Scientific and pedagogical activity of N.I. Lobachevsky and S.V. Smolensky in the context of socio-cultural processes (Kazan Province, XIX century)

Abstract

On the basis of archival materials and literary sources, the article shows the socio-cultural processes that arose in the Kazan province in the 19th century. These processes are studied in close relationship with the activities of outstanding scientists and educators N.I. Lobachevsky and S.V. Smolensky, whose fates are closely intertwined with the history of Kazan. The analysis of the sources made it possible to identify factors that influenced the development of the processes under study. Among them: 1) the historical and geographical position of Kazan, which was the eastern outskirts of the Empire with a gradual change in its status by the end of the 19th century. as a large provincial city in the central part of Russia, which has become one of the centers of educational, spiritual, military and judicial Russian districts; 2) the peculiarities of the historical time, caused by the state reforms of the emperors Alexander I and Alexander II, the "anti-reforms" of Nicholay I and Alexander III, as well as the state national policy, which is based on the rejection of compulsory methods of missionary activity among the "foreign" part of the population; attention to the region of representatives of the House of Romanov, their repeated visits to Kazan, which contributed to the economic and cultural development of the city; 3) the state of society and the characteristics of the sociocultural environment associated with the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional composition of the population of the province, with the isolation of the Russian and "foreign" part of urban residents; with the gradual formation of a cultural environment of the "European" type, due to the activities of secular higher, secondary specialized, general educational institutions, the functioning of the theater, various public, scientific and artistic associations, amateur music making, the emergence of music and art schools; at the same time, the revival of public interest in the ancient layers of Russian spiritual culture; 4) the personal qualities of historical persons: the work shows the scale and significance of N.I. Lobachevsky and S.V. Smolensky for the development of socio-cultural processes in the Kazan province of the XIX century.