Alexandr Lvovic Apukhtin (4 November 1822 – 2 November 1903 in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

) was a Russian government official, and the

superintendent of education In the American education system, a superintendent or superintendent of schools is an administrator or manager in charge of a number of public schools or a school district, a local government body overseeing public schools. All school principals ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

Career

Following the

January uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

in Congress Poland, a number of punitive actions were taken by the tsarist government as a measure to quell potential

dissent Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...

. This included abolishing its autonomy, as well as the liquidation of

Bank of Poland Bank of Poland may refer to: * Bank Polski, the central bank of Congress Poland (1828-1885) * Bank Polski SA Bank Polski SA, full name Bank Polski Spółka Akcyjna (), was the central bank of the Second Polish Republic. On , Bank Polski SA su ...

. The period was marked by vehement

russification Russification (), Russianisation or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians adopt Russian culture and Russian language either voluntarily or as a result of a deliberate state policy. Russification was at times ...

to which Apukthin considerably contributed by his alterations to the Polish educational system. His goal was to eradicate the Polish culture by substituting the Polish language with Russian. The reforms proved to be of pernicious nature, as

illiteracy Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

soared. In juxtaposition to Poles living in Galicia and

Posen Province The Province of Posen (; ) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920, occupying most of the historical Greater Poland. The province was established following the Poznań Uprising of 1848 as a successor to the Grand Duchy of Posen ...

, Poles from Russia were least educated.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Apukthin, Alexander 1822 births 1903 deaths Politicians from the Russian Empire