Estonian Alexander School

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School building today in Väike-Kamari, Põltsamaa rural parish .

The Estonian Alexander School was a secondary school in Estonia that went back to an initiative of the national emancipation movement and was active near Põltsamaa from 1888 to 1906 .

idea

For a long time, higher education for Estonians was only possible in German and later in Russian. Since the early 1860s, the idea had arisen in national circles that higher education should also be made possible in Estonian. Concretely (and publicly) it was formulated in Jakob Hurt's third wish in his famous speech at the First Estonian Song Festival in 1869: “We should have such a higher Estonian school where lessons are given in Estonian as soon as possible. […] Will be established […]. ”In the same year, the authorities obtained permission to collect money for this purpose. In 1870 a main committee for the establishment of the Alexander School in Tarvastu was founded, the task of which was initially "to set up collecting committees in all areas where Estonians lived to receive donations, which could function as local organs". It was estimated that at least 100,000 rubles would be necessary to set up a school like this, which they were preparing to collect "kopeck for kopeck".

implementation

In fact, it managed to raise a total of 104,271 rubles in less than twenty years. All in all, there were 146 local committees spread across the country, whose assemblies "became national manifestations that the local German upper class viewed with increasing suspicion."

This met with resistance from the German upper class, who “at the beginning of 1877 [...] gathered stronger forces and waged a major battle against the Alexander School”. Since there were also differences of opinion within the Estonian national movement, which for example led to the division of the Estonian literary society into a conservative and a radical wing in 1881 , the whole project came to a standstill.

After all, it was the one under Alexander III. intensified Russification , which finally let the original plan fail: with the money raised, a new higher education institution was actually opened in 1888 on an estate near Põltsama, but the language of instruction was Russian. After all, Estonian existed as a subject, and there were some other special features in the curriculum: 10 hours of German were taught a week and eight hours of general history, which was not common in normal city schools.

The closure in 1906 is to be seen in connection with the official reaction to the events of the revolution of 1905 , in which many students, but also teachers, took part.

Secondary literature

  • Heinrich Rosenthal: Cultural aspirations of the Estonian people during a generation (1869-1900) . Reval: Cordes & Schenk 1912. 374 pp.
  • Hans Kruus : Eesti Aleksandrikool . Tartu: Noor-Eesti 1939. 354 pp.
  • Eesti Aleksandrikool ja põllumajanduslik haridus . 100 aastat kooli asutamisest. Tallinn: Valgus 1988. 135 pp.
  • Aleksander Elango, Endel Laul, Allan Liim, Väino Sirk: Eesti kooli ajalugu . 2. köide. 1860. aastaist 1917. aastani. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus 2010. 774 pp.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jakob Hurt: Kõned ja kirjad. Tallinn: Perioodika 1989, p. 18.
  2. ^ Heinrich Rosenthal: Cultural aspirations of the Estonian people during a generation (1869-1900) . Reval: Cordes & Schenk 1912, p. 163.
  3. ↑ Ea Jansen: Eesti Aleksandrikooli asutamise üritused ja Eesti Aleksandri-linnakool, in: Eesti Aleksandrikool ja põllumajanduslik haridus . 100 aastat kooli asutamisest. Tallinn: Valgus 1988, p. 17.
  4. ↑ Ea Jansen: Eesti Aleksandrikooli asutamise üritused ja Eesti Aleksandri-linnakool, in: Eesti Aleksandrikool ja põllumajanduslik haridus . 100 aastat kooli asutamisest. Tallinn: Valgus 1988, p. 18.
  5. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt : History of Estonian Literature. From the beginning to the present. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2006, pp. 270–271.
  6. ^ Heinrich Rosenthal: Cultural aspirations of the Estonian people during a generation (1869-1900) . Reval: Cordes & Schenk 1912, p. 173.
  7. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt: History of Estonian Literature. From the beginning to the present. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2006, p. 282.
  8. ↑ Aleksander Elango, Endel Laul, Allan Liim, Väino Sirk: Eesti kooli ajalugu . 2. köide. 1860. aastaist 1917. aastani. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus 2010, pp. 352-353.
  9. ↑ Aleksander Elango, Endel Laul, Allan Liim, Väino Sirk: Eesti kooli ajalugu . 2. köide. 1860. aastaist 1917. aastani. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus 2010, p. 458.