РОЛЬ ПРАВОСЛАВНОГО СІЛЬСЬКОГО ДУХОВЕНСТВА УМАНСЬКОГО ПОВІТУ В ПОШИРЕННІ ПОЧАТКОВОЇ ОСВІТИ (ХІХ – ПОЧАТОК ХХ СТ.)

Abstract

Introduction. In the period when the Ukrainian state is
being formed and developed, the reforms in Ukrainian
education, aimed at integration into the European cultural
and economic space, make the study of Ukrainian primary
education development (especially education of the largest
strata – Ukrainian peasantry) important for solving tasks
in modern instruction and training of younger generation.
The article deals with the Orthodox parish clergy’s activities
to involve the majority of the population in school education
and with the evolution in understanding the importance of
education by the peasants.
The purpose of the article is to emphasize the role of the
Orthodox parish clergy in providing primary education in
the 19th - early 20th century and to find out the attitude to
its implementation, presented by the majority of the
population in Uman district.
Results. The article analyses the peculiarities of
providing primary education among the peasantry in Uman
district in the 19th - early 20th century. The authors have
emphasized that the clergy faced a number of unresolved
issues, one of which was the misunderstanding and
unwillingness of the peasants themselves to receive
education. Moreover, the peasant responsibilities were
difficult to reconcile with the need to go to school. In
addition, the priests could not spend enough time to
educating the peasantry because of their main duties. The
authors have found that only in late 19th century in Right
Bank Ukraine, in particular in Kyiv province, the process
of creating public schools was being intensified.
Nevertheless, the level of the peasantry’s literacy remained
unsatisfactory. In addition, the level of education among
women was much lower than among men.
Conclusion. The Ukrainian peasantry was the least
educated. Since childhood the peasantry children had
helped their parents and as a rule had performed their
responsibilities at home. At the age of 10 they were involved
in work in landlords’ estates. In late 18th - early 19th century
rural parish schools of Kyiv province were not actually
public. In most cases they were not aimed at the education
of the peasants, but at the formation of their religious beliefs.
The Orthodox Church undertook the task of involving the
broad masses of the peasantry in school education. The
clergy were responsible not only for the education of peasant
children, but also for the organization and maintenance of
schools, which were originally housed in the homes of priests
and junior deacons. It is practically impossible to determine
the number of children who regularly attended school.
Household duties, lack of seasonal shoes and clothes, long
distance to school, weather conditions, etc. prevented the
students from being present at lessons. Charitable priests of
Uman district reported that in such villages as Hlybochok,
Maydanetske, Dovhenke, Zayachkivka, Rozsishky,
Posukhivka schools did not properly function due to lack
of support from the economy and estate managers, absence
of premises and opposition of local landowners, who were
against the idea of education for peasants.
Since the second half of the 19th century in the Right
Bank Ukraine, in particular in Kyiv province, the process
of creating schools had been intensified. In 1861-1862 Kyiv
province became the first among other provinces in the
empire in terms of the rate of expansion of church parish
education. By 1870 the largest number of schools if compared
with other districts of the province had been opened in
Uman district. Nevertheless, according to the materials of
the First All-Russian Census of 1897 the number of literate
rural population was reported to be 10.6% of the total
peasant population in Uman district