Tending to the “Native Word”: Teachers and the Soviet Campaign for Ukrainian-Language Schooling, 1923–1930

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Notes

See Pauly, “Teaching Place.” For broader works on the structure and pedagogical orientation of the Ukrainian educational system, see Lypyns'kyi, “Kontseptsia ta model' osvity”; Sukhomlyns'ka, Narys istorii ukrains'koho shkil'nytstva.

Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 10–11.

Mace, Communism.

Liber, Soviet Nationality Policy.

Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility; Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse.

Partlett, “Breaching Cultural Worlds”; idem, “Bourgeois Ideas.”

Liber, Soviet Nationality Policy, 160–174.

Martin describes the Ukrainization of schooling as “natural” and “routine.” Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 86–87.

Yekelchyk, Ukraine, 94. For research by Ukrainian scholars on Ukrainization, see Smolii, “Ukrainizatsiia”; Lozyts'kyi, “Polityka ukrainizatsii”; Polemun and Suravko, Ukrainizatsiia na Chernihivshchyni; Borysov, “Ukrainizatsiia ta rozvytok”; Malii, “Ukrainizatsiia osvity.”

Ewing, The Teachers of Stalinism; Holmes, Stalin's School.

Kelly, Children's World, 67–92, 495–569.

Blitstein, “Nation-Building or Russification?,” 258.

Bilaniuk, Contested Tongues, 18, 89–92.

Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment.”

Khalid, The Politics, 199.

Edgar, Tribal Nation, 164.

Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 80; Mace argues that Kviring's commitment to Ukrainization was in fact less than complete. Mace, Communism, 89–90.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 866, ark. 13.

Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 80; Mace, Communism, 89; Liber, Soviet Nationality Policy, 43–44.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 862, ark. 103.

Ibid.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 862, ark. 104.

The Soviet drive to create ethnically homogeneous schools (and thereby reify national categories) had a parallel in the Bohemian experience under Habsburg rule, when Czech and German nationalist movements sought “to ensure that children were not ‘lost’ to the national community because of parents' persistent indifference to nationalist priorities in the home.” Zahra, Kidnapped Souls, 52.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 866, 10.

Ibid.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 888, ark. 18.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 866, ark. 13.

Ibid.

Ibid.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 872, ark. 114.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 872, ark. 121.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 872, ark. 122.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 872, ark. 119.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 853, ark. 10.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 853, ark. 12.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 853, ark. 27.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 853, ark. 40.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 862, ark. 115–16.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 862, ark. 108.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 3, spr. 872, ark. 345.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 621, ark. 65.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 860, ark. 4.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 4, spr. 858, ark. 4.

Kh. Nevira, “Shcho shche hal'muie ukrainizatsiiu shkoly,” Narodnii uchytel', 5 May 1925, 2.

Ibid.

I. Pevnyi, “Perevodymo ukrainizatsiiu,” Narodnii uchytel’, 14 April 1925, 3.

M. Makerevych, “Ukrainizatsiia ta vchytel': ukrainizatsiia vchytel'stva—nevidkladne zavdannia,” Narodnii uchytel', 13 October 1925, 2.

V. Sihovykh, “Het' profakatsiu,” Narodnii uchytel', 12 January 1927, 3.

V. S., “Spravy ukrainizatsii. Za pidvyshchennia ukrains'koi hramotnosty,” Narodnii uchytel', 12 January 1927, 3.

Z. Nuzhnyi, “Iak ne slid ukrainizuvatysia! (Na Dnipropetrovs'kii zaliznytsi),” Narodnii uchytel', 12 January 1927, 3.

Z. Nuzhnyi, “De-shcho pro ukrainizatsiiu Dnipropetrovs'koi zaliznytsi,” Narodnii uchytel', 3 November 1926, 3.

TsDAHOU, f. 1, op. 20, spr. 2253, ark. 4–9.

M. Mashkivs'kyi, “Do spravy ukrainizatsii vchytel'stva na Pivd.-zakh. zaliznytsiakh,” Narodnii uchytel', 6 October 1926, 2.

Z. Nuzhnyi, “De-shcho pro ukrainizatsiiu Dnipropetrovs'koi zaliznytsi,” Narodnii uchytel', 3 November 1926, 3.

I continue to use the Ukrainian word perevirka (plural: perevirky) throughout this article because the word itself assumed such symbolic value for teachers, and possible English translations (evaluation, audit, verification) are imprecise in this context.

N. I. K., “Ukrainizatsiia. Syln'a dram z zhyttia Bilotserkivs'koi okruhy na bahato dii z prolohom ta epilohom.” Narodnii uchytel', 30 March 1927, 3.

S. Khomenko, “Pro perevirku,” Narodnii uchytel', 12 January 1927, 3.

Mymra, “Pidmet,” Narodnii uchytel', 15 December 1926, 3.

“Na vsi zapitannia vidpovidni dovidkovo-konsul'tytsionnoho biura,” Narodnii uchytel', 4 May 1928, 4.

DAKO, f. 1043, op. 3, spr. 28, ark. 109.

Ibid.

DAKO, f. 1043, op. 3, spr. 28, ark. 110.

DAKO, f. 1212, op. 1, spr. 25, ark. 59.

Z. Nuzhnyi, “De-shcho pro ukrainizatsiiu Dnipropetrovs'koi zaliznytsi,” Narodnii uchytel', 3 November 1926, 3.

“De-shcho pro vykladachiv ta komisii po perevirtsti,” Narodnii uchytel', 1 June 1927, 3.

DAKO, f. 1043, op. 3, spr. 28, ark. 110.

S. Khomenko, “Pro perevirku,” Narodnii uchytel', 12 January 1927, 3.

DAKO, f. 1043, op. 3, spr. 28, ark. 110.

V. S., “Spravy ukrainizatsii. Za pidvyshchennia ukrains'koi hramotnosty,” Narodnii uchytel', 12 January 1927, 3.

TsDAHOU, f. 1, op. 20, spr. 2248, ark. 1.

I discuss this subject in greater detail elsewhere. See Pauly, “Building Socialism,” 196–224.

See, for example: DAKO, f. 1043, op. 3, spr. 31, ark. 52; TsDAHOU, f. 1, op. 20, spr. 3009, ark. 38, 64. It is important to emphasize that the Ukrainian non-party intelligentsia had long been the subject of state police surveillance and that this latest offensive was facilitated (but not necessarily motivated) by an accumulated OGPU distrust of Ukrainization. I argue elsewhere that well before this date party and Narkomos authorities worried that members of the intelligentsia were operating outside their control in their efforts to expand the Ukrainization of education. See Pauly, “Building Socialism,” 225–53. For studies of OGPU surveillance of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, see Prystaiko and Shapoval, Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi; Shapoval et al., ChK-GPU-NKVD. For a long-term perspective on repression against Ukrainian educators generally, see Marochko and Götz, Represovani pedahohy.

Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 251.

Prystaiko, Sprava “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy”, 48.

Ibid., 15, 44. For additional studies of the SVU affair and the work of those arrested, see Bolabol'chenko, SVU; Kuromiya, “Stalin'skii ‘velikii perelom’; Sydorenko, Represovane “vidrodzhennia”; Tron'ko, Represovane kraieznavstvo.

“Protest spivrobitnykiv VUK'u ta redaktsii hazety,” Narodnii uchytel', 24 November 1929, 2.

“Ne damo zhovto-blakytnym bandytam zavazhaty buduvanniu ukrains'koi kul'tury,” Narodnii uchytel', 27 November 1929, 2.

The party took care to recruit two educational officials to ensure that the proper message was sent at trial and Narkomos as a whole was not tainted. Anton Prykhod'ko, the presiding judge, was Deputy Commissar of Education. Another member of the court was Ivan Sokolians'kyi, Head of the Institute of Defectology and a prominent educator. Prystaiko, Sprava “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy”, 50.

For more on Durdukivs'kyi, see Danylenko and Kravchenko, Volodymyr Durdukivs'kyi.

“Zhovtoblakytna kontrrevoliutsiia pered proletars'kym sudom,” Narodnii uchytel', 24 April 1930, 3.

Skrypnyk, Statti i promovy, 366–67.

Fitzpatrick notes that the formation of this ethos inevitably involved the elimination of the bourgeois intelligentsia through “class war.” Fitzpatrick, Cultural Revolution, 8.

“Stan ukrainizatsii v promyslovykh okruhakh,” Narodnii uchytel', 11 January 1930, 1.

Rama, “Misiachnyk ukrains'koi proletar'skoi kul'tury,” Narodnii uchytel', 22 June 1930, 3.

H. Shvydkyi, “Ukrainizuiut'sia nadto povil'no,” Narodnii uchytel', 11 June 1930, 7.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 6, spr. 10841, ark. 421.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 6, spr. 10841, ark. 420, 427.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 6, spr. 10841, ark. 421, 420, 427.

Ivan Prysiazhniuk, “Polipshuite nashu movu,” Narodnii uchytel', 16 January 1929, 5.

H. Hulak, “Movoznavtsi,” Narodnii uchytel', 16 January 1929, 5.

K. Kost', “Ukrainizuvalys',” Narodnii uchytel', 16 January 1929, 5.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 6, spr. 10841, ark. 415.

The inspectorate had dismissed only five teachers to date for refusing even to attempt learning Ukrainian.

TsDAVOU, f. 166, op. 6, spr. 10841, ark. 417.

“Natsional'na pytannia,” Narodnii uchytel', 10 April 1929, 3.

Krawchenko, Social Change, 135.

Bondar et al., Narodna osvita i pedahohichna nauka, 55.

Ibid., 69.

Yekelchyk, Stalin's Empire, 6–7.

Ibid., 6.

Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 12.