Tobolsk province in the programs of the Literacy Committee of the Imperial Free Economic Society

The research aims to show the contribution of the Literacy Committee (1861-1895) of the Imperial Free Economic Society to the study of socio-cultural processes in the Tobolsk province in the second half of the 19th century on the basis of archival sources first introduced into scientific use. The article examines the features of the educational and scientific activities of the Committee for the Elimination of Illiteracy of the Imperial Free Economic Society using the example of the Tobolsk province. The opportunity to receive books and textbooks for the Tobolsk province for free and for a fee appeared in 1895 with the formation of the Siberian Subcommittee of the School Commission of the Committee for the Elimination of Illiteracy, which worked for only a year. Libraries in the region have received 19 orders, more than 7 thousand books. Partial information about the work of the county libraries and reading rooms in the 1890s was reflected in the writings of the committee members. The Committee for the Elimination of Illiteracy carried out significant work to collect statistical information on primary schools, conducting the first one-day school census in 1895. As of January 1, 1894, there were 388 schools of all departments and classes in the Tobolsk province, of which 17 were two-class and 371 were one-class. Of 258 secular single-class schools, there were 3 state and 255 public schools, 111 were departments of the Holy Synod and 2 belonged to non-Orthodox Christian denominations. The largest number of lower educational institutions of all departments and classes were located in the southern counties – Kurgansky (85), Yalutorovsky (51) and Ishimsky (69). The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time at the regional level the results of the scientific and educational activities of the Committee for the Elimination of Illiteracy of the Imperial Free Economic Society (1861-1895) are shown; the documents of the first one-day school census of 1895 are introduced into scientific use. The results of the study were the conclusions about the contribution of the Literacy Committee to the scientific study of the Tobolsk province. The programs organized by the Committee contributed to the development of interest in the problems of school and extracurricular education in the region. The revealed documents reflecting the participation of the Tobolsk province in the activities of the Committee indicate episodic contacts that did not produce effective results. The exception is the participation of the Tobolsk province in the study of the state of primary education in the Russian Empire, where a wide range of participants were involved in the work – from the governor to a rural teacher. The experience of conducting such large-scale work as a one-day population census was in demand not only by the Literacy Committee, the Imperial Free Economic Society itself, government agencies, but also other scientific communities, as well as the provincial government. The materials of the school census are a valuable mass source; the analysis of their content is one of the prospects for further research.