Teacher Retraining Courses for Belarusian Schools in Russian Border Regions in the 1920s: Goals, Objectives, Results

Abstract

The article examines the training of teaching personnel for Belarusian national schools in the Russian-Belarusian borderland in the 1920s. In the context of Soviet nationality policy, formulated at the Tenth and Twelfth Congresses of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), “korenizatsiia” (political and cultural campaign of the Soviet government on the national question) was understood as a mechanism for supporting the national minorities of the RSFSR and, at the same time, as a means of contrasting Soviet policy with the Polonization of Ukrainian and Belarusian territories transferred to Poland under the Treaty of Riga of 1921. The article focuses on the Pskov, Smolensk, and Bryansk provinces, which bordered Belarus. Unlike in the BSSR, Belarusization in these regions was implemented on a much smaller scale and was primarily associated with the transition of schools to the Belarusian language and the establishment of Belarusian village soviets. Since no Belarusian village soviet was created in the borderland provinces during the period under study, the analysis concentrates on school policy solely. The aim of the study is to determine how the problem of preparing teachers for Belarusian schools was addressed through central and regional short-term retraining courses. The article shows that the central courses in Minsk not only trained primary school teachers capable of teaching in Belarusian but also turned them into active agents of Belarusization. Regional courses were less effective: many participants were ethnically Russian teachers who failed to acquire Belarusian within a short period and continued to teach in Russian, while their schools were formally classified as Belarusian. The article concludes that the problem of training Belarusian teaching personnel in the Russian-Belarusian borderland remained unresolved throughout the 1920s. Many Belarusian schools existed primarily in official reporting and, from 1933 onward, were rapidly reorganized into Russian schools.