Scientific and Technical Associations of Tomsk Province

Abstract

This article analyzes the corporate movement in the scientific and technical spheres of Russia’s largest Tomsk province in the late 19th — early 20th centuries. The authors have collected the most comprehensive information available in historiography about the scientific and technical associations of the province. In total, 35 associations have been identified. Tomsk, being a university city, had more scientific and technical associations than other cities — 20. It is determined that the most important factor in the emergence of scientific communities and their activity in the Tomsk province were higher educational institutions: the Imperial University (which opened in 1888); the Institute of Technology (1896), and Siberian Higher courses for women (1910), whose teachers initiated the majority of agricultural, medical, technical, local history, and humanitarian public associations. The second most important factor was the activity of officials of the regional administration concentrated in Tomsk — civil servants, engineers by education, in such spheres as transport, mining, telegraph, excise and others. 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 Russian geographical society in the Tomsk province were represented by one — the Altai sub-department in Barnaul. The authors conclude that scientific associations were non-political associations whose social significance was small in contrast to the scientific one.