The Practices of Upbringing and Education of Representatives of the Ruling Family in the Russian Empire and the French Empire in 1850 to Early 1880

In the second half of the 19th century Russia and France were the states with a monarchical form of government (absolute monarchy in the Russian Empire and constitutional in the Second Empire in France). One of the characteristic features of these regimes is a deeply thought-out education of young representatives of the ruling dynasties. The study is devoted to the pedagogic and educational practices used in the ruling houses of Romanov and Bonaparte in 1850s - early 1880s. From the Russian side, we investigate the life of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna's children - Nicholas, Olga, Vera, Constantine, Dimitri, Vyacheslav. Turning to the French side, we consider the son of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenia - Louis Napoleon (Napoleon IV; in the Russian historiographic tradition is also known as Napoleon Eugene). The work is based on an extensive array of historical sources presented by the documents from the archival collections of Russia and France: GA RF, RGIA, RGADA, RGA VMF, National Archives of France, Archives of the Hauts-de-Seine Department, OPI GIM, OR RNB, National Museums and the domain of the castle of Compiegne. As a result, we compared the processes of preparation for adulthood of the royal children in two Empires, their financial, legal and ideological components and examined the system of educational subjects, the functionality of the teachers staff and personnel involved in childcare. The topic of work is connected with several modern areas of historical science, such as new biographical history, history of everyday life and private life, gender history, childhood history, history of education, potestary imagology.