Řevnice

Identification of the town and the entity’s function

The Czech name is Řevnice; the Ukrainian name is «Ржевніце», with «Ржевніци» a possible rendering; the English name is Řevnice. In the digital atlas this is a Place, rather than a separate Ukrainian school. Another entity is associated with it — R0038, the Ukrainian Gymnasium in Czechoslovakia. Publication title: “Řevnice: a Ukrainian gymnasium in a Czech town”; the historic school building is a separate potential place requiring confirmation. [RV01; RV02]

Historical context of Řevnice

The town of Řevnice near Prague suited the lives of part of the educational emigration: access to the capital combined with the possibility of finding larger and potentially more affordable premises. However, an economic explanation of the particular move must rest on school documents, rather than invented stories about climate or patrons. The National Library of the Czech Republic cites financial reasons for the move from Prague in 1927; a local historical publication mentions cramped and expensive premises on Prague’s Nerudova street. [RV01; RV02]

The town’s history should be told through the attested Ukrainian institution: not every resident belonged to the émigré community, and not every early twentieth-century building was a school. Two types of address relationship — municipality_contained_school and building_housed_school — must be separated. [RV01; RV02]

Establishment and relocations of the Ukrainian gymnasium

The Ukrainian real gymnasium’s educational environment was established in Prague in 1925; local researcher Jindřich König associates its first location with a house in the upper part of Nerudova in Malá Strana. The school moved to Řevnice soon afterwards. The National Library of the Czech Republic and the town historian date the move to 1927; Ukraine’s state archive gives “from 1928 — the town of Řevnice” in its historical description of fond 4102. This is a methodologically significant discrepancy. [RV01; RV02; RV03]

Possible explanations include the actual start of classes, completion of the move, a change of legal address or the school year, but none is recognised as fact before examining the school minutes. The website should display 1927/1928 as date_range_disputed, identifying the separate sources, rather than an arbitrarily averaged date. [RV01; RV03]

The school as an environment for children of emigration

Children of Ukrainian émigré families lived or studied in interwar Řevnice: the school provided education and its own linguistic and cultural environment. The Slavonic Library collection includes correspondence, pupil materials, photographs and organisational papers. This history should be shown as the demanding daily work of teachers, parents and pupils, rather than merely a chain of directors’ dates. [RV01]

The National Library lists the heads: Yakym Yarema (1925–1928), Ahenor Artymovych (1928–1930), Ivan Kobyzskyi (1930–1933); the director’s post remained vacant in 1933–1936, with Marko Khliur performing the duties, followed by Hryhorii Omelchenko (1936–1940) and Avhustyn Shtefan (1940–1945). The graph must not automatically declare these people residents of Řevnice throughout their terms without address information. [RV01]

Institutional support and economic constraints

The gymnasium initially existed within the environment of Ukrainian émigré organisations and received assistance. Relocation from Prague does not mean the institution was founded anew, just as the later move to Modřany in 1937 does not mean its liquidation. According to the Czech National Library, the gymnasium became organisationally independent in 1932. The school-status date of 23 May 1934 in the archival guide concerns a renaming, rather than relocation. [RV01; RV03]

Archival fond 4102 contains 45 files in two inventories, dated 1925–1943; inventory 2 includes reports for the 1925/26, 1927/28 and 1942/43 school years and materials on statutes and teaching. This is a promising documentary route towards resolving the 1927/1928 dispute. Recounting the extent of the files is not evidence that every file has already been read. [RV03; RV04]

Cultural practices, language and material heritage

The gymnasium enabled history and humanities to be studied in Ukrainian while integrating into the Czechoslovak environment. Questions about the specific Czech-language programme, school celebrations, Plast groups, libraries and dining facilities require yearbooks, photographs and school committee documents. The archive’s inventory 2 mentions instructions on teaching Czech, thus offering a primary direction for this research. [RV04]

Materials preserved in the Slavonic Library allow a digital exhibition, “A school day in Řevnice”, in which every photograph would have an archival code, date, authorship and permissions. Decorative “historical” images that could be mistaken for documents should not be created. [RV01]

Plast and young people’s everyday practices

The preliminary research register links Řevnice with the Plast movement. This is a plausible research topic, but a local branch with specific statutes, date and participants is not sufficiently confirmed to draw a separate precise marker. The established connection is at the level of the historic gymnasium; a link to R0047 (interwar Plast) is permitted only as a RESEARCH_LEAD until school albums and SUPE documents have been compared. [RV01; RV05]

This protects against a typical digital-atlas error: placing all institutions that might have coexisted in a town at one site without an attested shared office or address.

Move to Modřany and the end of an era

The gymnasium left Řevnice in 1937 and moved to Modřany; earlier decade-long formulations of 1927–1937 are approximate institutional boundaries, rather than a diary of each individual’s daily attendance. The Czech Slavonic Library describes its subsequent operation under German occupation and the evacuation of some pupils and teachers to Augsburg in April 1945. These events concern school R0038, rather than the town of Řevnice after 1937. [RV01; RV02]

The purpose of precise dating is to show the educational institution’s continuity across different towns and countries correctly, rather than dramatise a “vanished gymnasium”.

Places, photographs and documents

The first resource is the Ukrajinské reálné gymnázium v Čechách (1925–1945) collection at the Czech National Library’s Slavonic Library: personal documents, school materials, photographs and correspondence. The second is the local 2025 bulletin with König’s text and photographs from his archive. The third is TsDAVO fond 4102, 45 files, inventories 1 and 2, which may provide documentary addresses and dating. [RV01; RV02; RV03]

Mapping rule: Řevnice may be marked as a settlement; a precise PIN for the gymnasium building must not be placed before address documents, cadastral records, photographs and the house number have been checked. Ukrainian historical addresses in Prague require the same discipline.

Targeted archival research

1. Order the inventory of collection T-UGM from the Slavonic Library and establish school addresses and relocation documents for the 1927/28 school year.
2. Examine TsDAVO fond 4102, inventories 1–2, particularly the 1927–1928 school-year report and correspondence about renting premises.
3. Compare Řevnice’s municipal cadastre, postal and house numbers and a façade photograph with the historical description; distinguish old and current addresses.
4. Contact the editors of Zpravodaj Řevnic about original photographs, authorship and written usage rights.
5. Check pupil and teacher lists and their private life histories — do not publish personal data without legal grounds.
6. Verify Plast structures only through separate documents, rather than assumptions about all pupils’ activities.