Ivan Yakovlev

Who was Ivan Yakovlev?

Ivan Yakovlevich Yakovlev was a Chuvash enlightener, educator, and writer.

In 1875, Ivan Yakovlev was graduated from the Kazan University. While he was still a gymnasium student, he invested his own capital and private donations into the establishment of Simbirsk Chuvash School in 1868. Thanks to the efforts of Ilya Ulyanov, this school would be funded by the government starting 1871. In 1877, the school was transformed into Simbirsk Central Chuvash School. After his graduation from the university, Ivan Yakovlev worked as an inspector of Chuvash schools in the Kazan School District and headed the Chuvash School for Teachers. Ivan Yakovlev contributed to the establishing of Chuvash and other national schools in the Volga region. He was the one to create special instruction methods based on Konstantin Ushinsky’s pedagogical legacy. In the early 1870s, Ivan Yakovlev put together a new Chuvash alphabet, wrote several primers and textbooks based on the Russian alphabet. He is also known for having translated some of the Russian writers into the Chuvash language.