BELARUSSIAN-LANGUAGE SCHOOLING IN THE POLICY OF THE SANATION GOVERNMENT IN POLAND (1926–1939)
Abstract
The article highlights the policy of Polish governments according to the Belarussian-language schooling after the coming after J. Pilsudski’s coming to the power and the ruling of the Sanation Governments. It was underlined that the joining of Western Belarussian lands to Poland caused a radical reorganization of the school educational system in these lands. The educational policy of the Polish government in the first half of the years 1920th, was directed on the accelerated polonization of Belarussian schooling, which was carried out mainly by repressive and administrative measures. As a result of this was the complete elimination of Belarussian-language primary schools in the territory of the north-eastern Poland. Changes in the political leadership in Poland after the May coup of 1926 led some modifications in the programmatic principles of Polish national policy, including the "Belarussian question." Among other things, it provided for a more tolerant language and cultural-educational policy. As a result, in the first years of the Sanation governmens there were implemented measures that included some concessions to Belarussians in the field of national schooling (opening Belarussian language courses for primary school teachers, granting gymnasium rights to public schools, developing school curricula and textbooks for Belarussian-language schools). A certain liberalism in the educational policy of the Polish government towards the Belarussian school system in the years 1926–1929 can be explained, first of all, by the intensification of the Belarussian national movement in Poland. In the early 1930th, the suppression of all forms of national and cultural life of the Belarussian minority by the Polish authorities was accompanied by the complete liquidation of Belarussian national schools. This was facilitated, in particular, by the implementation of the Law on the Organization of Education System from the year 1932. As a result, access to the secondary and higher education for the rural population of Western Belarus was limited, and the state control over private educational institutions was significantly strengthened. Almost all primary and secondary Belarussian-language educational institutions in the region were closed in a short time. As a result of the implementation of Polish government policy in the years1920 and 1930th , the Belarussian system of education in the north-eastern lands of the Second Polish republic virtually ceased to exist.
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