lands: Political and Social Challenges, ed. P. Akcali and C. Engin Demir (London: Routledge, 2010), 158–89, here: 162.

² Alan DeYoung and Rahat Zholdoshalieva, “Teaching as a Profession in the Kyrgyz Republic”, in Globalization on the Margins: Education and Post-Socialist Transformation in Central Asia, ed. Iveta Silova and Sarfaroz Niyozov (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2020), 351–74, here: 355.

³ Alan DeYoung, “Conceptualizing Paradoxes of Post-Socialist Education in Kyrgyz Lands”, The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity 36, no. 4 (2008): 641–57.

⁴ Азаттык Уналгысы 27-Август, 2022 https://www.azattyk.org/a/mugalimderdin-maanaiy-jakshy-mayana-kotoruldu-kezek-sapatta-/31827201.html.

⁵ Eric Johnson, “Blaming the Context Not the Culprit”, in Globalization on the Margins: Education and Post-Socialist Transformation in Central Asia, ed. Iveta Silova and Sarfaroz Niyozov (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2020), 375–99, here: 377.

⁶ Сигизмунд Натанович Валк, Декрет о свободе совести, церковных и религиозных обществах (Москва: Политиздат, 1997), 371–4.

⁷ Thomas Ewing, “Ethnicity at School: ‘Non‐Russian’ Education in the Soviet Union during the 1930s”, History of Education 35, no. 4 (2006): 506.

⁸ Российский государственный архив социально-политической истории, Ф. 2. Оп. 1. Д. 23540. Л. 37.

⁹ Krupskaya herself was an educator and pedagogue. In addition to being Lenin’s wife, Krupskaya’s efforts and talents brought her to important governmental positions.

¹⁰ Крупская, Надежда Константиновна. Об учителе. Москва: Издательство АПН РСФСР, 1960, 275.

¹¹ Маркс, Карл, и Энгельс Фридрих. Сочинение, издание второе. Москва: ИздательствоПолитической Литературы, 1955, 447.

¹² Ленин, Виладимир Илич. Полное Собрание Сочинений Т. 45. Москва: Издательство Политической Литературы, 1970, 209.

¹³ Ali İğmen, “Building Soviet Central Asia, 1920–1939: Kyrgyz Houses of Culture and Self-Fashioning Kyrgyzness” (PhD Diss., University of Washington, 2004), 60.

¹⁴ Лунача́рский, Анато́лий Васи́льевич. Воспитательные задачи Советской школы, Народное Просвещение 7 (1928), 5. Брежнев, Леонид Илич. Реч на Всесоюзном Учителей 1968. Москва: Издательство Просвещение, 1976, 12.

¹⁵ Michal Reiman, About Russia, its Revolutions, its Development and its Present (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2016), 16.

¹⁶ Kemal Aytaç, “Sosyalist Ülkelerde Eğitim”, Elektrik Mühendisliği Dergisi 235 (1971): 347.

¹⁷ Until late 1924, there existed an Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic by the name of Turkestan; in 1924/25, the region was politically restructured into Socialist Soviet Republics.

¹⁸ We would like to thank the Kyrgyz lands State Archive for the special permission to consult these documents.

¹⁹ John Eric Marot, “Class Conflict, Political Competition and Social Transformation: Critical Perspectives on the Social History of the Russian Revolution”, Revolutionary Russia 7, no. 2 (1994): 112.

²⁰ Ronald Grigor Suny, “Toward a Social History of the October Revolution”, American Historical Review 88 (1983): 34.

²¹ Reiman, About Russia, 15.

²² Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer, Tajikistan: A Political and Social History (Canberra: ANU Press, 2013), 52.

²³ Gavin Hambly, Central Asia (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969), 228.

²⁴ Adeeb Khalid, “Tashkent 1917: Muslim Politics in Revolutionary Turkestan”, Slavic Review 55 (1996): 271.

²⁵ Усенбаев, Кушбек. 1916 г: героические и трагические страницы. Бишкек: Издательство Шам, 1997, 145.

²⁶ Бройдо, Григорий. Восстание киргиз в 1916 г. Москва: Научная Ассоация Востоковедения при ЦИК СССР, 1925, 1–2.

²⁷ Иманкулов, Муратбек Калматович. История Кыргызстана. Бишкек: Министерство образования и науки, 2014, 7.

²⁸ Марченко, Лариса Юрьевна. “Русские и Русско-Туземные Школы в Кыргызстане во II Половине XIX – в начале ХХ В.” Вестник КРСУ 5/7 (2005), 53.

²⁹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1917, опис 1, ед. 2, л. 7, Decision of the Vocational Education Department of the People’s Commissar for Education dated 21.09.1917, numbered 7908.

³⁰ Петров, Владимир Георгиевич. Пишпек изчезающий 1825–1926. Бишкек: Литературный Кыргызстан, 2005, 59.

³¹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1917, опис 1, ед. 2, л. 7, Decision of the Vocational Education Department of the People’s Commissar for Education dated 21.09.1917, numbered 7908.

³² Joseph Zajda, “Education for Work in the USSR: Vocational Education and Training during the 1970s”, Political Crossroads 15, no. 1 (2008): 89.

³³ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1917, опис 1, ед. 2, л. 22, letter of the Vocational Education Department of the People’s Commissar for Education, dated 13.10.1917.

³⁴ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, опис 1, ед. 5, л. 6, decree of the People’s Commissariat of Turkestan, dated 28.10.1918.

³⁵ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 14, л. 3–8, Pishpek Agricultural School annual budget report.

³⁶ Сапинов, Руслан. “Развитие промыслы в семиреченской области в период российской колонизации.” Наука и новые технологии 8 (2011), 33.

³⁷ Жумалиева, Светлана, и Кушубеков Алымбек Тынысбекович. “Промысловые занятия населения северного кыргызстана в период колонизации края.” Наука, Новые Технологии и Инновации Kыргызстана 8 (2019), 153.

³⁸ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 15, л. 32.

³⁹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 12, list of enrolled students at Pishpek Agricultural School, dated 01.11.1918.

⁴⁰ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1917, опис 1, ед. 2, л. 103, letter of the Vocational Education Department of the People’s Commissar for Education dated 22.09.1917, numbered 15/1394.

⁴¹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1917, опис 1, ед. 4, л. 11, 2282, The Turkestan Spiritual Board letter dated 06.03.1917, numbered 2282.

⁴² ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 5, л. 27, Decree of the Commissariat of Agriculture of the Zhetysu Oblast dated 20.07.1918, numbered 586.

⁴³ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 5, л. 28, Decree of the Union of People’s Commissars of the Turkestan Federation dated 04.07.1918, numbered 215 (prikaz).

⁴⁴ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 5, л. 76, 52nd Prikaz of the People’s Commissariat for Education dated 25.11.1918.

⁴⁵ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 5, л. 38, Prikaz from the Vocational Education Department of the People’s Commissariat for Education, dated 22.07.1918, numbered 661.

⁴⁶ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 5, л. 42, Prikaz from the Zhetysu Oblast People’s Commissariat for Education dated 10.09.1918, numbered 997.

⁴⁷ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 5, л. 35, Gazette of the Temporary Farmers’ and Workers’ Government, dated 03.01.1918, numbered 01.

⁴⁸ Expert farmer certificate.

⁴⁹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 14, л. 46–47, Zhetysu agricultural secondary school Regulation (ustav).

⁵⁰ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 14, л. 50, Zhetysu agricultural secondary school Regulation (ustav).

⁵¹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 15, л. 24, official letter from the Regional People’s Commissariat for Vocational Education.

⁵² ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 660, г. 1918, опис 1, ед. 22, л. 1, 8th RSFSR Meeting resolution.

⁵³ For Lenin, the promulgation of an ideology was dependent on agitprop, that is, the combination of agitation and propaganda. While propaganda was usually in writing, agitation was verbal. Виладимир Илич Ленин, Полное Собрание Сочинений Издание Пятое Т.42. Москва: Издательство Политической Литературы, 1979, 67.

⁵⁴ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 120, л. 63.

⁵⁵ In this period, the term Kara-Kyrgyz (Black Kyrgyz) was used to distinguish the Kyrgyzs from the Kazakhs. The term Kyrgyz was introduced after the 1920s.

⁵⁶ Hsiao Yuh Ku, “Ideological Struggle in Education: Brian Simon and Comprehensive Education Movement (1946–1965)”, History of Education 52, no. 2 (2021): 266–85.

⁵⁷ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 132, л. 59.

⁵⁸ Виладимир Илич Ленин, Полное Собрание Сочинений Издание Пятое Т.39. Москва: Издательство Политической Литературы, 1972, 67.

⁵⁹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 120, л. 61.

⁶⁰ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 132, л. 47.

⁶¹ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 132, л. 48.

⁶² ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 132, л. 70.

⁶³ Ali İğmen, Speaking Soviet with an Accent: Culture and Power in Kyrgyz lands (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), 120.

⁶⁴ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 132, л. 70.

⁶⁵ İğmen, Speaking Soviet with an Accent, 122.

⁶⁶ ЦГА Кирг. ССР, фонд 647, г. 1925, опис 1, ед. 120, л. 48.

⁶⁷ İğmen, Speaking Soviet with an Accent, 121.

⁶⁸ A. A. Zvorykin, Cultural Policy in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Paris: Unesco Imprimerie Blanchard, 1970), 14.

⁶⁹ Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917–1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

⁷⁰ Виладимир Илич Ленин, Задачи союзов молодежи. Москва, Издательство Политической Литературы, 1981, 298.

⁷¹ Федор Филиппович Королев, Ленин и Педагогика (Москва: Издательство Педагогика, 1971), 187.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yavuz Ercan Gül

Yavuz Ercan Gül has been working at Kyrgyzstan Türkiye Manas University since 2021. He completed his doctorate from the Department of Educational Sciences at Kyrgyzstan Türkiye Manas University in 2018. He received the title of associate professor in the field of Social and Historical Foundations of Education in 2022. He carries out studies in the fields of history of education, sociology of education and ethnopedagogy. So far, he has authored more than 60 articles, presented numerous conferences, and worked as a manager and researcher in projects. He is also a member of the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS).

Mustafa Orçan

Mustafa Orçan is the vice rector of Ankara Yıldırım Beyazit University and also an academician at the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He holds Master’s and PhD degrees in Sociology. He works in areas such as social change, Urban Sociology and community studies, Sociology of Change, Underdevelopment and Modernization and Socio-Cultural Change, Sociology of Consumption, Sociology of Institutions.