Ukrainisation of schools of Ukraine in the 20’s -30’s years of the XX century

Abstract

Based on the analysis of a broad source base, the article emphasizes that after the October 1917 coup, the creation of a new school system began, which was ideologically and meaningfully aimed at building a Soviet communist community. At the same time, questions arose about people’s national identification, studying in native language schools and so on.
It has been emphasized that in the 1920’s – early 1930’s, the Ukrainian school took on a qualitatively new role in public life and contributed to the development of not only national education, but also education of all ethnic groups in Ukraine. At that time, due to the policy of «indigenization», which the party carried in all the republics, there was a kind of revival of the Ukrainian nation. Party organizations of Ukraine were daily concerned about the promotion and training of indigenous personnel, the introduction of native language schools, the expansion of newspapers, magazines, and books in Ukrainian.
Attention was drawn to the fact that the transition to teaching in the Ukrainian language was quite difficult, as there were not only logistical and methodological support, but also teachers. At the same time, Ukrainisation of a school was supported by both teachers and a large part of the population. Therefore, the number of secondary schools with the Ukrainian language of instruction was rapidly increasing, training of relevant specialists was carried out and educational literature was being developed.
It has been reported that since 1933 the gradual withdrawal from Ukrainisation began, though it continued, but at a much slower pace. The country pursued a policy of rapprochement of different nationalities. The unified school system was considered formally supranational and gradually switched to providing instead of a multicultural education – monocultural, according to which different ethnic cultures were presented to pupils in a well-defined by Communist Party dosage norm.
It has been concluded that in the following years such a policy has led to the Russification of Ukrainian schools, the consequences of which our state cannot overcome to this day.