Seeking the Light of Kno wledge

The development of culture, education, and scholarship in 16th- and 17th-century Ukraine was greatly influenced by the progressive ideas of the Renaissance, humanism, and, partly, the Reformation and Counterreformation, which were primarily introduced through the Ukrainian nobility’s contacts with the Czechs, Slovaks and, naturally, the Poles. Economic development and the existing sociopolitical conditions required well-trained professionals in various fields. No wonder then that many young Ukrainian people went abroad — to France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Holland, and other countries — for advanced studies and returned as degree-holding teachers, doctors, lawyers, and diplomats. In fact, Ukraine’s educational traditions (particularly, the practice of teaching children to read and write) underwent several stages of development in the 16th-17th centuries, which was also typical of education in Western Europe. In the 14th and 15th centuries foreigners, including travelers and envoys, frequently observed that the literacy level in Ukraine was very high in contrast to other countries. This state of affairs was linked to the fact that small churches as well as the Kyivan Cave Monastery and Vydubychi Monastery and, later, other monasteries served as cultural and educational centers for many centuries.

Scholars single out at least five groups of schools in 15th-17th-century Ukraine. Although those schools essentially differed in their ideological leanings, their traditions of enlightenment were basically the same. This explains the existence of brotherhood and regimental schools, monastery and church schools (parish schools), Protestant (Calvinist, Lutheran, and Arian) schools, Catholic Jesuit schools, and schools of other national minorities residing in Ukraine, such as the Armenians, Greeks, Jews, etc. Little wonder that, given this plethora of schools in the 15th century, the children of every stratum of the population had ample opportunity to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, and to sing church songs. The children of noblemen could study at home with specially hired teachers (dydaskaly), who quite often were foreigners and graduates of Western European universities.

The overwhelming majority of Ukraine’s educational centers were funded by donations from feudal lords and wealthy landowners (the princes of Ostrih, Andriy Kurbsky, Halshka Hulevychivna, Petro Mohyla, et al.) as well as from Cossacks, churches, and monasteries. Where Cossack contributions to education are concerned, it is important to recall Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, who together with his Cossacks, joined the Kyiv Brotherhood, thus offering considerable financial support to this cultural and educational center. Often graduates of the Lviv, Ostrih, and Kyiv brotherhood schools (who made a career for themselves in the Zaporozhian Sich as captains, colonels, and even hetmans) tried whenever possible to provide financial assistance to young people eager to obtain an education. Educated staff was required everywhere — to do paperwork, conduct diplomatic correspondence, and translate from Polish, Latin, and other languages.

UKRAINIAN STUDENTS ABROAD

Throughout the 15th-18th centuries, approximately 5,000 people from Ukraine, Belarus, and some from Russia went abroad to study. As early as the 15th century the names of students and masters from a country named Roxolania, or Ruthenia, begin appearing on lists of students at the universities of Krakow, Bologna, Padua, Prague, and other cities. In the 16th century Ukrainian names appear on the lists of schools of higher education in Germany, Switzerland, and France.

The advantages of a foreign education were obvious. Those who returned to Ukraine were well-educated young people, who had rosy prospects thanks to their good command of foreign languages. The only trouble was that a number of graduates became Polonized and refused to return to Ukraine (an analogy to the current situation?). Those who did return, however, became trailblazers in Ukrainian education. Among the alumni of Krakow University were Yuriy Drohobych (Kotermakk), Pavlo Rusyn, Stanislav Orikhovsky-Roksolan, Ivan Turobinsko-Rutenets, Hryhoriy Chui-Rusyna, Heorhiy Tychyna, Ipatiy Potiy, Kasiyan Sakovych, and Petro Mohyla.

BROTHERHOOD SCHOOLS IN THE UKRAINIAN LANDS

As civic organizations, brotherhoods, whose goal was to protect the socioeconomic, and later religious, interests of the nobility, burgers, and peasantry, began to emerge in the 15th century. Brotherhoods served as the basis for founding schools in which children of different social origins could study. As the basis of their educational principles, the “brothers” followed the example of Western European states.

The Lviv Dormition Brotherhood, founded in 1544 (the first brotherhood in Lviv was established in 1439), was the largest in terms of size and enrolment. In 1589 the Dormition Brotherhood was granted stauropygial status, which meant that it was free of the bishop’s jurisdiction. One of the Lviv Brotherhood’s greatest achievements was the famous statute of the brotherhood school, Poriadok shkilnyi (“School Order”), adopted in 1586. The goal of the Lviv Brotherhood school, like a number of later ones, was to promote in every possible way the spiritual life of the western Ukrainian lands and to wage a struggle against national oppression and the Jesuit stranglehold.

In the last quarter of the 16th century urban brotherhoods emerged in Rohatyn, Krasnostav (1589), and Lublin (1594), as well as in Sudova Vyshnia, Sanok, Drohobych, Sambir, Peremyshl, Kholm, Halych, Berezhany, Lutsk, Kam’yanets-Podilsky, Kremenets, Sharhorod, Nemyriv, Kyiv, and other cities, towns, and villages in the last quarter of the 17th century. All the brotherhoods established schools modeled after the Lviv, Kyiv, and Lutsk Brotherhood schools. Another educational center was founded in the late 1560s at Mylianovychi, the Volhynian estate of the Russian emigre Andriy Kurbsky. This educational institution, which existed for 15 years until 1583, is considered (chronologically) the first influential Orthodox cultural and educational center of Ukraine with its own comprehensive curriculum.

As Catholic expansion got underway in Right-Bank Ukraine, which was part of the Polish Kingdom at the time, Jesuit and Uniate (after the Brest Church Union of 1596) schools and colleges began to be established in Brest, Lviv, Kam’yanets-Podilsky, Peremyshl, Yaroslav, Vinnytsia, and Fastiv. Protestant schools — Lutheran, Calvinist, Socianist, and even Piarist — were established in various places, including Hoshcha, Berestechko, and Khmilnyk.

THE CONCEPT OF A TRILINGUAL SCHOOL

The idea of a trilingual school was first proposed and popularized by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536). He maintained that it was indispensable to study Hebrew, Greek, and Latin in school because otherwise it was impossible to prepare high-quality translations and publications of the Bible.

The first higher educational institutions based on Erasmus’s concept were founded in Spain (University of Alcala), Belgium (Louvain, 1517), and France (Paris, 1530).

In the Ukrainian interpretation of Erasmus’s ideas, Hebrew was replaced by Old Church Slavonic — this language, rather than Ukrainian, was chosen deliberately because the aim was to strengthen Orthodox traditions not just in the Ukrainian lands. The first educational institution to implement the concept of a trilingual school was the Ostrih Academy founded by Prince Kostiantyn-Vasyl Ostrozsky (1526-1608).

(To be concluded in the next issue)