Educational Book Publishing in the Tuvan People’s Republic in 1921–1944

The purpose of the article is to explore the development of the education book publishing in the Tuvan People’s Republic (TPR) and the connection of education with socio-economic and cultural transformations, taking place in the region in the period from 1921 to 1944. The creation of TPR opened up new horizons for political and educational reforms. Conditioned by the high level of illiteracy among the population, the Republic government came across the necessity to create the system of education that required solving the issue of developing the Tuvan written language. In 1923, at the Second Tuvan People Revolutionary Party Congress, the initial steps to introduce general compulsory education were taken, being an important start of the educational reform. As a result, the new state written language was developed based on the New Turkic alphabet, adopted in 1930, that became a significant step in eradication of illiteracy. Since the creation of the first textbooks, such as the primer of 1927, and up to the mid of the 1940 s , efforts were made to develop educational materials, including textbooks on various subjects. These initiatives were carried out both within the frames of local publishing houses and with the involvement of centralized resource organizations of the USSR, which allowed creating the own educational base. The conclusion of the article stresses that by 1944 there was established the school education system, which stimulated the process of working out textbooks and consequently contributed to increasing the cultural level of the population of the Tuvan People’s Republic and improving the quality of education.