Les plans et les statuts, des différents établissements ordonées par Sa Majesté impériale Catherine II. pour l’éducation de la jeunesse, et l’utilité générale de son empire / ecrits en langue russe par Mr. Betzky & tr. en langue françoise par Mr. Clerc. D1467, vol. 1.

Les plans et les statuts, des différents établissements ordonées par Sa Majesté impériale Catherine II. pour l’éducation de la jeunesse, et l’utilité générale de son empire / ecrits en langue russe par Mr. Betzky & tr. en langue françoise par Mr. Clerc. D1467, vol. 1.

Peter Principle, Catherine Principle... Education in Russia, woefully inadequate until Peter's reforms, had theretofore been under the authority of the church. The secularization of thought that came to Russia from the West with the Enlightenment was nowhere more evident throughout the 18th century than in the Russian educational system. The Empress Catherine II (1762-1796) continued educational reforms, embraced the pedagogical views of such men as Rousseau and Diderot in France and others in Germany. When she appointed Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi to be Director of the Academy of Arts he drafted a general plan for the education of all young Russians, regardless of sex or social standing (he was himself a foundling). After Diderot's visit to Russia in 1773 Betskoi honed this idea further, making a distinction between the basics that no one can do without (the 3 Rs) and the skills that are based on one's station in life: an individual does need specialized training (shop), but should also have a sampling from all fields of knowledge (liberal arts). At the behest of Diderot this French edition of Betskoi's plan was published one year after the Russian original. French sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet, whom Catherine commissioned to create the statue of Peter the Great that came to be known as The Bronze Horseman, found himself at odds with Betskoi on the form the statue should take. In spite of Betskoi's impressive contributions to Russian culture over his thirty-year presidency of the Academy of Arts, Falconet considered him a very conservative man of no imagination or artistic vision whatsoever.

D1467, vol. 1