Instances of Collaboration in the Public Education in the Stary Oskol District, Kursk Region in the Days of Occupation

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УДК 94(47)"1941/1945"

Vladimir I. Kovalev, Gubkin branch of the V.G. Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University, Gubkin, Russian Federation

Instances of Collaboration in the Public Education in the Stary Oskol District, Kursk Region in the Days of Occupation

Abstact

The article studies policies of the occupation authorities in public education in the Stary Oskol district from July 2, 1942 to February 5, 1943. Having analyzed the scholarship and the archival materials on the subject, the author concludes that, for objective reasons mostly, the structures of the occupying authorities were fleshed out by people who voluntarily cooperated with the new political regime. The same is true of the public education sphere. According to the Nazi paradigm, the main task of public education was not that of studying or acquirement of knowledge, but one of discipline and obedience development. In this teachers played an important role. Pre-employment verification of loyalty was carried out by the police. Preference was given to teachers with anti-Soviet or pre-revolutionary history, but as their number was small, others also were employed. This deformation of the education system being coerced, collaboration in education was not necessarily harmful and was, in fact, an indispensable prerequisite for the continued functioning of schools and other educational institutions in the occupied territory. The majority of teachers sabotaged orders of the German-Hungarian or local administration in every possible way. This happened not just on the account of victories of the Red Army on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, but also due to mistrust of the Russian population towards occupation authorities’ policies in the public education. Wherever possible, the Soviet educational program was preserved. Most documents used in the article are being introduced into scientific use for the first time. The article significantly expands some well established in the national scholarship notions on the occupation regime, in particular the idea that the part of the population cooperating with the new political regime was a minor one. Thus, it allows reach a new level of understanding of the issue.

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Keywords

Stary Oskol, occupation regime, collaboration, education, school, teacher.

References

ERMOLOV I. Tri goda bez Stalina. Okkupatsiya: sovetskie grazhdane mezhdu natsistami i bol'shevikami. 1941 – 1944 [Three years without Stalin: Occupation: Soviet citizens between Nazis and Bolsheviks: 1941 – 1944. In Russ.]. Moscow, ZAO Tsentpoligraf publ., 2010, 383 p.

KOVALEV B.N. Natsistskaya okkupatsiya I kollaboratsionizm v Rossii. 1941 – 1944 gg. [Nazi occupation and collaboration in Russia: 1941 – 1944. In Russ.]. Moscow, Tranzitkniga publ., 2004, 544 p.

KRINKO E.F. Sovetskaya shkola v usloviyakh natsistskoi okkupatsii (1941 – 1944 gg.). [Soviet school under the Nazi occupation: 1941–1944. In Russ.]. IN: Otechestvennaya i zarubezhnaya pedagogika, 2015, no. 2, pp. 40-50.

SEMIRYAGA M. I. Kollaboratsionizm. Priroda, tipologiya I proyavleniya v gody Vtoroi mirovoi voiny. [Collaboration: Nature, typology and manifestations in World War II. In Russ.]. Moscow, ROSSPEN publ., 2000, 863 p.

About author

Kovalev Vladimir Ivanovich, PhD in History, associate professor, Gubkin branch of the V.G. Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University, Gubkin, Russian Federation, +7-908-789-30-52, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Submitted 09.02.2017, published:

KOVALEV V. I. Proyavlenie kollaboratsionizma v narodnom obrazovanii v period okkupatsii Starooskol'skogo raiona Kurskoi oblasti [Instances of collaboration in the public education in the Stary Oskol District, Kursk Region in the days of occupation. In Russ.]. IN: Vestnik arhivista / Herald of an archivist, 2017, no. 2, pp. 245-257.


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