The paper covers activities of the Lviv School District
Curatorium, headed by curator Stanisław Sobiński in 1921–1926. The main changes
that took place in the education of the Polish state after the adoption of a
number of laws and regulations in 1920–1921 are traced, for instance, aimed at
developing a network of primary and secondary schools, the introduction of
compulsory primary education, training of qualified teachers, the organization
of school authorities of the second instance. Next, the internal structure,
role, and tasks of the Lviv School District Curatorium have been clarified. As
stated, during the specified period, the Curatorium tried to accurately fulfill
tasks of overcoming differences in education, organizational and programmatic
merging of schooling in interwar Halychyna with Polish, formation of Polish
national consciousness in children and youth of national minorities, in
particular, by eliminating non-Polish schools and expanding the network of
schools with the state language of instruction. Applying compulsory study of
Ukrainian and Polish languages in state Polish and Ukrainian-language primary
and secondary schools in Lviv, Stanislaviv, and Ternopil voivodships, the
Curatorium pursued several goals: to ensure understanding between the Polish
and Ukrainian populations of Halychyna at the basic level, to ease the
promotion of «higher» Polish culture among local Ukrainians; to demonstrate in
the international arena the government's commitment to national minorities.
It is stated that despite S. Sobiński's attempts to
establish relations with the Ukrainian local community, due to provocative
orders of the Curatorium, in particular, using the state language in internal
and external documentation of Polish educational institutions, prohibiting the
use of «українець», «український» and their replacement by «русин», «руський»,
«русинський», the spread of Utraquism in school, the attack on the rights of
Ukrainian teachers, etc., he did not manage to get rid of tensions in these
relations. The national issue in Halychyna, particularly in schooling, only
worsened in 1921–1926.