NATIONAL-EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY OF THE BUREAU OF CULTURAL AID FOR THE UKRAINIAN POPULATION OF OCCUPIED LANDS IN KHOLMSHCHYNA AND VOLYN IN 1915–1918

Abstract

The article examines the Ukrainian national and educational activities in Kholm and Volyn during the First World War. The author claims that the general management of national-educational processes in Volyn, coordination of Ukrainian institutions and provision of material and technical base of Ukrainian schooling was carried out by the Bureau of Cultural Aid for the Ukrainian Populated Lands with the support of the Union for Liberation of Ukraine and the General Ukrainian Council. The Ukrainian Sich Riflemen took an active part in the educational activities, and through the recruiting commissariats in Volodymyr-Volynskyi (M. Saevych), Kovel (D. Vitovskyi), and Lutsk (M. Havrylko) began national educational work.

Scientist I. Krypyakevych, as well as activists of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine V. Doroshenko and A. Zhuk played a significant role in organizing the work of the Bureau of Cultural Aid for the Ukrainian population of the occupied lands. Ukrainian educational activities in Kholm and Volyn were misunderstood by the Austrian occupation authorities, met with resistance from Polish social and political structures, and were complicated by the low level of national consciousness of the inhabitants of north-western Ukrainian lands.

However, despite the opposition of Polish factors, at the beginning of the 1917–1918 the number of Ukrainian schools in Volyn increased to 40. The situation was more complicated in Kholmshchyna, where even after the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty no Ukrainian school or newspaper was opened. The author believes that as a result of successful national-educational activities of Ukrainian organizations in the north-western lands of Ukraine in 1915–1918, preconditions were created for resistance to the assimilation policy of Poland in the 20s and 30s of the XX century.

Keywords: Bureau of Cultural Aid for the Ukrainian Population of Occupied Lands, Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, General Ukrainian Council, Ukrainian Sich Rifle, Ukrainian national-educational activities in Kholmshchyna and Volyn.