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VICTORIA MCGOWAN
however, maintain a massive agrarian rate of production, and financially
supported itself largely with grain sales to other countries, indicating it was
participating in the global industrialized economy."
Since most public primary education occurred in urban centres and towns in
Europe and the Americas at this time, it follows that, in large part due to Russias
exceptionally low rate of urbanization, peasants in Russia remained largely
uneducated compared to those in areas such as Britain or Canada. It is worth
noting that public schools were well established at this time in Alberta (or the
Northwest Territories as it was known at the time, since it was not made a full
province until 1905), and that the biggest guestion was not whether children
would be educated, but rather if two school boards (Protestant and Catholic),
both of which had already existed for decades in the Northwest Territories,
would be legally maintained in the new province. During the debates, Henry
Bourassa, a prominent Catholic member of Parliament, summed it up nicely
that not only was education assured in any district with sufficient children, but
that those "who went to settle" in Alberta "would have the liberty of education"
in accordance with their religious beliefs." Ihus, when refugees fleeing the
Russian Revolution began to arrive in Alberta, they found themselves largely
undereducated relative to existing settlers, who at the time were predominately
British, Scottish, Irish, and, to a lesser extent, Quebecois/French settlers. This
helped isolate former Russian citizens into kinship groups, which became
foundational in Albertan society, as they often failed to possess the necessary
education or skills to move successfully into urbanized areas.
The final key contextual piece for understanding the Russian peasant
experience in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is the ethnic
makeup of the Russian Empire. Many of the countries which exist today in
eastern Europe and northern Asia, most notably Ukraine, but also Belarus
(formerly Belorussia), Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan amongst others,
were a part of the Russian Empire, and though several briefly had independence
in the post-World War One order, the vast majority of them and their ethnic
groups remained a part of the Soviet Union. In the only completed census
before the revolutions, undertaken in 1897, ethnic Russians (“Great Russians”
in the census) made up the largest single group of the population; however,
at just over 44%, ethnic Russians did not even constitute the majority of the
population.’ Ukrainians (called “Little Russians” by the census) made up
just under 18% of the population.'° Combined, the two ethnic groups, which
7 Ibid., 311.
8 House of Commons, Hansard, 28 March 1905, 10 Canadian Parliament, 1‘ Session,
Government of Canada, 3260.
Documents of the First General Census of the Population of the Russian Empire in the
Ukrainian Archives, 1897, trans. Hannah Devereux.
19 Ibid.
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