People's Commissariat for Education or Narkompros (Russian: Народный комиссариат просвещения, Наркомпрос) was the Soviet agency charged with the administration of public education and most of other issues related to culture. In 1946, it was transformed into the Ministry of Education. Its first head was Anatoly Lunacharsky. However he described Krupskaya as the "soul of Narkompros". Mikhail Pokrovsky and Evgraf Litkens also played important roles.
Lunacharsky protected most of the avant-garde artists such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and Vsevolod Meyerhold. Despite his efforts, the official policy after Joseph Stalin put him in disgrace.
Narkompros had a seventeen sections, in addition to the main ones related to general education, e.g.,
- Likbez, a section for liquidation of illiteracy,
- "Profobr", a section for professional education,
- Glavlit a section for literature and publishing (also in charge of censorship in publishing),
- "Glavrepertkom" (Главрепертком), a commission for approval of performers' repertoires.
- Department of the Mobilsation of Scientific Forces, to which the Russian Academy of Sciences reported to after 1918.
- A Theatre Department which published Vestnik Teatra
- Vneshkol'nyi Otdel, the adult Education Department run by Krupskaya
Some of these evolved into separate entities, others discontinued.
Read more about People's Commissariat For Education: Relationship With Proletkult, Izo-Narkompros
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