Close cannot be preserved: crises of Tambov workers’ faculty

Abstract

The gap remains in the development of history of Derzhavin Tambov State University: history of Tambov workers’ faculty (TWF) is not revealed. Having emerged as a part of Tambov State University in November 1919, the Tambov workers’ faculty after the liquidation of the university existed as an independent regional educational institution until 1930, when it became part of the newly created Tambov Agrarian Pedagogical Institute until the abolition of workers’ faculty in 1939. Being an institution directly associated with higher education, Tambov workers’ faculty was the institutional connector of the first Tambov university with Tambov State Pedagogical Institute/Derzhavin University, setting the “continuity” for the century of higher education in the Tambov Region. The task of training future “proletarian specialists” – Tambov workers’ faculty solved in very difficult conditions of New Economic Policy and the period of “socialist reconstruction”. On the basis of archival documents introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, we examine Tambov workers’ faculty crises, caused by the intention of the Center, which referred to the lack of funds and the non-proletarian nature of the governorate, to liquidate the Tambov workers’ faculty in 1922 and 1924. We present data that demonstrate relatively successful indicators of the Tambov workers’ faculty main activity, which, combined with the strong support of local authorities, made it possible to maintain workers’ faculty, which became the only Tambov educational institution directly oriented to universities after the liquidation of the Practical Institute of Public Education (PIPE) and the Agricultural Institute (AI).