The collection of the Sheltozero Veps Ethnographic Museum named after Rurik Petrovich Lonin features a textbook in the Vepsian language, published in 1933.

The Vepsian language belongs to the Baltic-Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric language family. Scientists divide it into three dialects: Northern Vepsian, Middle Vepsian and Southern Vepsian. The differences between the dialects are not so great as to significantly affect understanding in the process of communication. The first scientific work on the Vepsian language was published in 1853 by the famous Finnish researcher of the Baltic-Finnish languages and folklore Elias Lönnrot. In the 19th century, Finnish linguists made extremely difficult trips to the Veps places of compact residence. As a result of the processing and research of the collected materials, Finnish scientists Lauri Kettunen and Eero Tunkelo published major scientific works on the Vepsian language. In 1913, a small 46-page dictionary of the Vepsian language was published, compiled by a rural teacher Pavel Konstantinovich Uspensky on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet.

In the early 1930s, an attempt was made in the USSR to create a Vepsian written language. From 1932, 49 primary and 5 lower secondary schools in the Leningrad Region started teaching in their native language. By 1936, the educational literature on the Vepsian language had been supplemented with 6 textbooks for elementary schools and a Vepsian-Russian dictionary of 5,000 words. In 1937, 13 more textbooks were published for Veps primary and secondary schools. At the same time, several translated books for children appeared in the Vepsian language. In total, 30 books were published during the period from 1932 to 1937.

At the same time, work was carried out on the training of teaching staff at the Lodeynopol Pedagogical College. Advanced training courses were organized in Leningrad: there classes were held on the methodology of teaching the Vepsian language. In Karelia, due to the fact that two official languages were adopted — Russian and Finnish — teaching in schools was conducted in Finnish. Only in 1937, after numerous requests from the Veps, teaching in schools in the Sheltozero district was changed into the Vepsian language. But teaching in the Vepsian language was conducted for less than two months. At the end of 1937, the Vepsian books stopped being published and the teaching of the Vepsian language in schools ceased. A number of the Veps intellectuals and some of the textbook authors were repressed. Education in schools began to be conducted in Russian, and educational literature in the native language of the Veps was seized.