UTOPÍA Y PRAXIS LATINOAMERICANA. AÑO: 23 , n° 82 (JULIO-SEPTIEMBRE), 2018, pp . 147-157 REVISTA INTERNACIONAL DE FILOSOFÍA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL
CESA-FCES-UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA. MARACAIBO-VENEZUELA. ISSN 1315-5216 / ISSN-e: 2477-9555
La naturaleza colonial de la educación pública como factor de deformación étnica
Khazretali M. TURSUN
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9950-7212 ID-Scopus: 57190009645
Department of History, International Kazakh-Turkish University named after Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, Turkestan, Republic of Kazakhstan
Hakan AS
Department of History, International Kazakh-Turkish University named after Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, Turkestan, Republic of Kazakhstan
Kanat K. BAZARBAEV
Department of History, International Kazakh-Turkish University named after Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, Turkestan, Republic of Kazakhstan
Aral REZHEP
Department of History, Kentau Institute of the International Kazakh-Turkish University named after Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, Turkestan, Republic of Kazakhstan
Murat KELESH
Department of History, International Kazakh-Turkish University named after Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, Turkestan, Republic of Kazakhstan
This paper is filed in Zenodo:
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1495818
The paper deals with the historical analysis of the reforms in the public education in the last period of the Russian colonization of the Central Asian states. Authors defined that the policy implemented by Russia in this region was marked by the rigid colonial governance. The modernization policy of the empire was defined as factor of ethnical deformation. The paper contains the assessment of the cultural-educational activities of jadidism,which in its activities based on the rich cultural traditions of the local population and governed by the achievements of the European civilization, emerged as an alternative to the policy of the colonial authorities'public education.
Keywords: Central Asia; colonial policy; education; jadidism.
El documento trata sobre el análisis histórico de las reformas de la educación pública en el último período de la colonización rusa de los estados de Asia Central. Los autores definieron que la política implementada por Rusia en esta región estaba marcada por el rígido gobierno colonial. La política de modernización del imperio se definió como factor de deformación étnica. El documento contiene la evaluación de las actividades culturales y educativas del jadidismo, que en sus actividades basadas en las ricas tradiciones culturales de la población local, y regidas por los logros de la civilización Europea, surgió como una alternativa a la política de educación pública de las autoridades coloniales.
Palabras clave: Asia Central; política colonial; educación; jadidismo.
Recibido: 26-07-2018 ● Aceptado: 18-08-2018
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The issue of the colonialism's history of the Russian Empire inCentral Asiawas sufficiently studied in the Soviet historiography. However, due to the fact that these studies were based on the Marxist methods, the reformative actions of the colonial authorities in the region were assessed unilaterally. For example, the Russian colonialism was declared to be a progressive factor, which had brought the advanced culture to the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kirghiz, and Kara-Kalpaks – the peoples of Central Asia, lagging behind the world civilization. This problem is directly connected with the fact that the system of education of the country formed over the centuries, which had been diligently ignored, was replaced by the colonial system of education. The analysis of the facts shows that the actions of the Russian Empire regarding thepublic educationinCentral Asiaare of the explicitly colonial nature. The same way, based on the facts it is proved that implementing the idea of achievement of the world civilization through the Russian culture in the views of the first Kazakh educators was impossible under conditions of the colonial dependence.
It is historically proved that the powerful cultural-educational movement in the country– jadidism – emerged as an alternative to the public education implemented by the colonial authorities. However, even this historical reality in the Soviet historiography was intentionally distorted, having gained such political labels as 'Pan-Islamism', 'Pan-Turkism'.Thus, the political repression of the idea of jadidism, started by the colonial authorities, was continued in the Soviet totalitarian regime and became strictly ideological. The ideas of the Jadids on the modernization of the education originated with the consideration of the national peculiarities were absolutely not accepted and not recognized by the Soviet authorities.
The methodological paradigms documented in history in the years of the independence of Kazakhstan caused the opportunity of assessing the public education modernization policy implemented by the Russian Empire from a new perspective. The authors considered the problem of the colonial nature of the Russian Empire's public education based on a new approach – as a factor of the ethnical deformation of the Central Asian peoples.
Ethnical deformation is the negative changes undergone by the national existence under the influence of the external forces. They forcedly change the directions of the further national development. Ethnical deformation is a kind of negative type of modernization. If the modernization triggers positive changes in the society being the stimulus of the national renewal, then the ethnical deformation vice versa separates the nation from its cultural-spiritual, social-economic and political existence, transferring its evolutional development into a catastrophically destructive channel.
So, the objective of this paper is to define the ethnical deformation's influence on the local people by the changes introduced by the Russian Empire through its activities in the sphere of public education, which is of a colonial nature.
Turkestan with its huge territory created for the Russian Empire the problems connected with the governance, legal regulation, border fortification, provision of the Russian migrants, establishment of the cotton business, which was the goal of the new territories' conquest, avoidance of the rebellions among the Islamic population, the attempt of integrating it into a new ideological channel etc. The problem of education was not less important. The administration had to decide how to organize the public education network in such a specific region, the population of which was persistent in its unacceptance of the standards and rules contradicting the Shariah and the Quran, considering the interests of both sides.
From the very beginning, the colonial authorities of Turkestan were aware of the fact that the problem of education in Central Asia is "extremely huge and challenging". The difficulty concluded first of all in the fact that the national educational system had been elaborated for centuries, had deep roots and showed good
results. A group of scientists worked by the order of the Turkestan government made a conclusion on a high level of literacy of the indigenous people. The report submitted to the corresponding institutions said, "There are less illiterate people than in the Russian population, while a great number of maktabs show the interest of the population in the distribution of schools" (Central State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan). Similar informs became the reasons for the implementation of the non-intervention policy to the issue of the Islamiceducation. It was believed that ignoring would sooner cause the natural self-elimination of the Islamic educational institutions.
On the other hand, considering that it is impossible to retain the conquered territories without the modernization of the traditional society and integration of the population into the general imperial space, the authorities took on creating the Russian-indigenous schools. The Turkestan government did not expect that the young people of the new generation of intelligentsia having seen the world exactly due to the conquering of the region and got an opportunity of comparing, developed a new semi-Islamic, semi-European system of the public education based on the use of the national historical experience and the European scientific achievements, which was more dangerous for the authorities than the old system.
From the first years of its rule in Turkestan, the tsar's administration started solving the issues of establishment and development of the migrants' school education. In 1876, by the moment of establishing the Turkestan Region Administration for the Educational Institutions, the Russian population in the Sirdaryo Region amounted to 10,624 people (in Tashkent – to 4 000), in the Semirechye Region – 31,930 (in Verny – 14,400), the military contingent amounted to 40,000 people (Bendrikov, 1960). In 1891–1892, after the famine in Russia the wave of migrants rushed to the Turkestan Region. Between 1904 and 1914, Semirechye only hosted about 20,000 new migrants. The Russian population grew from 67,000 in 1897 to 107,000 in 1907, while in 1911 it amounted to 154,000, in 1914 – 255,000 people. Approximately 66,000 of the colonists settled in the Sirdaryo Region around Tashkent, Aulie-Ata, the rest of them – in the other regions (Buttini, 2007). Professor Marco Buttini provides the following data on the number of the Russian peasants chaotically immigrated toTurkestan: in 1901 – 16,000 families, in 1905 – 23,000, in 1908 – 30,000 families.
Beginning in 1907, the immigration policy of tsarism acquired a new object-oriented nature. The new course was connected with the aspiration of the tsar's government to create a firm layer of the peasants in the colonies, which would be the support at the colonial outskirts. Thus, for a great number of the migrants, it was necessary to form the educational system. From the 60s of the 19th century, in different cities of the Governorate General, new educational institutions for the Russian children started to open. So, the first Russian schools in the Sirdaryo Region were opened in Fort No.1 (Kazalinsk) and Perovsk (Bendrikov, 1960). In the Kazakh territories, they opened special schools for the Kazakh children. In the Ural Cossack Forces, they opened 47 schools, including 5 female ones with the number of students amounted to 2,250. In 1894 in Uralsk, there was a boy's high school, girl's high school and a religious school (Tazhibayev, 1952). They also created special professional educational institutions for Russians. So, in 1894, they opened the Tashkent Real School, in 1905 – commercial schools in Tashkent and Samarkand, in 1904 – the Technological Railway School at the Central Asia Railway Line, the Tashkent Primary Farm School etc. (Abdurakhimova, 2003). The Islamic schools were not mentioned.
An important element of the public education in Turkestan was the educational institutions for the preparation of teachers. In Tashkent, in 1879, they opened a teachers' training college, which for ten years remained the only one pedagogical school in Central Asia (Ostroumov, 1904). The organizer N.P.Ostroumov, Master of Theology, Associate Professor of the Kazan Anti-Islamic Department of the Religious Academy, spearheaded it with some breaks until 1917. The main task of the teachers' training
college was the preparation of the employees for the "non-Russian" schools. However, many graduates were also in demand for employment in the state authorities.
An important component in the solution of the school education issues was such an 'invention' as the Russian-indigenous schools. Certainly, in the first years of the governance, the Russian authorities had great difficulties under conditions of the deficiency of dragomen in the cities' and regional institutions, especially in the juridical system. The tsar's administration pursued more global goals: these schools were just a way of russification of the population, which is evident from the speech of a tsar's public official opening the first Russian-indigenous schoolinTashkent on December 19, 1884, "… The region once was nevertheless conquered, and it becomes a significant part of our vast mother country. The assimilation with the Metropole is obviously implied here. But how can we achieve it? One and the most important condition is probably a wide distribution of the national (Russian – author's note) language. If the indigenes, the Sarts and the Kirghiz spoke Russian fluently, then the Russian cause in the region could be deemed to be established. It is a common truth that we are religious children of the state, of the nation, the language of which we speak" (Turkestan News, 1895).
In the Russian-indigenous schools, they taught the Russian language, maths, history, Russian geography, natural science, 'indigenous reading and writing' and the fundamentals of the Islamic religion. And the limitation of the syllabus made one think that the authorities need dragomen only as the link between the bureaucracy and the population.
The creation of the Russian-Kazakh schools was initiated by N.I. Ilminsky – the organizer of the Orthodox Christian monarchic school of missionaries. Sharing the anti-Islamic positions, he guessed that in order to secure the Kazakhs against the influence of the Tatarian educators and the ideas of Islam penetrating from Central Asia one should create special Russian-Kazakh schools, which were to "prevent the distribution of Islam…to cultivate in the Kazakh people the Christian ideas and affection for Russians" (Bendrikov, 1960, pp. 88-89), which would ensure significant enhancement of the Russian influence in Kazakhstan. The students were to be trained in Kazakh but based on the Russian alphabet. The first secular educational institution was the Orenburg seven-year school opened as early as in 1850 for the preparation of dragomen and copyists. In 1857, such a school for the Kazakh children was opened in Omsk at the regional administration, which a quarter of a century later was transformed into a boarding school for the Kazakh and Russian students, studying in the parochial schools and district colleges (Alektorov, 1905). Further (1865) in Omsk, they opened a school for the Kazakh children, while in 1869 at the Orenburg upper secondary school they opened the departments for the preparation of the dragomen of the Oriental languages and the copyists of the military command regions. The new form of the education for the indigenes was Russian-indigenousschool. The same school called the Russian-Kazakh school was opened in Chimkent in 1874 with about 40 boys-students (Ostroumov, 1880). In 1868–1869, in the Ural Oblast, there were 24 Russian-Kazakh schools.The boarding schools for the Kazakh boys were opened only in the regional capital (Semipalatinsk) and the district cities – Pavlodar, Ust-Kamenogorsk, and Zaysan. The educational institutions for girls were situated in Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar. In 1886, there were 152 boys and 37 girls of the local nationality studying in the schools (Tazhibayev, 1952).
In the second half of the 19th century, the opening of the Russian-Kazakh schoolsin the steppe is directly connected with the name of the famous Kazakh educator Ybyrai Altynsarin, who made a great contribution to the educationof the Kazakh people (Kozybayev et al., 2000). In 1879, after the assignment to a position of inspector Y. Altynsarin was initiating the opening of the Russian-indigenous schools, particularly, the specialized schools, in all the district cities of the Torgay Region. He managed to open and
to fill the two-form Russian-Kirghiz specialized schools in the Yrgyz, Nikolayevsk, Torgay and Iletsk districts. He participated in the opening of the craft and farm schools in the region; each school was equipped with a library. He is the author of two textbooks for the students of the Russian-Kazakh schools: "Kirghiz Chrestomathy" and "Initial Guidance on Teaching the Kirghiz to Russian".
However, there were not enough Russian-indigenous and Russian-Kazakh schoolsin the steppe territories. In 1897, out of 83,100 children of the school age, they covered only 3% (Alektorov, 1905). Moreover, they had an explicit anti-Islamic orientation and the russification ideology. This is also described by the author of the article published in "Turkestan News" in 1902, "One should remember that the final goal of the Russian-indigenous schoolat its modern setting is to teach children to the opportunity of acquiring only the Russian language and even to think Russian". After the mass rebellions in 1916 taking place everywhere in Turkestan, the Russian-indigenous schoolsstarted to wind down their activities. By this time, there were 100 Russian-indigenous schoolsin the region with 2,800 students of the local nationalities, but with only 105 graduates. The sad result of the 25-year activities of the Russian-indigenous school was summarized by V.P. Nalivkin, who noticed that they taught to the Russian language only several hundred merchants' children (Central State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan).
Thus, the solution of the issue regarding the Islamic education became rather problematic for the authorities. Recognizing Islam as a basic moral standard of living, K.P. Kaufman believed that "being the religious and confessional as well as political…, the indigenous school should not rely on the sympathy of the Russian authorities. But it is the same obvious that its direct elimination would provoke the hostility towards us…", so, "the only thing left to us regarding the Islamic school was only to retain the way of actions, which was acquired… towards Islam in general. This way is to ignore it" (Kaufman, 1885, pp. 437- 438).
In 1875, the tsar's government issued the Order Concerning the Subordination of all the Religious Schools of Turkestan to the Department of the Educational Institutions of the Region, while in 1879 the Ministry of Education approved the Instruction for the Inspectors of the Public Schools (Bendrikov, 1960:). By the end of the 19th century, they created the position of the inspector in the public schools of theTurkestan Region, responsible for the madrasah as well as maktabs of the settled and nomadic population, which meant the special control over the activities of these educational institutions. Nevertheless, K.P. Kaufman preferred not to interrupt, because he believed that the ignoring of the Islamic schools, as well as the lack of the financial support, would lead to their self-elimination.
The formation of theTurkestan Governorate General was undoubtedly one of the most important events in the history of the Islamic peoples of the region and profoundly shocked the Central Asian society, causing the difficult search for the reasons of the national defeat and the loss of independence.
The development of the educational movement at its first stage was based on the ideas of the unordinary personalities – the immigrants fromTurkestan, Bokhara, Khiva, and the Caucasus. Among them, a special position is taken by the Akhmad Donish (1827–1897) – a polymath not only in the sphere of natural and exact science. His ideas of the state development (based not only on the theoretical and philosophical knowledge but also on the practice) had a great effect on the public consciousness.
If to speak about the generation of the representatives of intelligentsia and educators, conceptually defined the tasks of the educationfor the Turkic people ofCentral Asia, then one should note that the like- minded fellow of A. Donish was great Abai (Ibrahim Kunanbayev; 1845–1904) – the founder of the Kazakh
literature and poetry,educator, and philosopher. In his works, he preached the moral bases of the Oriental philosophy: love and respect to a person, friendship, the concept of justice and benevolence. According to Abai, the spiritual upbringing of a person is connected with education. In such verses as "My people – the Kazakhs", "A Wrong Word has no Future", "Don't Talk Big having not found the Knowledge", "The Reach appreciate only their own Wealth" there is an address to the youth to use all the opportunities to get the education.
The main direction in the Abai's creative work was the aspiration for the progressively developed society, where people are evaluated by their "mind, science and will". He considered labor to be the main means for the achievement of the material and spiritual values of the society, "labor develops the sense of cognition. Labor fixes the heard in the consciousness. A person arranges the knowledge, separates necessary things from the redundant ones and becomes clever". The Abai's creative work contains a kernel for a reasonable resolution of the social contradictions in the future. The Abai's personality, not only as a writer but as a public man, educator, was rather reputable among the advanced intelligentsia of the entire Turkic speaking world.
At the edge of the 20th century, Abai in his "The Book of Words" speculates on the human destiny and the way of life. Considering the mind as a privilege from God, he believes that people are responsible for their future. The sayings of the great sage are full of the bitterness of the Moslem's ignorance, and the pride for his good deeds, the moral instructions and critics of the everyday life and household of the Kazakh society, the address to all the people of the region to respect each other, and to aspire for education. A perfect person, according to Abai, is the one, in whom "… the mind, will, and science (aspiration to education) peacefully coexist, and if such a person exists, then his only ashes are able to heal the blind… Initially, God differentiated a human from an animal having given him a soul. Why do we, having grown old and clever, don't seek for and find the satisfaction to the curiosity, which made us forget about meals and sleep in childhood? Why don't we choose the way of those, who seek for the knowledge?" (Abai, 1992, 12). These issues formed the basis of the educators' activities of the future reformers in the vast territory of Central Asiain the early 20th century.
An outstanding Kazakh educatorand scientist Shoqan Walikhanov (1835–1865) was a public official and knew the real situation of the population. Great education and official status allowed him having unordinary philosophical views for that time. Being a military, he attended the lectures at the Historical-Philosophical Faculty of the Saint Petersburg University. He is the author of such historical-ethnographic works as "The Diary of the Journey toIssyk Kul", "The Eastern Province of the Chinese Empire and Qulja", "Notes about the Kirghiz". In February 1857, by the recommendation of the famous Russian geographer Pyotr Semyonov- Tyan-Shansky, Sh. Walikhanov was chosen as a full member of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society. The climax of his scientific research was the confidential journey of Walikhanovto Kashgaria (1858), for the first time after Marco Polo and Jesuit Geos (1603) he visited the exotic country. For this journey, Sh. Walikhanov was honored by the tsar's audience, awarded by the medal, distinct by the promotion in his military rank and invited to Saint Petersburg.
His work "About the State of Altyshar or Six Oriental Cities of the Chinese Province Nang Lou (Small Bokhara)" (1858–1859), highly evaluated by the oriental scientists, was translated into English. Subsequently, he took an active part in the reorganization of the local administration of the steppe regions. His suggestions and recommendations regarding the social development are present in such his works as "About the Mohammedan Faith in the Steppe", "About the Nomadic Kirghiz", "A Note of the Judicial Reform" etc.
By preaching the ideas of education, he called the nomadic peoples to become settled, to learn the Russian culture and the achievement of the Russian science. He was an adherent of the development of the realistic traditions in the social-philosophical idea. However, being an educated person, he remembered that
in the current situation not only the backwardness of the population was an inhibiting factor, but also the lack of the interest in the publiceducationof the colonial's authorities, which were afraid of the Kazakh political activation.
During the preparation of the judicial reform, Shoqan Walikhanov wrote, "The economic and social reforms are currently considered as the most important and close for the people, directly connected with their needs… From this perspective, only those reforms are useful, which contribute to the improvement of the person's everyday life, and the harmful ones are those for some reason hindering from the achievement of this goal" (Bekmakhanov, 196, p. 141). Shoqan Walikhanov was not an adherent of the radical reformation of the existing regime, however, he deemed it to be necessary to limit the political power of the reigning class, while prudent governors are the base of the Sh. Walikhanov's democratic aspirations.
In the philosophical worldview concept of Sh. Walikhanov, the same as of the other prominent educators and Democrats of the 19th century, the main part was taken by the education-related issues. He was convinced that the cognition of the laws of nature and society would be quite available for an educated person free from the prejudices. To his mind, when governing the social relations, the scientific knowledge is the same way necessary and useful, as for the development of nature (Segizbayev, 1959).
The representatives of the first Central Asian intellectual elite of the late 19th – early 20th century respected the Russian culture very much. They saw that the awareness of the necessity of education and the aspiration to study the best achievements of the human thought might help the regional peoples to faster integrate to the world society. Together with it, they saw that the Russian conquest had not principally improved the position of the indigenous peoples, but rather caused serious spiritual and moral disorientation and enhancement of the exploitation.
If to consider from this perspective, then one of the first Kazakh educators – Shoqan Walikhanov – grew under a great influence of the Russian culture. Despite all his fame and talent, his tragedy was that "he turned into an alien for his nation" (Chokay, 2007, p. 384). Walikhanov served as an officer in the troops of general Chernyayev, who conquered Turkestan, but by the end of his life Walikhanov refused from his Russian friends and settled in a small Kazakh aul, while Jadrintsev wrote that the tragic death of Shoqan became a tough warning for the Europeans (Saduakasuly, 2002). By "the Russian friends" S. Saduakasov means the colonial authorities that brought the nomadic civilization down to marrowbones.
The destiny of Y. Altynsarin, who became a "right-hand man of the Orthodox Christian missionaries", was also tragic. His last will to invite for his funeral 99 mullahs "became a grief of an educated Kazakh as clear as mud for us" (Saduakasuly, 2002, p. 331).
The first Kazakh educators became the preachers of the Russian culture's acquisition. However, these actions do not allow calling them Russophiles supported by the Russian colonialism, because they're positively convinced they would achieve the world civilization through the Russian science.
The representatives of the local political and intellectual elite perceived the changes in the social- political, economic and cultural life of Central Asia caused by the conquest in different ways. Some people saw in the colonial regime only humiliation of the national and religious sense of their people and immigrated to various Middle Eastern Islamic states – Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. The other believed that the established power of the Russian Empire was temporary. Part of them, hoping to accelerate the process of the colonialists' rule disposition and to restore the independence of the Central Asian states, took an active part in all the national liberation rebellions of that time. But there were also those who left the country without
the military confrontation with the powerful Russian Empire, chose the way of gradual reforming of the traditional society through the public education. They are the local educators and their adherents – the Jadids, who were highly aware that one of the most important reasons for the loss of the state sovereignty was political, social-economic and cultural backwardness of the Central Asian society. An active part in the social-political and cultural life of Central Asiain the second half of the 19th century was played by the prominent educators, immigrants from various social states, but first of all the representatives of the so- called first generation of the intelligentsia. This was the ground for emerging the Jadids, developing their idea into a particular concept and left the education for the politics.
And the most important thing is – the new Jadids' schools with the sound educational system compared
to the traditional letter-conjunctive method allowed significantly reducing the period of education. Besides, the changes also touched upon the syllabus itself, supplemented by the new disciplines and literature. As part of the educational system, Jadids' persisted on the teaching and learning of a wide specter of natural and social sciences, united by them to a general concept of 'intellectual sciences' ('aklli ilmlar'). They paid much attention to the history.
The active education-related activities of the Jadids borne significant fruits. In the late 19th century, the maktabs based on new methods were very rare in Central Asia, then by 1911, their number increased to 63, while the total contingent – to 4106 children (Central State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan).
The quality of education and upbringing in the maktabs based on new methods complied with the requirements of the time. As noted by a tsar's inspector, "this school greatly differs from the indigenous Islamic maktabs of Tashkent" (Central State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan). In his secret report regarding the schools based on new educational methods, the Governor of the Samarkand Region wrote that he personally "was impressed by the knowledge of the students and the general educational process compared not only with the traditional maktabs but also with the Russian-indigenous schools" (Central State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan).
Such facts, evidencing the positive tendency in the sphere of education, troubled the imperial
authorities, which always tried not to leave the schools based on new educational methods of the Turkestan Governorate General without the control, as they saw in their activities the aspiration to develop in the new generation the ability of "perceiving various tendencies". By 'various' they meant the anti-governmental mindsets. The negative attitude of the authorities towards the new schools "was caused by the fear of development of the national self-identity of the indigenous peoples of the region. That's why they by any means prevented the development and distribution of the Jadids' schools. For the mentioned reasons, the regional administration preferred the politically reliable, but lowly efficient outdated maktabs of the confessional type under the total control of the 'quadimists' (conservative clergy), having been absolutely not interested in the empowerment of the education system based on new methods" (Khudaykulov, 1995, 78). But it was also a truth that the opposition between the quadimists and Jadids suited the tsar's administration of the region.
N.Ostroumov noted, "The local administration cannot fully ignore such an important phenomenon in the spiritual life of the indigenous peoples as the fact of the opening of the maktabs based on new educational methods in different localities of our region alongside with the governmental Russian-indigenous schools". The author of the article stated that one could not conceal and ignore the new schools, but vice versa – one had to reckon with them, because they emerged "surprisingly for us (the Russian Empire) and apparently exist in direct connection with the needs of living of the population itself" (Ostroumov, 1909, p. 98). According to N.Ostroumov (1909), the positive ignoring of the Islamic schools caused the formation of the energetic movement to the school of the public education, but under another flag and at the explicitly separate tendency – to become and exist independently from the government authorities.
The speeches of the same contents made the authorities act. In 1908, for the consideration of theTurkestan Governor General and the Ministry of Public Education, they presented a new draft (the first one was adopted in 1906) of the "Rules about the Islamic Specialized Schools of the Turkestan Region", where they had the points regarding the schools based on new educational methods. And finally, after the three-year arrangements in the departments of the Ministry ofPublic Education, on January 25, 1912, the Turkestan Governor General A.I. Samsonov approved the main paragraphs of this document. They said that the opening of the schools based on new educational methods should be sanctioned by the Governor- General of Turkestan upon the inspection of the public specialized schools. The permission to open the schools should be issued only to the person belonging to the nationality of the students. The Tatars as the teachers were not allowed to work in the schools based on new educational methods (Karlybayev, 2003).
The last thing becomes clear if to remember that in the first new educational institutions there were many Tatarian teachers, the like-minded fellows of I. Gasprinsky, the founder of the new form of education in Crimea. As known, the tsar's administration was afraid of the penetration of the ideas of so-called "pan- Islamism" and "pan-Turkism" to the region, as well as the growth of the national self-identity of the population. Besides, they recommended the introduction of the Russian language to the syllabus.
"The Rules about the Islamic Specialized Schools of the Turkestan Region" dated 1912 served the ground for the revision of already existing schools based on new educational methods by the police and administration of the region. Any revealed drawbacks, even the slightest ones, often became the reason for the closing of the schools. In this period in Turkestan, by the order of the Governor-General, they eliminated over a hundred schools based on new educational methods (Zakharova, 1968). The home schools based on new educational methods also took place in the auls of the Kazakh nomadic elite.
The achievement of the progress required practical integration of the education ideas, which the second generation of the intelligentsia particularly tried to do. Generally, jadidism as a reformatory movement originally put the practical solution to the educational problems as its main task. However, first of all, the Jadids formed the idea into a theoretical concept based on the legitimation of the education, science, religion, and on proving the advantage of the European education.
Being the intellectually developed people, they had the knowledge of both the oriental and European culture. They were raised on the philosophical treatises of the medieval oriental sages but had an excellent knowledge of the foreign literature, both oriental and European. This was exactly what defined the peculiarities of the Jadids' philosophical worldview reflected on their reformatory activities. In the concept of education of the national progressionists, a great role was attained to the cultural-historical heritage of the Central Asian peoples. According to the Jadids, the study of the works by Ibn Sina, Farabi, Mirza Ulugh Beg and other initiators of the social and scientific reforms may influence on the formation of the national self- identity of the people and to advance the progressive development of the region.
Not less important theme defined the education paradigms of Jadidism was the theme of "West-East". Reminding of the historical connections between Central Asiaand Western Europe, the Jadids promoted the education, referring to the European medieval Renaissance, which became possible due to the change in the educational system and the development of new technologies. They tried to introduce into the educational reform everything acceptable for Turkestan.
The Jadids understood that the colonial governing system of the Russian administration in Turkestanwas not only inadequate to the national needs but also caused tremendous social-economic damage. So, the progressionists aimed at the intensive development of the secular education based on new methods, national authenticity and culture finally became political and turned into a struggle for the independence and democratic forms of governance. However, the educational activities of thejadidism at the
initial stage were not only cultural as it was in the Russian Narodniks movement. It also included the task of the increase in the national self-identity. The Jadids were convinced that the Turkestan region, being a part of the Islamic world, but constituting a unique phenomenon in the world history, was about to find its rightful place in the complicated and contradictable future of the 20th century.
In summary, we should say that the Russian Empire could not solve the problems of the public education both and inCentral Asia, and in the other national regions. The main reasons for it were the colonial interests of the imperial policy, and the main goal of these interests was the cultural assimilation of the colonized peoples. In order to achieve the set goal, in the 20th century, they performed the activities on the elimination of the local educational system, starting totally ignoring it. The cultural-educational movement
– jadidism – formed as the alternative to the colonial model of the public education, was able to substantiate the arguments against the colonial pressure and to give the stimulus to the political struggle, having the formed ideology of the national liberation movement.
The policy ofpublic education, implemented by the Soviet authorities replacing the colonial power of the Russian Empire, was able to solve some problems in the formation of the educational system, however, despite the national policy of the Soviets was considered as "the empire of the positive activities" (Martin, 2011), the process of ethnical deformation in the spiritual culture and mentality of the Central Asian people continued.
The system of the national education in the Central Asian states in the post-Soviet territory was able to start its formation and to get an opportunity of focusing on the achievement of the world civilization only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the acquisition of independence.
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