National Education in the Belarusian Lands in the XIX and Early XX Centuries: Sociohistorical and Linguistic Aspects

Abstract

In this essay, the factors in the formation of the education system in the Belarusian lands of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are considered alongside the social-historical and linguistic aspects of its functioning. Special attention is given to the characteristics of the possibilities of national education, the development of which is one of the most important conditions for national and ethnic consolidation. The dependence of the features of Belarusian national education on the following historical facts and components of the social structure is analyzed: a) the level of national consciousness of elite groups in the territory of modern Belarus, which did not have a manifested national orientation in the period under review; b) the principles of the language policy of the Russian authorities, which were unfavorable to the formation of linguistic identities of peoples on the western outskirts of the Empire; c) the real language situation in the Belarusian territories, namely, the wide spread of the Belarusian language (in its dialect version) among the peasant and middle classes, and a fairly high level of proficiency in the Belarusian language of representatives among the gentry; d) the specifics of Belarusian publishing, which could not become a stimulus for national education because of insufficient development; e) the specifics in a cultural and religious state in which national identity was not a priority. Finally, it is concluded that in the Belarusian region of the period of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries education in general was at an unsatisfactory stage and national education was at best rudimentary.