Education of Peasants in the Representations of the Nobility of the First Half of the XIXth Сentury (on the Materials of the Left Bank of Ukraine)

Abstract

The article presents changes in the educational standards and strategies of the social elite of the Left Bank Ukraine in pre-reform time, the forms of their implementation, and practices of corporate participation in providing opportunities for knowledge acquisition by dependent peasants. It is argued that from the middle of the XVIII century. the ideas of the nobility of the Left-Bank Ukraine became increasingly pragmatic in nature. The teaching of literacy, craft and agrarian professions was perceived by the elite not only as the moral duty of the trustees over their subjects. There was a strong conviction that the investments made in peasant education were a profitable investment.