The Social Background of Functionaries in the Russian Empire’s Public Education Sector in the First Half of the 19th century: The Case of the Ukrainian Governorates

Abstract

This paper is focused on a specific component of the bureaucratic apparatus in the Russian Empire – educational functionaries. More specifically, the work explores the social background of educational functionaries in the Ukrainian lands in the first half of the 19th century. The authors composed data samples on Taurida, Volhynian, and Poltava Governorates covering the years 1830 and 1850. Use was made of a body of little-known archival documentation from the State Archive of Kharkov Oblast and the Central State Archive of Ukraine in Kiev. The authors explored the regional characteristics of the way educational institutions in rightbank, leftbank, and southern Ukrainian governorates were staffed with functionaries. The work attempted to determine how the areas’ numbers of members of the various social groups in pedagogical service correlate with each other. It was found that, despite the low popularity of pedagogical service among the nobility, there were quite many members of this estate serving in the public education sector. However, due to a major need for teacher functionaries the government had to express a favorable attitude toward the hiring of members of other social groups willing to serve in educational institutions across the Russian Empire. This explains the significant number of members of the lower estates employed in the sector as well.