UKRAINIAN DIASPORA HISTORIANS ON THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS POLICIES FOR EDUCATION, CULTURE, AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DURING UKRAINIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917–1921

Abstract

This paper runs a comprehensive analysis of the Ukrainian Diaspora historians’ works which covered national governments policies for education, culture, and spiritual life during Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921. Having covered the results of the generalising works historiographic analysis the authors of the paper define two important stages, pre-war and war, of the theoretical, methodological, and factual comprehension of the cultural, educational, and spiritual processes preconditioned by the trends in the implementation of the national and state building within the period of the National Liberation Struggle. The authors claim that Diaspora scholars who researched the cultural and educational matter of the 1917–1921 Revolution were mostly producing generalising works as it was the particular time to embrace the whole set of facts and analyse both positive and negative consequences of those violent events in the Ukrainian society. The authors have concluded that the works of the late 1950s were mostly concentrated on the research of the statebuilding processes of 1917–1921 and were only fragmental in respect of the Ukrainian government inner policies for the national cultural life. The article highlights the achievements and mistakes of the researchers who covered the development of selected cultural spheres throughout Ukrainian Revolution. They claim that more detailed study of the primary school and higher education reform processes is necessary as well as studies how publishing and library activities were organised, artistic societies and creative groups functioned.