Invaluable Evidence

The permanent exposition of the Museum of town and district history tells visitors about everyday life of Kirillov’s residents in the late 19^th – early 20^th century. Many inhabitants of the town and the Kirillov district aspired to get elementary and secondary education at that time. There were several educational institutions in Kirillov at the beginning of the 20^th century: the Theological School opened in 1778; three parochial schools; the Higher Elementary School (6-8 years of study) transformed from the City School in 1912; the Women’s Gymnasium transformed from the Progymnasium (opened in 1897) in 1907; the Non-Classical Secondary School opened in 1912 thanks to generous donation of the merchant P.A. Simonov. In 1911, i.e. hundred years ago, the number of pupils in all educational institutions of the town made up 747 people, including: 254 girls in the Gymnasium, 107 pupils in the Theological School, 105 - in the City School, 268 – in the parochial schools, 13 – in the Parochial School of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery.

Over 40 graduation documents of the late 19^th – early 20^th centuries are kept in the holdings of the Kirillo-Belozersky museum-reserve. 38 of them were presented at the exhibition. They could be divided into three complexes: documents of graduation from educational institutions located in 1) the town of Kirillov, 2) the Kirillov district, 3) outside the Kirillov district. The first group included the graduation documents of pupils of the Kirillov Second Parochial School, the Kirillov Women’s Gymnasium, the Kirillov Theological School, the Kirillov Higher Elementary School, and the Soviet Secondary School of Kirillov. The second group consisted of the graduation documents of pupils of the Volokoslavinskaya Elementary School of the Ministry of National Education (4-5 years of study), the Petropavlovskaya Talitskaya and the Klyonovskaya Nikolaevskaya Parochial Schools, the Melkovskoye District School, the Nikolo-Torzhskaya Vocational School and the Nikolo-Torzhskaya Vocational Technical School. The third complex embraced the graduation documents of pupils of the Alexandrovskaya District Teachers’ School, the Imperial Academy of Arts, the Cherepovets Non-Classical Secondary School, the Cherepovets Normal School, the Vologda Gymnasium, the Uglich City School, the Kalyazin Mechanical Technical School, the Kovzha District Elementary School, the Engineering School of the Baltic Fleet, the Military School of Physical Education in Petrograd, the training courses in the field hospital of the 24^th Artillery Brigade, the pharmacy courses in Omsk, the courses for chemists in the Leningrad Pharmacy Technical School. The documents of every group were classified in the chronological order. The most ancient document dated back to 1874, the latest one – to 1929. Documents of 23 different educational institutions were exhibited in the museum: from the parochial school to the Academy of Arts. The displayed certificates of merit, certificates and certificates of education which were carefully kept in the families of Kirillov and then handed over to the museum belonged to 11 women and 20 men. Among them – Rear Admiral V.N. Obukhov, Major-General V.M. Olenin, director of the Kirillo-Belozersky museum N.P. Yanusov, and other famous people.

The exhibition supplemented the permanent exposition of the museum presenting documents of the Kirillov’s residents whose depictions could be seen in different halls (D.V. Malkov, S.F. Vinogradov, E.A. Kiselyova, V.K. Ilyinskaya, V.L. Tserkovnitskaya, V.A. Shcherbakov, N.M. Shabalov). It enriched the history of not only Kirillov and the Kirillov district, but the whole country because it included graduation documents of 13 educational institutions located outside the Kirillov district. Some documents were decorated with pictures connected with some anniversaries – the 50^th anniversary of the death of N.V. Gogol, the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812, the 300^th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. Coats of arms of the towns of the Novgorod region, including Kirillov, were depicted on the certificate given to D.S. Delov in 1874. The materials of the exhibition are invaluable evidence of the public education development in the late 19^th – early 20^th century. They can be also useful for genealogical researches. The display fostered an attitude of care towards family archives.