In Search of an Educational Ideal: Russian Private Pedagogical Journal of the XIX Century

Abstract

Russian pedagogical journalism has got a long history. The first periodicals, devoted especially to the problems of education, appeared in Russia in the XIX century. They created a distinctive information space that covered issues of education and training. Those mass media were special propagandists of pedagogical innovations. Therefore, today those journals are an exceptionally important source for research on the development of major trends in the history of Russian education. The introduction of a relatively mass national school, the expansion of numbers of teachers, and students in the XIX century required not only a deep modernization of the system but also an understanding of what was going on. It is on the pages of periodicals that the main leading ideas of Russian teachers of that time were reflected in a highly concentrated form. What should school be like? Who can act as a teacher? What is a perfect student? The agenda comprised such issues. The study of the history of pedagogical journals is also interesting as an independent study of the complex process of development of Russian journalism, where the functioning of private journals is highlighted as a unique phenomenon.