The gifts and ‘contributions' Friedrich Froebel and Russian education (1850–1929)

This article examines the contribution of the Russian Froebelian movement to educational theory and practice in Russia, in the context of the cultural transformation there from the second half of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. The Froebel movement had a strong influence on not only the formation of Russian early years educational practice but also child psychology. The analysis explores mainly, but not exclusively, the educational ideas of two followers of Froebel, Elizaveta Vodovosova (1844–1923), educator and writer, and Luiza Schleger (1862–1942), founder of the first public kindergarten in Moscow. Their lives and educational beliefs highlight the development of two different interpretations of Froebelian educational theory in two particular periods of Russian cultural development. In this article we argue that the specific accommodation of Froebelian pedagogy in pre‐revolutionary Russia created the foundation for the presence of Froebelian ideas in the curriculum of Soviet Early Childhood Education.