“THE MEMORIAL” OF PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS OF BIBRKA COUNTY OF THE KINGDOM OF GALICIA AND LODOMERIA (1891) AS A HISTORICAL AND LEGAL SOURCE

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to publish and analyze “The Memorial” of public schools teachers of Bibrka school district (1891) as the source for the history of schooling in Galicia and the socio-legal culture of teachers at the end of the ХІХth century. The research methodology – principles of scientific, objectivity, historicism, methods of external and internal critique of sources. The research novelty is that “The Memorial” of public schools teachers of Bibrka school district (1891) was first published and analyzed as a historical and legal source. The Conclusions. Thus, the analyzed “The Memorial” is an extremely interesting historical source, which reveals the level of a social, professional and group activity and solidarity of teachers in the small county of Galicia at the end of the ХІХth century. The project elaborated by them, despite the completely uncalculated costs for its implementation, deserves attention, primarily, to the principles that teachers proposed to base the system of “advance”: linking the amount of salary (the transition from a lower to higher salary) to the personal success of a teacher, his qualification, experience. At the same time, “The Memorial” testified to the existence of a certain civil position of teachers, who, although timidly, protested against the unsatisfactory social situation, injustices in the provision of a post (the right to “presents”, the arbitrariness of officials), holding posts by unskilled and casual people in a pedagogical profession; the authors of 1The Memorial” emphasized the negative effects of the protection mechanism (indirectly pointing at corruption in this regard) on the morality of teachers and the quality of education, and etc. It should be noted that the document was signed by both Polish and Ukrainian teachers, who pushed aside their interethnic contradictions in the field of defending the interests of their own professional group. The document is a clear proof of the growth of a legal and social culture of “folk teachers”, who gradually became aware of their social importance and dared to take on the role of an active subject in solving the most painful problems of an educational life. The document is published in the original language (Polish) in compliance with the necessary archaeographic requirements.