Teachers, intelligentsia and peasantry of the Yenisei province at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries: the problem of sociocultural adaptation

Problem and purpose. The article deals with the problem of sociocultural adaptation of teachers’ intelligentsia of the Yenisei province in peasant society at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. The purpose of the study is to identify the causes of the confrontation that arose between peasants and rural teachers in the course of their professional activities. The methodology of the research is based on the theory and methods of the cultural-anthropological approach. The source base was the reports of the inspectors of primary schools, the orders received at volost meetings of peasants, the materials of congresses of teachers and journalistic journalism. Results. It is established that the main reason for the confrontation between the peasants and the teachers’ intelligentsia was sociocultural differences. Teachers who were carriers of cultural modernity, having faced with the traditional cultural way that dominated the peasantry, perceived it as archaic, which hampered cultural progress. This led to mutual alienation, hampering their professional activities. But the gradual change in the motivation of teachers, which was influenced by the objective processes of modernizing the Russian society at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, which affected the peasantry itself, contributed to the rapprochement of cultural poles. However, the process of synthesis of traditional culture and modernity in pre-revolutionary Siberian society was never completed. Conclusion. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite the positive dynamics of sociocultural processes in Siberian society, it continued to remain split. At one extreme was the intelligentsia, which represented the elite culture of the Silver Age, on the other extreme was the peasantry, which preserved the traditional cultural way of life. Teachers of public schools acted as a link between these different cultural worlds. However, self-sacrificing attempts to bring them closer could not ensure the synthesis of tradition and modernity, and therefore the teachers’ intelligentsia itself could not overcome the well-known cultural and psychological isolation in the peasant environment.