Nicholas Kofyrin: countryside teachers and modernization processes among peasantry of Olonets guberniya (province) in early XX century

The article describes social activities of the countryside teacher Nicholas Kofyrin (1867-1933) from Peschanoe village located at Pudozh yezd (district) of Olonets guberniya (province). An example of his service is used to portray the countryside teachers’ contribution into the everyday life of Olonets province peasants in the early XX century. Having graduated from Teacher training seminary (college) in Vytegra in 1884 N. Kofyrin worked as a schoolteacher at Peschanoe for about 50 years. At his personal initiative a local library for peasants was opened, a consumers’ co-operative society was established, and a steamboat pier was built. N. Kofyrin published articles in periodicals of Olonets province raising and discussing important problems, which worried local peasants of Peschanoe village, and tried to solve them by cooperating with local ‘zemstvo’ authorities. Olonets province had many other teachers who by their active involvement altered the peasants’ habitual and patriarchal way of life. In the early XX century under the influence of local countryside teachers, the village of Olonets province became a subject of modernization processes, which were slow, but resulted in apparent evolutionary changes. These positive processes of evolutionary modernization were slowed down by the First World War and came to a complete halt because of the Russian revolution of 1917 and subsequent Civil war.