Polish Schooling in Ukraine at the Turn of the 20th and the 21stCentury

Abstract

Poles who have resided in the lands of the nowadays Ukraine for centuries have always made efforts to organise Polish schooling. Unfortunately, times were not always favourable to their work, and the circumstances, especially the political situation, have made the education of Polish children impossible to a significant degree. How far the hostile actions of politicians could go has been proven at the beginning of the 20th century, when, ,since the 1920s, Poles were virtually deprived of national schooling. It was only after the formation of independent Ukraine in 1991 that the Polish society could commence their efforts to organise comprehensive education in the Polish language. Attempts were made to develop education in various organisational forms and on various levels, establishing Polish-language public schools, as well as Polish-language classes, extracurricular lessons in Polish, Polish language courses, Polish language courses, e.g. organized through Catholic and Polish associations. These actions have been accompanied by numerous problems of economic, political, and legal nature, as well as the shortage of teaching staff. This paper presents the process of the reactivation of Polish schooling at the turn of the 20th and the 21st century within the borders of the independent Ukrainian state.