ABSTRACT
Although educational standards started to improve in the Russian countryside as early as the second half of the nineteenth century, nonetheless the bulk of the educational effort remained in the hands of parish priests who were able to offer little beyond rudimentary literacy training to their parish. Moreover, even this meager training was accessible to only a limited number of children and adults in the countryside. The rates of illiteracy remained high, as most educational reforms and new schools were only available to urban dwellers, and two-thirds of all peasants, or 88 percent of women, lacked even basic writing and reading skills.1
