History of higher education in Ukraine between Sovietization, linguistic discrimination and internationalization (1890-1972)

Abstract

This article aims to reconstruct the main aspects of the development of the Ukrainian system of higher education from its birth to the 1970s. It provides an overview of the historiographical debate, covering not only higher education but also the role played by intellectuals and the history of nationalities. After an introduction describing the history of higher education in the Ukrainian territories during the modern period, the article is divided into four parts analyzing, respectively, the development of higher education from its start in the modern University of Bologna era to the last decades of the nineteenth century, before Ukraine’s existence as a nation-state; the reform of higher education after the October Revolution until World War II, with reference to the Soviet system; the impact of World War II on these reforms; and the role of UNESCO’s European Centre for Higher Education (from 1972). This makes it possible to grasp the salient stages of a development that thanks to the succession of governments was very complex and was also marked by internal tensions and nationalist overtones.