Summary:  Stanisław Antoni Skrzeszewski was the teacher of the National Pedagogium in the Department of Education of Polish Committee of National Liberation and twice the minister of education. In Cracow Pedagogium managed by Henryk Rowid, he taught methodology of elementary teaching and at some point he taught history of education, pedagogical psychology and philosophy. He gathered books for methodological library for the young and took care of extra curricular activities of the students of  pedagogy. Moreover, he also looked after German language students  who were candidates for teachers  in German schools of ethnic minorities in the Silesian province. He paid much attention to the matters of pedagogical training. He cooperated in this matter with the Pedagogium School of Exercise. Rowid positively assessed Skrzeszewski’s didactic activities. The future minister gathered his didactic experience working from 1937 in the Pedagogical Institute and from November 1938 to the outbreak of the war as an assistant volunteer at the Pedagogical Training College of the Jagiellonian University. His thoughts and reflections were described in two papers published in “Pedagogical Movement”. The experience gathered while working as a teacher was used by him for ideological and political influence exerted on education after the war.

Katarzyna Dormus, A Poet and Teacher. Marcelina Kulikowska (1872 – 1910)

Summary: Marcelina Kulikowska was a poet, writer, teacher and education activist. Her works were strongly associated with the decadent movement that was characteristic of the modernist period of Young Poland. These works – dark and full of tension – reflected the dramatic events of her life; a life which ended with a suicide. Yet Kulikowska was also a committed education activist, working with organizations such as the Folk University and the Association of Folk Schools. Most importantly, however, she was at the centre of a scandal which took place in her school between 1903 and 1908, following her open declaration of irreligiousness. The development of this scandal sheds an interesting light on the relationships of power in secondary schools at the time.    Owing to her personal connections and views as well as uncompromising actions in defense of the values she believed in, Kulikowska became one of the main figures of the radical intellectual circles in Cracow. Kulikowska was also an example of a 19th-century emancipation activist; whilst she did not formally belong to the women’s movement of the time (and did not agree with some of the movement’s principles), she embraced the emancipation ideals in her everyday actions.

Tamara Krasowickaja, Stalin and Lunacharskii, the struggle for the Administrative Measures in Educational Policy for non-Russian Nations (1917-1929)

Summary: The article deals with different aspects of the struggle between Joseph Stalin and Anatolii Lunacharskii about the choice of administration means in the cultural and ethnic policy in the years 1917-1929. The author shows this problem as a part the conflict between People’s Commissariat of Education, headed by Lunacharskii, and People’s Commissariat For Nationalities’ Question, headed by Stalin, against the background of the revolution, civil war, and the construction of the Soviet Union. Special attention has been paid to the problems emerging from the contrast between the Bolshevik image of the ideal future and the ethnic-cultural realities, inherited from the past.

Ina Szumska, The Concept of Law-Related Education and Law-Related Upbringing in Russia and Belarus

Summary: This article addresses the problem of law-related education and law-related upbringing in Russia and Belarus. The concept of law-related upbringing was developed in the USSR in the 1960s. In this article the author presents her view of this phenomenon as of one of the means that the Soviet system used in order to form a “new man”: law-related upbringing was used to indoctrinate society with Soviet values. In particular, the author explains the meaning that was attributed to the concept of law-related education and upbringing: in the USSR they were used to indoctrinate society with Soviet values and ideas and inculcate obedience to the laws of the state. Law-related education understood in an original way by the Soviet ideologues constituted the essence of obligatory and interchangeable in different aspects school subjects such as “The Constitution of the USSR”, “Obščestvovedenie” (social science), and “Soviet state and the law”. After the collapse of the Soviet Union this field of education was revised. Beginning from the mid-1990s some regions of Russia introduced the projects on so-called civic-and-law-related education. At the same time they restored the idea of law-related upbringing with the aim to use it for developing civil society and fighting with widespread legal nihilism. Dependence of tasks and contents of law-related and civic education on political regime is demonstrated on the example of Belarus, a country with authoritarian government. In contrast to Russia, Belarus accepted the Soviet version of law-related upbringing and has been using it to bring up citizens obedient to authorities and law.

The article also emphasizes that tasks and contents of law-related and civic education depend not only on the political atmosphere in a given country, but also on the traditional legal culture as well as the type of statutory law.

Andrzej Walicki, The Philosophical Movement of the 1840s as a Programme of Reeducation and Modernization of the Poles

Summary: In the years 1837-1848 the Grand Duchy of Poznan was the center of a strong philosophical movement known as „philosophy of action” or philosophy of creativity. Its leaders – August Cieszkowski, Bronislaw Trentowski, Karol Libelt and Henryk Kamienski – tried to transform German Idealism (especially Hegelianism) into a philosophy of social praxis, capable of paving the ways for a wholesale modernization of Poles and, thereby, to national independence.

The present article is divided into four parts. The first one deals with Libelt’s views on the national calling of the intelligentsia as natural leaders in the process of transforming the unenlightened masses into conscious, active citizens. The second deals with Trentowski’s comprehensive programme of reeducating conservative Polish gentry in the spirit of modern European values. The third part analyzes Kamienski’s views on the philosophical meaning of the “material economy” and on the urgent need of preparing Polish society to cope with the problems of economic modernization. Finally, the last part shows the originality and importance of Cieszkowski’s, Trentowski’s and Libelt’s most ambitions task: to achieve a thorough modernization of religion through a philosophical interpretation of the revealed truths. In Polish conditions it was to be a radical break with the Sarmatian-type Catholic traditionalism, seen as the main obstacle on the way to the new regenerated Poland.

Andriej Zamojski, Soviet Schooling as Reforming Force in shtetls of Soviet Belarus in the Interwar Period

Summary: The article highlights the evolution of Soviet schooling in small towns of Belarus during the interwar period. After the Bolsheviks gained their power these multiethnic settlements with strong Jewish communities experienced the great changes. Reforms of schooling affected greatly the life of shtetls as well. The Soviet schools were widely used by the authorities as an instrument to undermine the traditional life of all small town communities and to enforce Soviet-style modernization. The Bolsheviks’ propaganda accused all supporters of religious education and attacked the teachers. Destructing all traditional religious schools of shtetl Jews (heders and others) the regime gave their children only one possibility – to attend the Soviet schools. In the period of the 1920s, the Soviet state supported the development of the national minorities’ school network (Yiddish, Polish and others). However, in the 1930s the situation was changing. In 1937 Yiddish, Polish and others schools were eliminated in spite of the will of many pupils and their parents. It was related to the zigzags of the Soviet national policy, within a massive introduction of the Russian language into all fields as well as schooling. The article is based on archival data from Belarusian, Russian and Polish archives, published data of Soviet and Party authorities and recollections of former small town residents.