Functioning of the Main Schools’ Directorate under the Minister of Public Education, Count Alexey Razumovsky

This study focuses on the activities of the Main Schools’ Directorate, the primary collegial body of the Ministry of Public Education, during Count Alexey Kirillovich Razumovsky’s 1810-1816 tenure as the Minister of Public Education. The relevance of this topic stems from the limited exploration of the issue in Russian historiography. The aim of the research is to analyze the Minister’s role in the discussions and major decisions made by the Main Schools’ Directorate. The primary sources for this study are the Directorate’s journals kept in the Russian State Historical Archive, which have not been fully utilized in previous research. The responsibilities of the Directorate members included addressing all educational and financial matters related to educational institutions within the Russian Empire. In the early years following his appointment, Razumovsky was quite active in ministry affairs; however, he soon became disengaged from the Directorate’s ongoing work. This decline in engagement was reflected in the decreasing number of cases addressed during meetings, and the trustees of educational district, who were the key members of this advisory body, stopped coming to the capital, opting instead to participate in the Directorate’s work solely through correspondence. Consequently, the Minister of Public Education slowed the advancement of educational reforms in the Russian Empire for a certain period of time.