Konstantin Ushinsky

Konstantin Ushinsky (1823–1871) was a Russian teacher and writer on education. His reader for the youngest children, Rodnoye slovo (The Native Word), first published in 1864, retells short folk tales, Kolobok and The Enormous Turnip among them. His turnip, with the grandfather, the grandmother, the granddaughter, the dog Zhuchka, the cat and the mouse all pulling in a line, is the version known around the world.

He was born in Tula and grew up on his father’s small estate near Novgorod-Seversky. After studying law at Moscow University, he taught at the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl until his liberal views cost him the post in 1849. He later taught at the Gatchina Orphan Institute, and from 1859 he was inspector of classes at the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg, a school for girls, until he was removed in 1862, accused of free-thinking.

He spent the next five years abroad, visiting schools in Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy, and wrote Rodnoye slovo during that time. Generations of Russian children learned to read from it. His major work, Man as the Subject of Education, followed in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. He died in Odesa in January 1871 and was buried in Kyiv, at the Vydubychi Monastery.