Language policy in the field of education in the western provinces of Russia and the Kingdom of Poland in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Language policy in the field of education in the western provinces of Russia and the Kingdom of Poland in the nineteenth centuryThe article is devoted to the language policy of the Russian government in the field of education in the western provinces of Russia and the Kingdom of Poland in the nineteenth century. In territories with a predominantly Polish cultural element, teaching in the first third of the nineteenth century was conducted in Polish. The purpose of this work is to trace the change in attitude of the ruling spheres towards the system of Polish education. Language policy in the western outskirts of the Russian Empire went through several stages: from tolerance in the first third of the nineteenth century, to the Depolonisation of education in the western provinces in the 1830s, and the complete Russification of education after 1863, not only in the Russian territories, but also in the Kingdom of Poland. In this process, the uprisings of 1830-1831 and 1863-1864 certainly played an important, although not decisive, role. It seems that, to one degree or another, the Depolonisation of education in the western provinces would still have been carried out but would have taken place more gradually. The Russian government saw their task in integrating education in the western provinces into the all-Russian system; for this purpose, it was important to reduce contact between the territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that were under Russian rule and strengthen their ties with the empire. For the same reason, there would probably have been a gradual introduction of the Russian language into the curriculum of educational institutions and the clerical work of state institutions in the Kingdom of Poland.