INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES OF UKRAINIANS IN ROMANIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, AND THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

This article examines the issues of Ukrainian education in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the Slovak Republic after the Second World War, when there was a rise in the cultural and educational activity of Ukrainians, with the establishment of schools and lyceums with native-language instruction. Attention is drawn to the fact that graduates of Ukrainian seven-year schools in Romania after 1948 were recommended to continue their studies only in Ukrainian educational institutions. Opportunities were provided to receive education in the Ukrainian language within the system: primary school – secondary school – lyceum – higher education institution. Fears among Ukrainians in the early 1950s that they were being prepared for deportation to the Soviet Union prompted some of them to renounce their own identity. Under the regime of N. Ceaușescu in the 1970s–1980s, denationalization of Ukrainians in Romania intensified: Ukrainian educational institutions were closed, and assimilation processes continued among the Ukrainian population. After 1989, the overall educational level of the Ukrainian minority was relatively low compared to other minorities in Romania.

It is noted that after 1945, Ukrainian education in Eastern Slovakia went through a complex and internally contradictory path – from a rapid upsurge in the immediate postwar years of 1945–1948, to a sharp decline after 1960, caused by the legacy of the past and the general situation of the Ukrainian national minority. The postwar development of schooling and culture was marked by the Russification of Ukrainians’ social life; teaching in secondary schools of the Eastern Slovak region after 1945 was conducted in Russian. After the February coup of 1948 in Czechoslovakia, national issues were resolved according to the Soviet model and Russian schools were transformed into Ukrainian ones as of June 1952, where the Ukrainian literary language was introduced by directive. The accumulation of unresolved linguistic, sociological, and political problems led to the Slovakization of Ukrainians’ educational process. It is emphasized that from the early 1960s a mass transition of Ukrainian schools to Slovak as the language of instruction began; Ukrainization was curtailed, and Slovakization of the Ukrainian population intensified, continuing until 1990, when, as a result of the division of the Ukrainian-speaking population of Slovakia into Rusyns and Ukrainians, Ukrainian education suffered its greatest losses. Based on the analysis, the conclusion is drawn that the creation of cultural, professional, and educational centers after the Second World War laid the foundations for the later institutionalization of the scientific and educational activities of Ukrainians in Eastern Slovakia.