Postwar Sovietization of Belarus and Ukraine (on the Example of School Education)

Abstract

The Soviet state needed society to assimilate and accept the emerging culture, and an objective consequence of this in the republics was Sovietization. Sovietization is adaptation of cultural practices and processes in society in accordance with culture of the Soviet state. Its effective means in educational policy were reforms. In the first post-war years, educational reforms in Belarus and Ukraine were carried out, just as in the RSFSR, and the main specifics consisted of Russification. That process was the most important element of Sovietization in the republics’ societies after the war, especially its integrative function. Sovietization in the various societies of the union republics had begun since their entry into the USSR, and by 1941 the population of Belarus and Ukraine in general shared new political and social values — although the policy of Sovietization was not completed. After the war it was continued because of modern socio-political conditions and was objectively necessary for creating a single union state and cultural space. At the same time, educational reforms played an important role in the implementation of Sovietization policies. In the difficult post-war years in the Soviet republics, school reforms were focused not only on rebuilding the educational process and infrastructure, but also on forming Soviet thinking and behavior, training domestic internationalism, and respecting everything Russian and Soviet as synonymous categories of social and political life in the USSR.