Dynamics of changes in educational goals in books for primary literacy (with Russian readers for beginners and ABC-books of the 16th — 20th centuries as an example)

The article analyzes the dynamics of changes in the wording of learning objectives according to the prefaces to the first educational books, that is, primers and alphabets, published from the 16th century up to the present day. The formation of educational literature in Russia fixed the tradition of reflecting the purpose of the book on the very first pages, so that students could understand what result they should come to in the learning process. Over the course of several centuries, this practice has undergone changes, which has become the subject of research in this article. Thus, the first educational books were a reflection of the global social and political processes taking place in the surrounding reality. The most noticeable changes are connected with the ongoing secularization, when the spiritual and moral principle was gradually ousted from education. Preserving in many respects the general structural plan, the first educational books gradually acquired purely didactic forms. Structurally, the article consists of two parts, in the first one a brief overview of the periodization of publications is made with the highlighting of the main features, primarily related to the reflection of the educational goal, in the second - the identified features are considered on specific examples. Based on the picture obtained, a conclusion is made about the tendency to blur the goals of spiritual and moral content and replace them with general educational tasks.