Eparchial Women’s Schools in Ukraine in the First Two Decades of the 20th Century: Reform vs Stagnation?

Abstract

The paper explores the history of eparchial women’s schools during the first decades of the 20th century. These institutions underwent certain changes in their educational practices during the second half of the 19th century. However, problems gradually accumulated, which led to their lagging behind other women’s secondary schools in a number of aspects. In the early 20th century, there were many initiatives to reorganize them and adapt them to the modern times. The article considers the complex process that eparchial schools went through in order to match the educational level of women’s gymnasiums. Examining the changes in the educational process that were introduced as a result of the active participation of students of theological schools in the revolutionary events of 1905–1907, the author notes the close similarity of the demands made by students of eparchial schools and seminaries, because they concerned the most basic features and functioning of the entire network of theological educational institutions. The paper analyzes the draft of the new 1915 statute of the eparchial schools and compares it with the statute of 1868. The 1915 statute was developed over several years; its articles were discussed at various meetings of the Educational Committee of the Holy Synod and a special commission set up to negotiate requirements and proposals for the reform of the eparchial women’s schools. Particular attention is paid to the articles devoted to the modernization of the educational process. The author considers the sessions of the All-Russian Congress of Teachers of Theological Institutions and the All-Russian Congress of Clergy and Laity, which took place in the spring of 1917 and discussed further ways to transform these institutions. Attention is given to the process of the gradual liquidation of the entire system of theological education after the Bolsheviks seized power. It is concluded that the eparchial women’s schools underwent a continuous process of reform during the first decades of the 20th century, but these changes did not solve all of the problems that had accumulated over their history.