ACTIVITY OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE RUSSIAN SETTLEMENTS OF THE EMIRATE OF BUKHARA

The article analyzes the formation and activity of educational institutions in the Russian settlements of the Emirate of Bukhara (New Bukhara, Chardjui, Kerki, Termez) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, drawing on published scholarly literature, encyclopaedic reference works and data from the periodical press. The study relies on historical-comparative methods and on source criticism. The results show that reliably confirmed information exists only for New Bukhara: a parish school was opened in the town in 1892 together with the Orthodox church, and an encyclopaedic entry records three educational institutions; no information on schools was found for Chardjui, Kerki or Termez. According to data from 1899, about 11 percent of the population of New Bukhara was classed as “children,” which allows the assumption that the number of school-age children was relatively small (the age limits of this category are not given in the source). The schools in the settlements probably served, first of all, the needs of the Russian and other incoming population, but this remains an unproven hypothesis. According to the available data, Russian education reached the population of the emirate not through the schools in the settlements but through scholarships at Russian educational institutions in Tashkent, although the scale of this channel is unknown; within the emirate, the traditional maktab–madrasa system and new-method (Jadid, Tatar) schools operated in parallel. The article points out contradictions between the sources and gaps in the research.