Language discussions and their influence on the educational and pedagogical processes of Transcarpathia in the 20-30s of the XX-th century

Source: (Mahochii, 1994, p. 206).

As can be seen from the table 1, the largest number of folk primary schools were schools with the Ruthenian language of instruction. Actually, what do we mean by "Ruthenian language"?

In the 20s of the XX-th century, the society of Transcarpathia was divided into three parts: one of them considered themselves Ruthenians and spoke a Ruthenian dialect (in the 1930s, they switched to the grammar rules of I. Haraida); the second - Muscophiles - considered Ruthenians part of the "Russian people" and used the Russian language; the third - considered themselves part of the Ukrainian people, were called Ukrainophiles and used the Ukrainian language (according to the grammar of I. Pankevych) (Mahochii, 1994, p. 82-85). It should be noted that the struggle between the Ukrainian and Russian trends took place in all spheres of social life, including education. Therefore, a commission was created at the Czech Academy of Sciences to establish the literary language of the Transcarpathian edge. Next, we present an excerpt from the conclusion of the commission: "1) it is primarily up to him to decide on the literary language of any nation; 2) artificially creating a new literary language for the inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus would be not only very difficult, but also completely inappropriate from a scientific point of view, and undesirable from the point of view of Slavic politics; 3) in view of the fact that the local Ruthenian dialect referred to in the statute is, without a doubt, a Little Ukrainian dialect, therefore it is necessary to recognize for the local population the literary language of Little Russian, which is used by its neighbors and fellow tribesmen, that is, Galician Ukrainian...; 4) so that the population of Subcarpathian Rus' does not lose consciousness that, as Ukrainians, they are also members of the great Russian nation, it is recommended to introduce mandatory teaching of the Russian language in secondary schools; 5) for scientific and political reasons, it is desirable that the previous literary attempts to create a separate literary language for the Carpathian Ruthenians, the example of which is, for example, Voloshyn's grammar, were professionally followed up" (Shandor, 1992, p. 222-223). The researcher of the history of Transcarpathia, V. Sandor, noted that "Czech politics introduced and supported the Muscovite cultural movement in us, which caused many disasters. Only from the point of view of dizzy Czech Muscophilism could such an illogicality appear in point 4 that Ukrainians are also members of the great Russian nation" (Shandor, 1992, p. 223).

In the context of our research, the language debate that arose between representatives of different directions influenced, first of all, the activities of pedagogical societies, pedagogical periodicals, the process of creating school textbooks that used different grammars, etc.

Thus, the pro-Ukrainian direction was represented by the Pedagogical Society of Subcarpathian Rus, founded in 1924 by Augustyn Voloshyn. It included many members of the "Prosvita" society, which advocated the idea of Ruthenians belonging to the Ukrainian people and the need to use the Ukrainian literary language in all spheres, including education. The Department of Education of Subcarpathian Rus and the progressive pedagogical community of the region closely cooperated with the Pedagogical Society of Subcarpathian Rus. First of all, this cooperation concerned the issue of textbook creation, compilation of methodical literature, etc. In particular, the Lviv branch of "Prosvita" received orders regarding Ukrainian-language literature: "A request to send to the small library the books by M. Vovchok "Sister", B. Grinchenko "Dyadyko Tymokha", M. Kulish "Stories", Yu. Fedjkovych "A Selection from Literary Works", S. Rudanskyi "Singers"...." (Perelik literatury zamovlenoi u Lvovi dlia filialu tovarystva v m. Uzhhorodi, a takozh yoho zaiava po pytanni dalshoi peredplaty lvivskykh zhurnaliv «Zhyttia i znannia» ta inshykh, 1933-1938 rr., sheet. 2), as well as an order for a subscription to the magazine "Life and Knowledge". There were also periodicals of a pro-Ukrainian orientation, founded by the Pedagogical Society of Subcarpathian Rus, in particular: " Subcarpathian Rus" (1926-1936), "Our Native Edge" (19221939), "Pchilka" (1922-1932), etc. In 1929, the "Teachers' Community" began its activities - a pedagogical association that advocated the Ukrainization of education in Subcarpathian Rus and founded the pro-Ukrainian pedagogical magazines "Our School" and "Teacher's Voice". The pro-Russian trend was represented by the Teachers' Society of Subcarpathian Rus, founded in 1921. It also included members of the Society named after Oleksandr Dukhnovych, who called themselves Ruthenians and suggested using the Ruthenian dialect in daily communication, but insisted on using the Russian language in education and cultural life, because at that time "the Russian literary language was codified, had great authority and high cultural value" (Zakarpattia 1919-2009 rokiv: istoriia, polityka, kultura, 2010, p. 657). The activities of the Teachers'

Association of Subcarpathian Rus were supported by the Czechoslovak government and representatives of the Russian emigration. For example, Pryashiv school inspector Ihor Husnai recommended the use of the Russian literary language in school, as he considered the local Ruthenian dialect to be a manifestation of provincialism, and the Ukrainian language to be an Austro-Polish invention (Husnai, 1921, p. 2-8).

It should be noted that in education and schooling, the language debate affected the language of instruction and textbooks, which were compiled according to different grammars, which brought considerable chaos to the learning process. Thus, representatives of the pro-Ukrainian direction preferred the grammar of I. Pankevych "Grammar of the Russian language for the younger classes of secondary and urban schools" (1922, 1927, 1930), and representatives of the pro-Russian direction preferred the grammar of E. Sabov "Grammar of the Russian language" (1924). However, none of these textbooks can be called exclusively Ukrainian or Russian grammar, because the authors "brought them closer to local dialects, that is, no grammar fully corresponded to the literary version of the given language" (Zakarpattia 1919-2009 rokiv: istoriia, polityka, kultura, 2010, p. 659). In order to stop the long-standing disputes surrounding this issue, the government initiated a referendum in 1937, the main task of which was to choose a grammar - pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian. Even before the beginning of the referendum, the pedagogical magazine “Narodnaya Shkola”, which was published by the pro-Russian Teachers' Society of Subcarpathian Rus, published an appeal by the Board of the Teachers' Society to all "Russian teachers and Russian parents", in which they warned teachers against participating in the plebiscite, since they had to choose the language of instruction only parents of students. Teachers could be subject to disciplinary punishment for campaign work. Addressing parents, members of the Teachers' Association of Subcarpathian Rus emphasized that the textbooks used in schools were written by non-Carpathian authors (V. Birchak, I. Pankevych, etc.) and served as an experiment for the introduction of Galician-Polish jargon, which they called "sometimes Russian, then Little Russian, then Ukrainian." Instead, parents were offered to choose textbooks written by local authors (I. Dobosh, M. Vasylenko, M. Mykyta, E. Sabov, etc.), who imitated O. Dukhnovych and other Awakeners of the second half of the XIX-th century: "We must follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and ensure the future of our children with our national culture, our native Russian language!" (Vnymaniiu vseho russkaho uchytelstva y russkykh rodytelei, 1937-1938, p. 4). Representatives of the Russophile trend tried in every way to justify the idea of the unity of the Carpathians with the great Russian people, and to recognize the Russian language as a single literary language. After such large-scale work, the result turned out to be quite expected: out of 427 schools that participated in the referendum, 73% of respondents preferred the Russophile grammar of Yevmenii Sabov (Fedor, 1937-1938, p. 2). The results of the language plebiscite of 1937 raised doubts among the Ukrainian-speaking intelligentsia. In particular, the resolution of the 8th Congress of the "Teachers' Community" held in Uzhhorod in 1938 states that the language plebiscite initiated by the Czechoslovak government in Subcarpathian Rus' is evidence of a hostile attitude not only to Ukrainian teachers, but also to the entire people: "The voting took place from corrections. There were cases when a vote was held two or three times in one school with the help and direct intervention of notaries and gendarmes... This vote was held in our country for purely party-political reasons... This plebiscite is a humiliation of our human and national dignity, does not correspond to the constitution and the language law ...” (Rezoliutsiia VIII zizdu «Uchytelskoi hromady» 2-4 lypnia 1938 r. v Uzhhorodi ta memorandum yii do hubernatora Pidkarpatskoi Rusi 1938 r., 1938, sheets 9), therefore "the Congress strongly protests against the attempts of Russophiles to change those foundations (here: educational programs - F.O.) in favor of the Great Russian language" (Rezoliutsiia VIII zizdu «Uchytelskoi hromady» 2-4 lypnia 1938 r. v Uzhhorodi ta memorandum yii do hubernatora Pidkarpatskoi Rusi 1938 r., 1938, sheets 4). Therefore, the referendum held in 1937 did not resolve the language debate, and in the end, all this led to a decrease in the quality of education, because instead of fully learning the content of education in their native language, schoolchildren were involved in language disputes.

But later, the language discussion was still stopped. This was preceded by the following events: on October 11th, 1938, the Czechoslovak government granted the long-awaited autonomy to Subcarpathian Rus, and on November 22nd, 1938, the Czechoslovak Parliament adopted the Constitutional Law on the Federal Organization of the State of Czechs, Slovaks, and Transcarpathian Ukrainians, following which preparations for the elections of the first Diet of Carpathian Ukraine began. One of the first tasks of the newly formed regional government, headed by Augustyn Voloshyn, was to regulate the language issue, for which an order was issued on November 15th, 1938, where in §1 it was determined that "The state language in the country of Subcarpathian Rus is Ukrainian (Little Russian)" (Ternystyi shliakh do Ukrainy: Zbirnyk arkhivnykh dokumentiv i materialiv «Zakarpattia v yevropeiskii politytsi 1918-1919, 1938-1939, 1944-1946 rr.», 2007, p. 183).

The Ministry of Culture, Schools and Public Education immediately issues its order concerning the language of instruction in educational institutions: "every student must be taught in his native language, since that language is used in the community concerned" (§1), "in schools founded for the language of instruction of Ukrainian (Russian, that is, Little Russian) children should be the Ukrainian language in its literary form" (§2) (Ternystyi shliakh do Ukrainy: Zbirnyk arkhivnykh dokumentiv i materialiv «Zakarpattia v yevropeiskii politytsi 1918-1919, 1938-1939, 1944-1946 rr.», 2007, p. 184-185).

In order to ensure the transition to the use of the Ukrainian literary language in all spheres of social life, on December 23rd, 1938, the government sent out a letter that "draws attention to auxiliary linguistic literature" (Ternystyi shliakh do Ukrainy: Zbirnyk arkhivnykh dokumentiv i materialiv «Zakarpattia v yevropeiskii politytsi 1918-1919, 1938-1939, 1944-1946 rr.», 2007, p. 186-188). Also attached to the letter was a list of literature on general linguistic issues (textbooks by I. Ohiyenko), a list of Ukrainian language grammars (Y. Neverli, V. Simovych, A. Shtefan), general dictionaries (B. Grinchenko, S. Ivanytsky, etc.), special dictionaries (H. Woznyak, A. Krymskyi, K. Levitskyi, etc.), terminological articles (terminology office, sports, aviation, fire, etc.). As for Russian-language education, according to this Ordinance, it could be implemented provided there were requests from parents (guardians) of at least 40 schoolchildren, if the number of applications was less, then Russian-speaking classes were joined to Ukrainian-speaking classes. In his interview on January 4th, 1939, the Prime Minister of the Autonomous Government A. Voloshyn noted that "we, Ukrainians, are not against the Russians. We respect their literature and culture. But we want to live our own life, our Ukrainian culture, and, consistently and firmly defending our own, we do not shy away from honoring the spiritual wealth of others" (Ternystyi shliakh do Ukrainy: Zbirnyk arkhivnykh dokumentiv i materialiv «Zakarpattia v yevropeiskii politytsi 1918-1919, 1938-1939, 1944-1946 rr.», 2007, p. 190-182). But everyone knows that the Soviet-Russian state, regardless of such tolerance, proceeded to eliminate Augustyn Voloshyn as a bourgeois element in the Lefortovo prison, and his name was erased from the textbooks of the history of pedagogy in the following decades.

It should be noted that with the establishment of the military administration of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1939, the Transcarpathian lands returned to its composition under the name "Subcarpathia". And the issue surrounding the language was renewed again, the Hungarian government, first of all, played on Ruthenian sentiments and tried to create an artificial Hungarian-Russian grammar.

transcarpathia language discussion ruthenian

Conclusions and prospects of further research

Educational processes are a component and, at the same time, a reflection of state and socio-political processes, as evidenced by language discussions that arose in the 20s and 30s of the XX-th century in multilingual Transcarpathia. Given the fact that in the educational sphere the issue of the language of instruction was resolved democratically by the Czechoslovak government and the vast majority of schools in the region taught in the native language of the local population, a dispute arose regarding its literary version between representatives of the Ruthenian, pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian trends. This could not but be reflected in the activities of schools, pedagogical societies, pedagogical periodicals, textbook creation, etc. The linguistic question was transferred to the political plane and reflected the political views of representatives of various directions.

On the part of the Czechoslovak Republic, at the governmental level, recommendations were made regarding the use of the Ukrainian literary language, although with the caveat that it is necessary to study the Russian language in order to maintain unity with the Russian people. The complete transition of education and schooling in Transcarpathia to the use of the Ukrainian literary language took place at the end of 1938 with the assistance of the Autonomous Government of Subcarpathian Rus and personally Augustyn Voloshyn. Prospective directions for further research are: studying the experience of foreign countries in learning the state language in a multicultural environment, improving the method of training teachers to teach the state language in schools located in communities where representatives of several nationalities and indigenous peoples live compactly, etc.

References

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