The Little-Russian Language in Primary Schools in the Russian Empire in the Context of Polemics on the Native (Local) Vernacular in the Pedagogical and Political Literature (from the 1860s to the 1880s)

The question of native language ("local dialect", “mother tongue”) use in the primary school education of the South-Western part of the Russian Empire in the post-reform period is directly related to the problem of the status of the Little Russian language (dialect), as well as with the struggle against “Ukrainophiles” in the 1860s and 1870s. The article discusses the arguments of two parties: supporters of the use of Little Russian in primary schools (Ushinsky, Korf, Vodovozov, Drahomanov, and Efimenko) and their opponents (Katkov, Ivanov, Bogatinov, etc.) in the context of educational theories, problems with school affairs, and learning to read. It was the teachers who advocated the use of the mother tongue in the elementary schools of the Empire, proving that both inorodtsy and Great Russians had difficulties learning the common Russian literary language. Thus, it is important to take into account the problem of teaching the Great Russian peasant “to be Russian” - such a task (of course, formulated differently) was acutely relevant during the period of nation-building, and its implementation was directly related to education. However, polemicizing with supporters of national movements, the authorities refused to recognize it, being convinced of the “primordial” unity of the Russians as East Slavic people and their a priori “Russianness”.