Scientific and technical associations of Tomsk province

Abstract

This article analyzes the corporate movement in the scientific and technical sphere of Russia's largest Tomsk province in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Collected the most complete information available in historiography about the scientific and technical associations of the province. In total, 35 associations were registered. More than other cities of scientific and technical associations were in provincial and university Tomsk - 20. It is determined that the most important factor in the emergence and activity of scientific communities in the Tomsk province were higher educational institutions: the Imperial University, which opened in 1888, the Institute of Technology( 1996) , and the Siberian higher women's courses( 1910), whose teachers initiated the majority of agricultural, medical, technical, local history, and humanitarian scientific public associations. The second most important factor was the activity of officials of the regional control centers concentrated in Tomsk - transport, mining, telegraph, excise and other districts, engineers by education. The third factor in uniting fans of scientific activity was the Siberian group of the State Duma, which initiated the work of the society for the study of Siberia and improvement of its life. The fourth, the most numerous, but weak in scientific terms, group of associations was formed by agricultural specialists - agronomists, animal technicians, beekeepers, gardeners, botanists. The departments of the Imperial geographical society in the Tomsk province were represented by one - the Altai sub-department of the RGO in Barnaul. Authors conclude, that scientific associations were non-political associations whose social significance was small in contrast to the scientific one.

Keywords:

scientific and technical societies, Tomsk province, late nineteenth - early twentieth century