Documents of the Directorate of public schools as a source for the history of Tatar schools (on materials of the State archive of Saratov region)

Abstract

The documents stored in funds of the State archive of the Saratov region represent a most abundant source for the study of economic, political and cultural life of the region. This article provides an analysis of the documents for Muslim (Tatar) education deposited in the fund 13 - the Directorate of public schools of the Saratov province (1820-1918). Those documents permit to trace what changes occurred in the system of national education of Tatars in Saratov province. It is revealed that records of the provincial Directorate and the county inspectors reports on the state of public schools are of the great value to researchers. Another important direction of the work of the Directorate of public schools was the endeavour to introduce universal primary education and to open government schools for the Tatar population. As the documents show, that work was slow and difficult. The conclusion is that the documents of the period under consideration allow us to trace with sufficient completeness the process of development of national education of Tatars in Saratov province in XIX - early XX century.