Geneza mitu o polonizacji Wileńszczyzny w okresie sowieckim

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lenkiškos mokyklos; Lituanizacija; Mitas; Mokyklos; Polonizacija; Sovietinis režimas; Sovietmetis; Vilniaus kraštas; Švietimas; Švietimo sistema; Education; Education system; Lithuanization; Myth; Polish language schools; Polonization; Schools; Soviet times; Sowiet regime; Vilnius region.

ENSome scholars analyzing the Soviet period take certain is-sues for granted in accordance with the existing stereotypes. They do not carry out in-depth research of the problems. One of the examples is the issue of the Polonization of Vilnius Region during the Soviet period. In Vilnius and Vilnius Region, there were schools in which Polish was the medium of instruction up to 1984. The situation changed after 1948, when the officials of the Lithuanian Ministry of Education ordered the transformation of Polish schools into Lithuanian ones, explaining that the “true Poles” left the country and went to Poland. The Russian Communist Party officers objected to this decision and they chose the option, which was – in their opinion – more acceptable for the Poles: to transform Polish schools into Russian ones. The communist nomenclature decided that there had been too many Lithuanian schools. On February 20, 1950 the Central Committee of the Party in Vilnius received the document marked “top secret”, sent by the Vilnius District Party Committee. They proposed the following system of the district schools: primary schools with the Russian language as the medi-um of instruction – 124, primary schools with the Lithuanian lan-guage as the medium of instruction – 12, secondary (seven-year schools) with the Russian language as the medium of instruction – 23, secondary (seven-year schools) with the Lithuanian language as the medium of instruction – 1. There were plans to teach the Polish language as a school subject in 70 schools. The transformation of Polish schools into Lithuanian and Russian ones led to mass protests of parents. They wrote com-plaints to the authorities in Vilnius and Moscow and there were cases of withdrawing children from schools. On October 1, 1950 the Central Committee Bureau of Communist Party of Moscow ordered the re-opening of Polish schools.The organization of Polish schools began with the exaggerated zeal in Vilnius Region. The local Lithuanians started the protests, claiming that their chil-dren had limited access to Lithuanian schools. According to the statistics of the Communist Party, during the most convenient pe-riod for Polish education in Vilnius Region (the second half of the 50s), 66% of children were enrolled in Polish schools in the areas where Poles made up 74.5% of the total population. 16% of children were enrolled in Lithuanian schools, even though Lithuani-ans made up 13% of the total population. Where does the wide-spread opinion or the myth about the Polonization of Vilnius Re-gion during the Soviet period come from? The Lithuanian scholars of the newest history contribute to the myth. They selectively in-terpret the documents from the archives of the Central Committee of the former Communist Party and the KGB archive, creating the theory of the Polonization of Vilnius Region in the Soviet period. The myth of the Polonization of Vilnius Region created another one, that there are no Poles in Lithuania but just “Polonized Lith-uanians”. [From the publication]