In the 20s of the twentieth century, Russia did not persecute Ukrainian culture and language on its territory and did not claim that Russians and Ukrainians were one people. On the contrary, it contributed to the opening of Ukrainian schools, libraries, and pedagogical colleges in those regions of the RSFSR where Ukrainian communities existed.
The Red Power, having begun Ukrainization in the Ukrainian SSR and beyond its borders in the summer of 1923, actually admitted that the language is not a “dialect”, and Ukrainians are not Russians.
Secrets of Wikipedia
The first population census in the USSR was carried out in December 1926. Now, citing it, various sources provide conflicting data on the number of Ukrainians in Russia. For example, the Ukrainian Wikipedia claims that there were 7,873,000 people, while the Russian Wikipedia claims only 6,871,194.
Where have more than a million Ukrainians gone? Let's take a look at Volume IV of the publication “All-Union Population Census of December 17, 1926,” published by the USSR Central Statistical Office in 1928.
The number of Ukrainians is indicated as follows: men - 3,839,958, women - 4,033,271. That is, a total of 7,873,229 people. But let’s take into account that at that time the RSFSR included Kazakhstan (860,822 Ukrainians), Kyrgyzstan (64,128) and Crimea (77,405) as autonomous republics.
So, on the territory of Russia within its modern borders, the number of Ukrainians was 6,870,874 people.
Photo by Stanislav Tsalik
Different goals of Ukrainization
Almost half of Russian Ukrainians lived in the North Caucasus - 3,106,852 people, the second largest was the Central Black Earth region - 1,651,853 people.
There were significant communities in Siberia (827,536), the Volga region (646,417) and the Far East (315,203). Less numerous existed in Bashkiria - 76,710, in the Urals - 47,651, etc. The smallest Ukrainian community - in Dagestan - numbered just over 4 thousand people.
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Moscow, having allowed Ukrainization in the RSFSR, pursued different goals in different regions.
In the Kursk and Voronezh provinces, bordering the Ukrainian SSR, and in the Kuban, the goal was to prevent their annexation to Ukraine (such demands were made in the capital Kharkov).
But in Siberia and the Far East, Ukrainization under the red flag was supposed to orient people precisely towards the Ukrainian SSR, and not towards the hostile “Petliurists” or “Hetmans” who from abroad tried to establish contacts, for example, with the Ukrainians of the Green Klin (this is the historical resettlement name for the southern part of the Russian Far East, which included the Amur region, Primorsky and Khabarovsk territories, Sakhalin - ed.)
Second Ukrainization
In Kuban, Ukrainians were the largest ethnic community - 37% of the population. In some districts they even made up the majority (in the Taganrog district - 71.7%, Kuban - 62.2%) or almost half of the population (in the Don district - 44.2%, Salsky - 43.9%).
The Ukrainianization of the region began spontaneously back in 1917. At the 1st regional congress of teachers, Ukrainian delegates raised the issue of switching education to the Ukrainian language.
Following this, the Kuban Ukrainian Society of School Education prepared the “Ukrainian Primer,” which was published in two editions. And the next year, 1918, the Kuban People's Republic was proclaimed, which existed for almost two years.
If in 1923, at the beginning of Bolshevik Ukrainization, there were 35 Ukrainian schools in the Kuban, then three years later, in 1926, there were 200. If it was not possible to open a Ukrainian school, Ukrainian classes were recruited in the Russian school (they were called “groups”) - there children were taught according to the Ukrainian school program. By the end of 1926, there were more than 600 such classes in Kuban.
An important advantage of Ukrainian schools over Russian ones was free textbooks.
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The Ukrainian Pedagogical College in the village of Poltavskaya trained its teaching staff. It produced 60 certified teachers annually. Subsequently, a Ukrainian pedagogical college was opened in the village of Umanskaya.
In addition, at the Krasnodar Pedagogical College, Ukrainian studies became a compulsory subject, and at the Kuban Pedagogical Institute, teaching the history of Ukrainian literature was introduced.
Ukraine also helped - the People’s Commissariat of Education of the Ukrainian SSR annually sent “teaching personnel for Ukrainian schools” outside the republic, in particular, to Kuban.
Reading rooms switched to the Ukrainian language, and Ukrainian mobile libraries came to readers in remote settlements. At the end of the 1920s, ten newspapers, several magazines, and books were published in Ukrainian in Kuban.
In 1931, the Kuban Ukrainian Research Institute opened in Krasnodar, which prepared textbooks and reference books for Ukrainian schools. The Krasnodar Historical Museum and some local history museums were also subordinate to him.
Success in numbers
Ukrainization covered not only Kuban, but also other parts of the North Caucasus - Stavropol region, Don districts, etc. As of 1931, 950 Ukrainian schools, 12 Ukrainian pedagogical colleges, as well as the Pedagogical Institute named after. M. Skripnik.
12 Ukrainian regional newspapers were published, and eight Russian newspapers had Ukrainian pages. The total circulation of the Ukrainian press in the North Caucasus exceeded 150 thousand copies.
Book production did not lag behind: in 1931, 149 book titles were published in the North Caucasus with a total circulation of 968 thousand copies.
“There was disappointment...”
Behind the victorious reports - the country was preparing for the 15th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution - there were, as often happens, negative phenomena.
Teachers who came from the Ukrainian SSR tried to return home under all sorts of pretexts, since they did not receive the promised salaries and living conditions. Parents of students are faced with the fact that their children, after graduating from primary school, cannot continue their education, since there are only a few Ukrainian seven-year schools, and in Russian seven-year schools they cannot pass an exam in the Russian language, which they have not studied.
Added to this was the introduction of a new Ukrainian spelling, the so-called “Skrypnikovka” (named after the People’s Commissar of Education Nikolai Skrypnik). Not only parents, but also teachers complained that they did not know or understand such a language, it was “foreign”, “artificial” for them.
“Among the population,” summed up the head of the Kuban department of public education, Potapov, in a letter to the Kuban district committee of the Communist Party, “there was disappointment in the Ukrainian school, and the school, which had existed for one or two years, at the request of the parents, again switched to teaching in Russian.”
Telegram from Moscow
This circumstance was taken advantage of by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which, due to the artificially created Holodomor in Ukraine, was looking for reasons to curtail Ukrainization. Now they have appeared: Ukrainization does not stem from the cultural interests of the population.
The Bureau of the North Caucasus Regional Committee of the Communist Party, having received a telegram from Moscow on December 20, 1932, ordered a stop to Ukrainization.
Within three days, all Ukrainianized newspapers switched to Russian.
Radio broadcasting in Ukrainian has ceased. Office work in the region became Russian-language on January 1, 1933.
“The Ukrainian population strives for Ukrainization”
In the Central Black Earth region, which included, among others, the Kursk and Voronezh provinces, the process of Ukrainization was slowed down by the local bureaucracy.
The southern districts of the mentioned provinces in 1918 were part of the Ukrainian state of Hetman Pavel Skoropadsky, and then the Bolsheviks included them in the RSFSR.
Officials feared that Ukrainization in the future would lead to the return of counties to Ukraine, as a result of which they would lose their positions.
In the Kursk province in 1925, it was planned to switch to the Ukrainian language in 70 schools. The author of this plan, Golubyatnikov, the head of a unit of the provincial education department, was directly told by his colleagues: “If we knew that you would work like this, we would not have invited you.”
The head of the education department, Vedensky, demanded that the plan be radically reworked, but, seeing that the number 70 had changed to 60, he told Golubyatnikov: “If you are talking about 60 schools again, then we will raise the issue of dismissing you from your position and will ask that we be appointed another head of this department.”
Golubyatnikov was fired, and three schools switched to Ukrainian. None of the 19 libraries had Ukrainian books, nor did 82 reading rooms. An inspector from Moscow stated that “despite the indifferent attitude of local authorities... the Ukrainian population strives for Ukrainization.”
The Art of Reporting (And Doing Nothing)
In January 1926, the board of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, having heard the report of the head of the Kursk provincial education department, stated that this department “did not respond properly to the requests of the population regarding the desire to study in their native language.”
The board ordered the development of a three-year plan for the transition of schools with Ukrainian students to the Ukrainian language, the beginning of training teachers for Ukrainian schools in the Sudzhansky and Belgorod pedagogical colleges, the opening of Ukrainian reading rooms, etc., but they did not even think about implementing this locally.
Local authorities periodically made “correct” decisions and cheerfully reported to higher authorities in the following spirit: “preparatory work has been planned,” “an issue has been raised,” “an action plan is being developed.” However, the matter did not move forward.
Sometimes sabotage took more sophisticated forms. They reported on the Ukrainization of a certain number of schools, but did not allocate funds for the purchase of Ukrainian textbooks. Or, in pedagogical colleges, subjects such as Ukrainian studies and the Ukrainian language “suddenly” disappeared from the curriculum.
“At least 30–40 years”
In the neighboring Voronezh province, in the spring of 1925, a number of events were planned: to organize summer retraining courses for Ukrainian teachers, in schools in four southern districts, where Ukrainians were the majority, to introduce the teaching of the Ukrainian language, literature and culture, to introduce Ukrainian studies as a compulsory subject in the Valuysky, Bogucharsky and Ostrogozhsky pedagogical colleges, and then to open Ukrainian departments there.
And what? Summer courses were indeed organized, 67 teachers were retrained there, but Ukrainian studies were introduced only at the Boguchar Pedagogical College - they were ignored at the other two, citing “technical reasons.”
Moreover, Ukrainian teachers actually had nowhere to work. As the presidium of the Voronezh provincial executive committee was informed by the deputy head of the provincial education department Nikulkov and acting. O. Provincial Commissioner for Education of National Minorities Moroz, “schools that switched to teaching in the Ukrainian language in one year return to the Russian language the next year.”
The mentioned inspector from Moscow stated: “If the work on the Ukrainization of schools and cultural and educational institutions continues at the same pace as now, then it will take at least 30–40 years for the complete Ukrainization of schools and other institutions.”
Under pressure
By mid-1928, Ukrainization in the Kursk and Voronezh regions was virtually in limbo. Therefore, Ukraine asked to return the counties where Ukrainians were the majority - then there would be no problems with Ukrainization.
Moscow refused, but began to put pressure on local authorities. And things got off the ground.
Over the next four years, hundreds of primary schools and seven-year schools in areas densely populated by Ukrainians switched to the Ukrainian language, primarily in Ostrogozhsky, Bogucharsky and Rossoshansky.
They began publishing Ukrainian periodicals, for example, the newspaper Leninsky Put. Ukrainian books appeared in the reading rooms, and illiteracy was eliminated in the Ukrainian language.
Issues about the Ukrainization of legal proceedings were discussed, but it did not come to that. In December 1932, Moscow ordered the return of the Russian language.
Seven years of inactivity
Siberian party officials were in no hurry with Ukrainization. Memories of the times of the liberation struggle were still fresh, when the Main Ukrainian Council of Siberia established contact with the “bourgeois” Central Rada in Kyiv and demanded that the Ukrainian population be granted the rights to extraterritorial autonomy.
“Despite the fact that in Siberia there are 164 settlements inhabited exclusively by Ukrainians, they did not even consider it necessary to carry out Ukrainization locally,” criticized the Moscow monthly “Revolution and Nationalities” in 1930.
The blow from the influential publication of the Communist Academy - in the seventh year of Ukrainization - yielded results.
A preparatory department for Ukrainians appeared at the Omsk Pedagogical College, and the opening of a Ukrainian pedagogical college was announced in Slavgorod, the administrative center of the district, where the share of Ukrainians was 71%.
In three districts - Omsk, Tomsk and Slavgorod - 72 elementary schools were Ukrainized, in which almost 5 thousand students sat at their desks. Textbooks were brought from Kharkov and Kyiv.
The newspaper “Collective Farmer of Siberia” was published twice a week - first with a circulation of 5 thousand copies, then three times more. In some areas, office work has been Ukrainized.
But they failed to get a radio program in Ukrainian. Ukrainian books never appeared in bookstores. Siberian party officials resisted to the last.
Against a backdrop of fear
In the Far East, they were in no hurry with Ukrainization. The People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR believed that the Ukrainian population “has been largely Russified and... not only is there no need for Ukrainization, but it is practically impractical.”
Strange statement. Shortly before this, in 1917–1918, four Far Eastern Ukrainian congresses took place, at one of which the Ukrainian Far Eastern Regional Council was created, which in 1919 adopted the Constitution of the national-cultural autonomy of Ukrainians of the Far East.
The Soviet government, which finally subjugated the region in November 1922, carried out mass arrests of Ukrainian leaders in Vladivostok and Chita. In January 1924, a show trial took place, at which the defendants were given various prison terms.
In such conditions, many Ukrainians were simply afraid to be active. It is not surprising that the Far Eastern Department of Public Education noted in the spring of 1924 that “the population has no desire to organize Ukrainian schools” and “no requests for the opening of Ukrainian schools have been received.”
Wrong policy
Local party bodies were suspicious of manifestations of Ukrainian life, seeing in it “chauvinistic propaganda” and “Petliurism.” The OGPU monitored the mood of the Far Eastern Ukrainians.
In February 1927, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR recognized the policy of the Far Eastern Department of Public Education regarding the Ukrainian population as incorrect.
It was ordered to provide reading rooms with Ukrainian books, organize mobile Ukrainian libraries, and allocate funds to the regional budget for training people who would eliminate illiteracy in the Ukrainian language.
These requirements remained on paper.
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“To carry out Ukrainization...”
Ukrainians, not relying on the state, began to act independently. “In the villages of Komissarovka, Ukraine, Lokhvitsa, collective farmers, on their own initiative, organized Ukrainization circles,” the monthly “Far Eastern Party Worker” described the situation. “Many collective farmers and individual farmers independently subscribe to Ukrainian newspapers and magazines.”
The local authorities did not like the spontaneous uncontrolled Ukrainization, so they decided to lead this process, ordering “to carry out the Ukrainization of a number of districts and villages in the region, to Ukrainize a number of regional newspapers... to begin work on organizing a school and university network in the Ukrainian language.”
In 1932, 52 thousand children were finally able to study in Ukrainian. For this purpose, 360 teachers from among local Ukrainians were trained.
13 Ukrainian districts were created, because, for example, in the Vladivostok district the number of Ukrainians was high: in the Spassky district - 71.7%, Shmakovsky - 67.2%, Chernigovsky - 65.7%, Yakovlevsky - 60.1%, etc.
The Ukrainian newspaper “Socialist Perestroika” was opened.
The Ukrainian SSR assumed cultural patronage over nine Ukrainian regions of the Far East, sending 274,720 books and sending 153 teachers to Ukrainian schools.
December 15, 1932 became a fateful day for Ukrainization outside the Ukrainian SSR.
“Immediately suspend further Ukrainization in the regions,” demanded the directive signed in the Kremlin by Stalin and Molotov, “translate all Ukrainized newspapers and press and publications into Russian, and by the fall of 1933, prepare for the transition of schools and teaching to the Russian language.”
Soon Ukrainization was curtailed in the Ukrainian SSR itself.
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