UKRAINIAN PEDAGOGICAL SOCIETY “NATIVE SCHOOL” (1881–1939 years)

Abstract

The article analyzes the activity of the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society – “Native School” during 1881– 1939, aimed at creating a network of Ukrainian-language elementary schools, classical and real high schools, teacher seminaries and other vocational schools. The socio-political factors that influenced the results of his

work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during the First World War and the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, as part of the Polish state in the 1920’s and 30’s of the 20th century, were found.

Already at the end of the nineteenth century the society actively participated in the organization of Ukrainian primary school. As a result, he created an elementary schools in Lviv, folk schools in Gorodetsky and Zhovkva suburbs of Lviv, a women’s seminary in Kolomyia.

As for the smaller towns and villages of Galicia, the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society organized and maintained 13 elementary schools here. The first of these was a public school in Zarvanytsia in Ternopil region in 1906.

Since 1908, the first Ukrainian private schools of the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society in Kopychyntsi, Yavorov, and one year later – in Rohatyn, Przemysl, Horodenka, Busk, Zbarazh, and later in the Dolyna, Chortkiv and Gorodok, have been opened. They were organized by the efforts of the so-called “gymnasium committees” (consisted of the inhabitants of the above-mentioned cities) and local branches of the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society. The central leadership of the society provided assistance in organizing the educational process in these educational institutions, and the “gymnasium committees” were engaged in financing them.

During the First World War, the Russian authorities closed all private schools and in fact banned the activities of the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society. To preserve a specially built premises for their schools on Moknatsky Street (Drahomanov today), they placed a so-called “children’s bay” (pre-school institution), where the educational process was conducted in Ukrainian.

The Ukrainian pedagogical society and Ukrainian teachers with great sympathy and understanding belonged to the newly formed Western Ukrainian People’s Republic. While supporting the activities of the ZUNR public authorities on elementary schooling, the association was involved in organizing a congress of delegates of Ukrainian folk teaching in Stanislav, which took place during February 23, 1919. 117 teachers came from it, representing 31 counties.

Since the Polish occupation of Galicia in 1919, the situation of Ukrainian education was very complicated, on June 3, 1920, at a joint meeting of representatives of all Ukrainian economic and cultural  public organizations, political parties, the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society recognized the “national authority of Ukrainian schooling”. In the resolution of the inter-party congress, it was noted that the pedagogical society was entrusted with the important task of preserving the Ukrainian school and taking care of the national consciousness of the teachers.

During the entire period of activity (1881–1939) Ukrainian pedagogical society “Native school” – the most massive Ukrainian pedagogical organization. Despite the complex conditions of the society interwar period, the number of its members has steady increased. In 1914, the pedagogical organization owned 4,8 thousand people, 1930 – 31, 6 thousand, 1939 – 103 thousand.

Until the beginning of the First World War, the society created 18 national schools and 10 secondary schools, then in 1938 – 33 national schools, 12 high schools, 11 high schools and 15 specialized schools of the Ukrainian pedagogical organization worked.

During 1881–1939 the society worked in various socio-political conditions. If, in the prewar period, under more or less democratic Austrian legislation, he managed to organize a teacher societies and organize the efforts of the Ukrainian public to create their own educational institutions, then during the First World War and the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, inactive circumstances could not work in full force. Instead, “Native school” managed to consolidate national-conscious Ukrainians in defense of the Ukrainian school in the 20’s and 30’s of the 20th century, which the Polish authorities gradually sought to eliminate in Galicia.