The Representation of Teachers and Students in Pre-Revolutionary Siberian Periodicals

An exploratory look into the images of teachers and students formed by public opinion and consciousness and presented therein can enrich the understanding of the education of the period, of the society’s norms and perceptions in matters of upbringing and pedagogy, and help create a picture of the educational reality. This study reveals the types and features of the images of teachers and students that were formed at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries in Siberian pre-revolutionary periodicals, namely in the socio-political and student press (Sibirskaya Gazeta, Sibirskiy Vestnik, Sibirskaya Zhizn', Tovarishch, Mysli uchashchikhsya sredney shkoly). During the researched period, Tomsk was the center of the West Siberian School District, and local society was seriously concerned about education of the younger generation of citizens, which was reflected in the periodical press. The study considers both literary and journalistic works since journalism was an integral part of the literary process and reflected public perceptions of important issues. The representation of teachers was negative, whereas students were represented in a positive way. In the course of the research, the literary sources of some of the images formed by the Siberian authors were established (Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Nikolai Pomyalovsky), the types of the images were identified (these of teachers: ‘the monster’, ‘the educator of the youth’, ‘the devotee’; these of students: ‘the nervous aeolian harp’, ‘the fidget’, ‘the ignoramus’), models of their ‘interaction with each other were revealed. The chosen approach made it possible to draw the conclusion that the writers and publicists, journalists, while solving different tasks, pursued the same goal – the formation of public opinion and public perceptions of education.