Parochial Schools Role in Transbaikal Old Believers Education (The Case of Khasurta and Unegetei Villages of Transbaikal Area in the Early XXTH Century)

The paper examines the history of the creation of rural parochial schools in the Old Believer villages of Transbaikalia at the beginning of the twentieth century using the example of the villages of Khasurta and Unegetei. These villages are notable for the fact that they were formed at the beginning of the 19th century by baptized Buryats of the Khorinsky department, who converted to the Old Believers. They formed a separate clan administration - Kurbinskoe. Analysis of the materials showed that the literacy schools founded in 1903 in two villages of the society, Khasurta and Unegetei, had their own buildings in 1910 and were the only cultural and educational center of the Kurba Valley. With the assistance of missionary Orthodox priests, children of baptized non-Russians and Old Believers peasants were involved in the educational process, increasing the level of literacy among the population. The education system of parochial schools included subjects of a religious nature, but the educational component was not strictly ecclesiastical. Children at school also received natural and humanitarian knowledge. The parochial schools created at the beginning of the twentieth century “survived” the historical stage of the transition of the old pre-revolutionary education system to the new Soviet school. The education system on which the teaching of new schools in the first years of Soviet power was based, for the most part, relied on the traditional teaching methods of the old church school. The paper pays due attention to the work of a rural teacher who, despite everyday difficulties and meager funding, taught rural children to read and write. After the revolutionary events of 1917, the teacher was in the thick of all the affairs of rural activists, helping to transform the lives of rural residents.