The Reception of Aristotle in the Home Reading Programs of the Russian University Extension Movement (1894–1914)

The paper examines Aristotle’s place in one of the most significant public education projects in late 19th to early 20th century Russia – the “Home Reading Programs” (1894–1914), published by the Moscow Commission for Self-Education. The University Extension movement emerged as an attempt to overcome the class, geographic, and financial barriers that prevented broad segments of the population from accessing systematic university knowledge. The “Programs” offered readers structured courses in core academic disciplines, accompanied by recommended literature, methodological materials, and a system for assessing comprehension. Contrary to the widespread view that Aristotelian philosophy had weak reception in Russia, within the “Programs”, Aristotle’s philosophy occupies a central position in logic, psychology, political theory, law, history, literature, and aesthetics. Logic essentially in its Aristotelian version is treated as the foundation of philosophical and scientific thinking. His political treatises are used in the study of history and law, providing criteria for analyzing contemporary political developments, patterns of political evolution, causes of coup-d’etat, and actual governmental mechanisms. The Poetics serves as a basis for analyzing literary forms and aesthetic theories. In the context of the “Programs”, Aristotle appears not merely as an ancient author but as a relevant source of theoretical models used to analyze both classical and modern sociocultural experience. The “Programs” shaped an image of Aristotle as a universal thinker, a systematize of knowledge, the founder of scientific rationality, and the creator of a scholarly tradition that retains methodological significance for modernity. Plato’s role is far more modest – he is portrayed as a mere philosopher of the past, a dreamy author of idealistic doctrines that align philosophy with religion, and of utopian political models. His philosophy is inferior to Aristotle’s in terms of maturity and analytical rigor. The paper’s results demonstrate the significance of Aristotle’s philosophy in promoting models of intellectual culture through the popularization and democratization of university education. They also offer a new perspective on the scale and nature of the reception of Aristotelianism in Russian culture within the context of educational initiatives of the time, and contribute to a deeper understanding of the history of national education

Poetics · Political philosophy · Politics · Sociocultural evolution · Educational Innovations and Challenges · Educational Practices and Challenges · Psycholinguistics and Behavioral Studies