The System of Public Education in Sukhumi District in the Period 1900-1914

This paper explores the system of public education in Sukhumi District in the period 1900-1914. It examines the region’s secondary, lower, and primary education sectors and the student body in each of them, with information provided on the latter’s size and its gender, ethnic, social-estate, and religious composition. The work primarily relies on the annual Reports of the Trustee of the Caucasus Educational District and the Most Faithful Reports of the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod. In addition, use was also made of certain relevant documents from the Russian State Historical Archive (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation), which helped establish the total number of school-age children in Sukhumi District. The valuable data on the ethnic composition of the region’s population were taken from the First General Census of the Russian Empire of 1897. The study’s conclusion is that by 1914 secondary education in the region was accessible to both boys and girls only in its capital, Sukhumi. Lower education was accessible to boys in Sukhumi and Ochamchire. It became accessible to both genders in 1913 in Gudauta. As far as primary education, Sukhumi District had 64 schools run by the Ministry of Public Education and 74 parochial schools run by the Holy Synod, which, combined, had an enrollment of around 6,500 students. Despite the substantial successes of the region’s education system, just 68 % of its school-age children attended school in 1914, with these including 33 % of the total number of Abkhazian, 80 % of the total number of Georgian, and 22 % of the total number of Armenian children of school age in the region.