RAHVAKOOLISÜSTEEMI INSTITUTSIONAALSED PROBLEEMID ÄRKAMISAJA EESTI MÕTTELOOS (1860.–1880. AASTAD)
FOLK SCHOOL’S INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS IN ESTONIAN IDEOLOGY OF THE NATIONAL AWAKENING ERA (BETWEEN THE 1860S AND MID-1880S)

Summary/Abstract: The educational system of the Baltic provinces in the 19th century before violent Russification was a specific multilingual part of the German educational area that spread in Eastern and North Europe over state borders. In towns nearly all schools from elementary schools up to Tartu University used German as the language of instruction; the estate Baltic peasant school used Estonian or Latvian. The real supreme authority over the Baltic peasant school belonged to the Baltic knighthoods and the consistories of the Lutheran Church. // In the 1860s, in connection with the national awakening, the idea that society (i.e. people) must have the right to solve its educational problems itself spread among Estonians and Latvians. All Estonian leaders of the time of the emerging national movement were active in the development of educational ideology. // This article examines two principal institutional problems of that time: firstly the questions of subordination and guidance of the peasant school, and secondly development of the folk school system according to needs of strengthening Estonian society. The paper focuses on opinions and activities of prominent leaders of the national movement C. R. Jakobson, J. Hurt and others, as well as on educational proposals in the memorandums of Estonian rural townships and societies to the Russian imperial government in 1864 and 1881. Comparing the requests of two memorandums, the author points out essential differences. In 1864 Estonians strove explicitly for subordination of peasant schools to the authority of the Russian Ministry of Education, in 1881 not any more. Now the applicants attached great importance only to the removal of Estonian peasant school (village schools and parish schools) from under the control of Baltic German big landowners and clergy and to greater emphasis on Russian as a subject in the schools. It was not incidental. Estonians did not appreciate the Russian school types (for example ministerial schools). Hesitation with regard to Russian institutions was now obvious. For comparison: introduction of the Russian zemstvo as model to the Baltic provinces was deemed likewise impossible by numerous Estonian activists. // The central cultural aim of the national awakening was to raise the educational level and the national consciousness of the Estonian people. Therefore Estonian national leaders stressed the need for educational institutions with instruction in Estonian that could offer a higher level of education than parish school. Hurt proposed the foundation of district schools (maakonnakool) with instruction in Estonian in order to train rural township officials and teachers for village schools. // As the language of instruction in town elementary schools was mostly German, access of Estonians living in towns to these schools was hindered. For that reason Jakobson and Hurt required the establishment of Estonian folk schools also in towns.

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