Mykhailo Drahomanov Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute

Brief historical account and significance

The Mykhailo Drahomanov Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute was an important centre for training Ukrainian teachers in interwar Czechoslovakia. Its history is particularly suited to a cultural atlas: at the opening on 7 July 1923, Ukrainian figures emphasised their ability to build national education on free Czechoslovak soil. Czechoslovakia’s support transformed Prague into an environment where education in Ukrainian became an institutional reality. [I01; I02]

The main distinction from a general “history of emigration” is a detailed reconstruction of an actual school: statutes, faculties, departments, teachers, student files, scholarships, library, musical education and gymnasium. The Czech Slavonic Library preserves a separate fully described archive, T-DRAH, containing 430 inventory units in 21 boxes, allowing future digital research to rest on specific documents. [I01]

Institutional profile

Foundation in 1923 and Czechoslovak support

The institute was initiated by the Ukrainian Civic Committee, an émigré organisation whose activities were already researched through Mykyta Shapoval (R0003) in wave 02. The Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine describes the ceremonial opening on 7 July 1923, when Shapoval addressed Ukrainian and Czech guests. Leonid Biletsky was the first director. This is source testimony to a joint public event, but it does not automatically justify claiming that a specific Czech government official was a formal co-founder of the institute. [I02]

Initially, the institute was conceived as an educational centre for Ukrainian teachers and émigré children. Education was to encompass pedagogical theory, Ukrainian studies, natural sciences and preparation for secondary-school work. The model combined Ukrainian as the teaching language with a Western European higher-education orientation. The Vernadskyi National Library reports gradual revision of the statutes in 1923–1925, after which the institution became an organised higher school with new leadership. [I02]

In 1925, the institute separated from the Ukrainian Civic Committee’s structure. This process should be described as a change in the legal and organisational model, rather than creating duplicate “institute before 1925” and “new institute after 1925” entries without a separate legal-entity document. [I01; I02]

Organisational structure and leadership

The Slavonic Library gives the succession of heads: Leonid Biletsky (1923–1926), Vasyl Simovych (1926–1930) and Vsevolod Harmashiv (1930–1933). The Vernadskyi National Library’s account mentions Simovych’s renewed rectoral functions in 1933, so “director” and “rector” need comparison with statute changes and Senate minutes. [I01; I02]

According to the Vernadskyi National Library’s historical survey, after the reform the programme had a four-year course and three main divisions: history and literature, mathematics and natural sciences, and music and pedagogy. It mentions 33 departments, but the structure should be assigned to a specific statutory period, rather than claiming that all operated simultaneously throughout ten years. [I02]

The curriculum covered languages, Ukrainian history, literature, social sciences, mathematics, physics, natural history, psychology, pedagogy and musical subjects. Czech and other European languages were importantly included in the programme. This exemplifies integration into a European academic model, rather than proving curricula identical to those of modern Czech universities. [I02]

Teachers and students: distinguishing numerical indicators

The teaching staff totalled 92 people; citing an encyclopedic work, the Vernadskyi National Library divides them into 80 Ukrainians and 12 foreigners. As this is a cumulative figure over the period, it cannot be labelled “92 teachers simultaneously in 1925”. Teachers mentioned include Sofiia Rusova (R0005), Stepan Siropolko (R0028), Ivan Horbachevsky (R0002), Vasyl Simovych, Dmytro Chyzhevsky, Volodymyr Sichynsky and others. Each individual needs a separate edge and position; rector status must not be assigned to everyone. [I01; I02]

The Czech catalogue mentions 178 people who attended or completed the institution and the figures 85/31 for teaching and doctoral qualifications. The Vernadskyi National Library specifies that 178 studied, 116 received a diploma, and 31 of those received a doctorate. The sum 85 + 31 = 116 may explain the grouping of diplomas, but category names require checking against diploma books. The Czech collection’s English description sometimes uses graduated for the 178 people, so this must not simply be translated as “178 graduates with diplomas”. [I01; I02]

Known student figures include Olena Teliha, Halia Mazurenko, Oleksa Stefanovych, Yurii Darahan and others. They should be added as people with studied_at status, while the exact admission year and diploma obtained require separate checking against their student files. [I01; I02]

The university library: a separate history

The institute had its own library. The Vernadskyi National Library gives the position in 1933 as 10,728 volumes, of which 7928 books were purchased and the rest received as gifts. Librarians’ and organisers’ names, including Petro Zlenko, form a separate network that should not be reduced to an anonymous holdings figure. Some publications appeared as scholarly collections, course programmes and methodological materials. [I02]

An interactive exhibition should compare library stamps, catalogues, gift lists and surviving books with their respective owners. However, a book’s current repository is not always its historical place of use: an item in the Slavonic Library’s Klementinum holdings may once have belonged to a completely different Prague institution. [I01]

The affiliated gymnasium and children’s shelter

According to the Slavonic Library’s description, a Ukrainian gymnasium emerged alongside the institute in 1925, outlived its closure and moved to Germany at the end of the Second World War. It should become a separate Organization record with an affiliated_with relationship, rather than continuing historical ID R0036 after 1933. [I01]

The same archival description distinguishes the institute from the Ukrainian children’s shelter. Sofiia Rusova played an important role in organising the shelter; its materials entered the pedagogical institute’s archival collection, but this does not make the shelter a faculty or department of the institute. This is fundamental to historical legal accuracy and the separation of budgets. [I01]

Czech-Ukrainian interaction and the end of operations

The institute operated in Czechoslovakia through the combined efforts of Ukrainian émigrés and the Czechoslovak state’s financial and administrative support. According to the official Czech archival description, the Ministry of Education decided to close the institution in 1930, and it ceased activities in 1933. The Ukrainian archival survey links liquidation to the end of funding and lack of resources. closure_decision and operations_ceased must be distinguished, rather than calling 1930 the year teaching actually stopped. [I01; I03]

The subsequent lives of teachers, graduates, the gymnasium and library collections are a separate topic. Scholarly works could appear after liquidation, but this does not prove the institute’s revival as a legal entity. [I02; I04]

Archival map: from the catalogue to a specific file

The references are given from catalogues, rather than after personal examination of all 430 archival units. The first request should confirm access rules for personal files and the possibility of publishing digital copies.