State regulation of public readings in Russia in the 1890s - 1910s
Authors: Popov D. I. 
Published: October 2024

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the legislation regulating the procedure for conducting public readings by private individuals and public organizations in the Russian Empire underwent a noticeable evolution. Until 1894, public readings could be held by private individuals and public organizations in the administrative centers of the provinces with the permission of the trustee of the educational district and the governor. For the organization of public readings in county towns and rural areas, the consent of the parish priest was required, who also exercised control powers. The topics of educational events were not very diverse, only works (literary and popular science) that were included in special catalogs compiled by the Ministry of Public Education could be read. The spread of education and knowledge among the common people, their moral and civic education was strictly controlled at the same time by officials of the educational, spiritual and police departments. At the turn of the century, public readings are becoming the main component of extracurricular education in Russia. According to the participants of the cultural and educational movement, public readings, in addition to their direct educational significance, were supposed to become the leading means of preparing illiterate people for primary education, as well as encouraging people who have mastered literacy to apply for books in reading libraries. In the 1890s - 1900s, under public pressure, the authorities took a number of steps aimed at formally liberalizing the procedure for issuing permits to organizers of public readings. In the course of the revolutionary process of 1905-1907, the legislation established a turnout procedure for their organization. Formally, a thematic and meaningful variety of materials for readings was allowed, the ministerial catalogs have gone into the historical past. To a certain extent, the government expressed interest in involving the public in solving the most acute social problems, including the problem of mass illiteracy of the population, as well as the sociocultural split in Russian society, which slowed down the modernization processes and increased social tension in the country. At the same time, the protective component of the Russian autocracy educational policy remained a priority throughout the period under review. Despite a certain easing of administrative pressure and simplification of bureaucratic procedures, the policy of the authorities has always been guided by distrust of the social activity of the intelligentsia, various forms of its self-organization, as well as the desire to prevent the politicization of society, especially if it was about the masses of the people. Therefore, domestic law enforcement practice often went against the "spirit and letter" of legal acts that regulated the procedure for holding public readings. If before 1906 the officials with the appropriate powers refused to issue permits to the organizers of the people's readings, then after the declaration of the turnout order for their conduct, in case of the slightest suspicion, they closed these educational events and dispersed those present. The lack of trust and, to a certain extent, mutual understanding between the political elite and the intelligentsia united in public organizations caused considerable damage to the domestic cultural and educational movement and, to a certain extent, created the ground for the revolutionary explosion of 1917.