ETHNIC AND CONFESSIONAL SPECIFICITY OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE PODIL SCHOOL EDUCATION AT THE END OF THE 18TH – IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

The end of the 18th-beginning of the 19th century. was a time of great political changes and social transformations in Ukraine, caused primarily by the new geopolitical situation in Central and Eastern Europe. Podillia, together with the entire Right Bank, was annexed by the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th century as a result of the second division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This territory became a valuable addition to the metropolis, because it was rich and densely populated. After the annexation of the region, the tsarist authorities immediately began a large-scale restructuring of public life in accordance with the needs and interests of the entire empire. The educational sphere of the region has undergone significant ethno-national changes, caused, on the one hand, by the Russification and destruction of the Uniate Church and Uniate schooling as important means of preserving the cultural and spiritual heritage and national unity of Ukrainians; on the other hand, the expansion of secular educational institutions according to Russian standards and the creation of schools for new colonists. Tsarism faced the question of incorporation of the local population into the "all-Russian body". He understood that for this it is not enough to deploy significant military forces on the territory of the region, to carry out administrative and territorial reform, and to fill management offices with Russians. It was necessary to change the outlook of the local population, turn them into loyal subjects of the empire and, in the final stage, completely Russify them. It was especially difficult to do this with the Poles, who were the dominant ethnic group before the Russians came to the Right Bank and had all the attributes of a state nation. One of them is the national, in this case Polish, education system that worked for the needs of the Commonwealth of Nations. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, education was closely connected with religious institutions and, first of all, with the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic orders (Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, Carmelites, Basilians).