THE FUNCTIONING OF THE MINSK BELARUSIAN PEDAGOGICAL COLLEGE IN THE 1920S THROUGH THE PRISM OF NATIONAL-CULTURAL POLICY IN SOVIET BELARUS

Abstract

The article examines the problem of training middle-level teaching staff in Minsk in the 1920s, poorly understood in Belarusian historiography. The materials of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, memoirs, first introduced into scientific circulation, are analyzed. The purpose of the article is to identify on the basis of documents introduced for the first time in the scientific circulation the essential characteristics of the activities of the Minsk Belarusian Pedagogical College in the context of socio-political, socio-economic, national and cultural life of the BSSR of the 1920s. The following methods were used in the work: historical-genetic (the features of the functioning of the technical school are considered at various stages of its formation and development), historical-systemic (the educational institution is considered as a complex system, the functioning of various elements of which was influenced by the economic and national-cultural policy of Soviet Belarus), a method of content analysis (the most frequent semantic constructions in the documents were noted, and then the results were interpreted). The special role of the Minsk Belarusian Pedagogical College is noted in the training of highly qualified specialists demanded by the employers of the republic, as well as the place of the educational institution in the cultural and literary processes of the studied period. It is emphasized that, despite the difficulties of a financial and organizational nature, the Minsk Belarusian Pedagogical College was one of the leading humanitarian educational institutions of its time. The educational institution was an important link in the implementation of the state policy of Belarusization. Changes in the national course of the Soviet authorities in the late 1920s–1930s affected the activities of secondary specialized pedagogical educational institutions of Minsk. Many positive achievements of the Belarusian culture were eliminated.