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State Motivations for Educating Non-Russians
4/19/2011 Scott McAnally

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The nationalities policy of the late Tsarist period changed dramatically with the 1917 overthrow of the monarchy and subsequent installment of the Bolshevik government. The new regime viewed the Tsars treatment and mentality towards national groups as highly oppressive and ultimately responsible for the hostile attitudes of many non-Russian groups towards the state, a feeling the Bolsheviks felt was justified. To pacify any resentment to a new Russian ruler, the Soviets invested heavily in the development and promotion of national identities through the schooling of non-Russian children. In this essay, I will provide an overview of the national education policy of both the late Tsarist and early Soviet periods. These discussions will include some of the challenges the state faced with implementing its policies such as the diversity of languages represented in the empire and the rising tide of national consciousness by the turn of the twentieth century. In the end, I argue that the motivations for state involvement in the education of national minorities shifted from an emphasis on promoting Orthodoxy and Russification during the Tsarist period to one of developing national identities and loyalty to the new system in the Soviet period.

The Late Tsarist Period Understanding the state of education in non-Russian areas during the late nineteenth century is crucial for making sense of the policy and actions that would follow it. In essence, the Russian state government did not attempt any formal control over the education of non-Russians until the waning decades of imperial administration. New education policies established by the 1864 Education Statute and 1874 School Statue marked a departure from the government's previous focus on educating elite non-Russians for administrative posts to a broader campaign for popular education. The state became increasingly concerned about the education of non-

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Russian children after the tangible benefits of universal literacy to state growth became more widely accepted.1 In order to design, implement, and evaluate the new schooling model for nonRussians, the government turned to Nikolai Ivanovich Il'minskii for his widely acclaimed methods for elementary education. Il'minskii developed a system of education that addressed the two largest factors challenging a uniform system of schooling: the diversity of languages in nonRussian communities and the pagan or Muslim faith they followed.2 In the section to follow, I will take a closer look at how these two important variables influenced the non-Russian educational policy of the late imperial era. The first major impediment to a national education policy in the Russian empire was the incredible diversity of languages. New developments in the pedagogy of education for children insisted that schooling in the child's native language significantly aided literacy efforts. However, with the territorial boundaries of the empire encompassing almost one-sixth of the Earth's landmass by the end of the nineteenth century, education reformers were well aware of the fact that their ability to provide native language education to every linguistic community would be impossible. To further complicate matters, a large number of the languages spoken by non-Russian ethnic groups had no written form of the language. This issue caused heated debates about the process of creating new written languages were none previously existed. Il'minskii was a strong proponent of creating written languages using the Russian alphabet with any added markings to accommodate for inflectional variations. This solution was beneficial for a number of reasons. By allowing children to use their native oral language, teachers did not have to dedicate the majority of their time introducing an alien literary language (Russian). Additionally,

Wayne Dowler, Classroom and Empire: The Politics of Schooling Russia's Eastern Nationalities, 1860-1917 -Queen's University Press, 2001), 6. 2 Ibid., 4. (

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exposing children to the Russian alphabet allowed for the future acquisition of the Russian language. Children who went on to learn Russian would also gain access to a large library of established literature that was largely missing in their oral native languages. The language issue also presented problems when it came to providing instructors for the schools. By the late nineteenth century, the number of non-Russian languages supported by the state effort was greatly reduced in an effort to provide more efficiency. This decision also expanded the pool of available teachers by focusing the second language acquisition of potential instructors to a more limited set. Policy required that all teachers in non-Russian schools either belong to the national group and have a good handle on the Russian language, or be ethnically Russian and able to communicate in the native language of the children.3 Even with a shorter list of officially supported non-Russian languages, the demand for teachers often exceeded the available supply. It was also difficult to find ethnically Russian teachers who were willing to move into predominantly rural non-Russian areas.4 State officials were also concerned that these emigrant teachers may lose touch with their Russian heritage and come to sympathize or even support local national movements. While the pedagogical benefits of native language instruction were well recognized, the difficulty of finding and convincing quality bilingual teachers to work in non-Russian schools was an uphill battle throughout the late imperial period. Decisions on language instruction also came with many social and political implications. While Il'minskii can certainly be viewed as a liberal advocate for the legitimacy of non-Russian schooling when compared to skeptical officials in the government, his long-term goal for the Russification of non-Russian national groups is undeniable. The Russian language was seen as

3 4

Ibid., 77. Ibid., 48-49.

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the gateway to enlightenment for non-Russian children. The fact that many non-Russian national groups possessed no literary works in their native languages allowed for Social Darwinist language theories that propped the Russian language above 'small' national languages. 5 The attitude of Russian superiority also flared up in the years leading up to the Great War. As various national groups became more conscious of their legitimacy, such as the Poles, Russian nationalism in the legislative bodies of the government called for harsher restrictions on language instruction in non-Russian schools.6 Although most Russian officials were confident in the superiority of the Russian language over minority languages, many conservative officials in the government were uneasy about the native language instruction policies proposed by Il'minskii and other reformers. Inventing written forms of smaller minority languages could allow for the dissemination of separatist ideologies. While the economic benefits of mass literacy were attractive to the state, the lack of control over the possible promotion of rival nationalisms threatened state security. The second element that made implementing a uniform approach to schooling nonRussian children was the prevalence of Islam and various pagan faiths. The majority of schools in the late nineteenth century were tied to faith based organizations. Russian schools operating in non-Russian areas were associated with the Orthodox church and their curriculum focused almost entirely on promoting Christian morals and worldviews. As the difficulties of supporting a state-led initiative for non-Russian education compounded throughout the late 1880s and 1890s, the government in 1891 placed the development and administration of all literacy schools under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church. The relationship between the church and state on matters of education was strong throughout the late imperial period, especially with Il'minskii as
5 6

Ibid., 10-11. Ibid., 19-20.

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its chief reformer. Il'minskii believed so strongly in the relationship between Orthodox and the Russian national identity that he wrote to a colleague, "The Russian ideal is in essence Orthodoxy: that is why we take our stand on Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the basic, fundamental, most salient element of Russian nationality. As soon as the non-Russian masters Orthodoxy consciously and by conviction, in heart and mind -- he is already russified."7 The importance of teaching Orthodox values and content in non-Russian schools was unquestioned by even the most liberal of Russian reformers. The Orthodox elements of Russian education, however, came in to conflict with the Muslim and pagan beliefs of many non-Russian groups. The relationship between the Russian national school and Muslim confessional school in non-Russian areas was one of competition. Both groups felt that they were competing for the hearts and minds (and national attitudes) of the region's children -- and they were. Il'minskii's biggest fear in the education of non-Russians was apostasy among recently baptised national groups. Apostasy was a common occurrence, Il'minskii believed, because of the prevalence of Muslim confessional schools operating nearby recently converted areas.8 These schools provided material benefits to their pupils that the Russian national schools could not match, such as religious books printed in native languages. This provides another example of how the power of language could heavily influence the education of national groups in a particular faith or national sentiment. The Russian government also had obvious concerns about the influence Muslim religious schools had over their students and parents, the constant fear of a pan-Islamic movement being one example. For the security of the Russian empire, it was essential for education reformers to motivate parents to send their children to Russian national schools rather than Muslim religious schools.
7 8

Ibid., 47. Ibid., 39.

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By the late nineteenth century, Russian education reformers were able to gain a valuable ally in the Muslim community. Ismail Bey Gaspirali, founder of the new method (jadid) school in Russia, promoted the notion that Islamic religious schools and the modernizing efforts of the Russian government could be compatible. He supported the use of the Cyrillic alphabet as a way for Muslim children to become exposed to new ideas that developed out of the scientific revolutions of the past century.9 While the new method of Muslim religious education presented by the jadids could have provided a good comprise to the Il'manskii method, Russian education administrators were still skeptical of any form of Islamic education. The conflict between the Orthodox faith promulgated by the Russian national school and the solidarity of Muslim national groups continued on into the twentieth century. By highlighting the two most important issues in the education policy of the late Tsarist period, it is possible to propose some of the underlying motivations of the Russian government for educating non-Russian national groups. With the effects of the enlightenment in full swing in the upper echelons of Russian administration, efforts to civilize and culturally assimilate "barbaric" national groups into the modern era were a salient motivation for the education of non-Russian children. This was especially the case for national groups influenced by Islamic cultures. It was widely accepted that Islamic culture was less enlightened than European Christian culture, but that both were on a predictable path towards modernity. Therefore, by exposing Muslim children to Western alphabets and curriculum, Russians were acting as cultural accelerators that would only serve to benefit lagging nationalities.10 The perception of shedding light on various intellectually and culturally "backward" cultures was a common characteristic of

10

Ibid., 13. Ibid., 11.

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the relationship between Russians and eastern national groups throughout the nineteenth century.11 While the intellectual justifications for educating non-Russians was highly motivated by Enlightenment principles, it cannot be emphasized enough the important role Orthodoxy played in reform efforts. Many regarded Russia's eastern territory as a religious barrier between the Christian west and the Muslim east. For the large part, this perception was well founded due to the marked increase in apostasy of national groups that converted from Orthodoxy to Islam. Another concern was the tendency of pagans to embrace Islam over Orthodoxy in cases where both religious groups were competing over their loyalty.12 The religious and political implications of a growing Muslim population in the east encouraged educational pursuits in affected areas to try and slow or reverse the trend. Developing Orthodoxy amongst non-Russians was one of the primary educational motivations for the state in the late nineteenth century. Many of the state motivations for improving education, especially the benefits of popular literacy, can also be explained using theories that attempt to outline the growth of nations. Ernest Gellner provides a convincing argument that pertains to our present discussion on mass education. When nations evolve from an agrarian society into an industrial society, a process Gellner suggests is one-way and inevitable, there is a certain set of requirements that must met before that nation will be able to support its growth. One of these requirements, Gellner argues, is the creation of a highly mobile working class that can easily change or adapt to new industries.13 While workers in the agrarian society naturally inherited the work of their parents,
11

For more on how the Enlightenment motivated Russian efforts in national areas, see Willard Sunderland, Taming the Wild Steppe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004). 12 Wayne Dowler, Classroom and Empire: The Politics of Schooling Russia's Eastern Nationalities, 1860-1917 ( -Queen's University Press, 2001), 14-15. 13 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 24.

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the industrial society requires a large labor force equipped with a broad set of intellectual skills (including literacy) in order to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economic structure. The state is charged with creating a universal, standardized, and generic educational system that will produce the types of workers industrial society requires. Literacy, therefore, is an essential step to achieving the highly modern society nations seek to develop.14 It would be, however, inappropriate to suggest that Il'minskii and other nineteenth century education reformers were aware of the strict requirements for industrialization Gellner professes he did, after all, enjoy the luxury of writing about such things retrospectively. What Gellner does provide for our discussion is the possible presence of an "invisible hand" that was essentially guiding the motivations for the state to invest in education to continue national industrial growth.

The Early Soviet Period With the fall of the Tsarist regime in 1917, the next batch of Russian administrators faced similar difficulties in schooling non-Russians. The diversity of languages was still one of the major obstacles to establishing a standardized form of education among non-Russian children. Il'minskii's efforts to provide native language education ultimately did not live up to the program's large expectations, however Russian schools did allow for a limited number of children to receive a modern education. Ironically, one of Il'minskii's major concerns over educating national groups became a reality; His schooling methods allowed for the development of national consciousness and the establishment of national intelligentsias.15 Educational reform in the early Soviet period can best be defined as a retreat from what the Bolsheviks saw as an

14 15

Ibid., 28, 86. Wayne Dowler, Classroom and Empire: The Politics of Schooling Russia's Eastern Nationalities, 1860-1917 ( -Queen's University Press, 2001), 235-236.

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imperialistic and oppressive nationalities policy in the late Tsarist era.16 By allowing for a more liberal and tolerant educational policies, the growing national intelligentsias would not develop into hostile enemies of the new Soviet state. In the following section, I will focus on several examples that display the Soviet government's efforts in developing schooling in non-Russian areas. Additionally, I will argue that the imperial motivations for educating non-Russians in the Orthodox faith and Western superiority were shifted during the Soviet era to generating attitudes of internationalism and embracing socialism. In many ways, the Soviet state was dealt the same hand of cards as the imperial government when it came to the obstacles hindering an efficient schooling system in national regions. Once again, the diversity of languages in the Soviet sphere presented a massive challenge to state efforts of educating non-Russians. It is important to note that the new Soviet leadership agreed with Il'minskii that instruction should be provided in the child's native language, but for very different reasons. Il'minskii encouraged native language instruction for the purpose of spreading Orthodoxy through translated books and other materials whereas the new Soviet leadership advocated the use of native language instruction to combat hostile nationalist attitudes against Great Russian chauvinism. Indeed, Stalin felt that preventing national groups from using their own languages for schooling would be a large reason for their deflection of Soviet socialist efforts. In a series of articles published in Prosveshcheniye in 1913, Stalin writes: A minority is discontented not because there is no national union but because it does not enjoy the right to use its native language. Permit it to use its native language and the discontent will pass of itself.

16

For more on how Lenin and Stalin viewed their future administration to be different from the Tsarist regime, see Joseph Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism: Lectures Delivered at the Sverdlov University (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), 13-22.

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A minority is discontented not because there is no artificial union but because it does not possess its own schools. Give it its own schools and all grounds for discontent will disappear. A minority is discontented not because there is no national union, but because it does not enjoy liberty of conscience (religious liberty), liberty of movement, etc. Give it these liberties and it will cease to be discontented. Thus, equal rights of nations in all forms (language, schools, etc.) is an essential element in the solution of the national question.17 18 While Soviet leaders strongly supported the continued development of national languages, how effectively would they be able to implement such an enormous task? An excellent case study of the Soviet effort to promote native language can be found in the Ukrainian SSR in the 1920s. The Soviet government recognized the developed and conscious stage of Ukrainian nationalism and acted to reverse imperial Russification efforts to prevent national sentiments from become hostile to the Soviet system. Although the majority of the Ukrainian SSR was ethnic Ukrainian, most children in the 1920s were receiving their instruction in Russian. To initialize the Ukrainization of the educational system, the Soviet Ukrainian government passed a decree calling for all primary and secondary schools to switch to teaching in Ukrainian.19 The program was ambitious from the start and would require an unprecedented supply of human and material resources. Once again, finding enough Ukrainian teachers and textbooks would be the main determiner of the decree's success. The policy of Ukrainization continued throughout the 1920s and by 1930 the program appeared on paper to be a success,

17

Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, Selected Writings and Speeches (New York: International Publishers, 1942), 81. 18 Professor Pauly: Please let me know if there is a better way to format this. 19 Matthew D. Pauly, "Tending to the "Native Word": Teachers and the Soviet Campaign for Ukrainian-Language Schooling, 1923-1930," Nationalities Papers 37 (2009): 254.

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especially in urban areas. The government was able to increase the raw number of Ukrainian schools throughout the Ukrainian SSR.20 Taking a closer look at the program's actual success in promoting the Ukrainian language in schools reveals a set of outcomes that differ from the reports received by regional inspectors. While the quantity of Ukrainian teachers certainly increased, the quality of those teachers in their Ukrainian language skills was far less decided.21 For example, there were multiple instances of teachers mixing Russian and Ukrainian into their lessons. Teachers' lack of a firm grasp on the Ukrainian language prevented children from getting a quality linguistic education in Ukrainian or Russian. Not only did this stunt the growth of children's linguistic understanding of Ukrainian, it also prevented the content from getting through to the students.22 While testing of Ukrainian teachers certainly made officials aware of their poor Ukrainian language skills, the aggressive response that would have been needed to fix the problem was never pursued. The goals of Ukrainization in education were held back by the difficulties of providing qualified Ukrainian language teachers and adequate educational resources. While the linguistic setbacks in Ukrainization played a large role in the program's failure to meet qualitative expectations, other structural and administrative decisions also contributed to the lack of success. When it came to the specific lessons and content Ukrainian children would be taught, administrators left most of the planning to individual schools and teachers. They thought that by decentralizing the role of regional planners in educating practices, teachers build a more local interpretation of schooling that children would relate to more easily.23 Some
20 21

Ibid., 268. Ibid., 270. 22 Ibid., 268. 23 Matthew D. Pauly, "Teaching place, assembling the nation: local studies in Soviet Ukrainian schools during the 1920s," History of Education 39 (2010): 84.

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members of Narkomos however warned that such a "hands off" approach would make it difficult to ensure the proper topics were being covered, but the community-based approach was seen as more representative of the overall goals of the program. The Ukrainization efforts in the 1920s suggest a number of state motivations for educating non-Russian children. The most clear of these intentions was the desire to build a strong sense of Ukrainian national identity by encouraging the learning of local studies. The ultimate goal of Ukrainization in schools was to produce a generation that would understand their role within the larger Soviet state and be able to tackle the challenges the new system would bring. The creation of a clearly defined Ukrainian SSR by national boundaries required explanation and a fundamental re-imagining of what it meant to be a Ukrainian living within the Soviet sphere.24 Teachers were encouraged to formulate their lessons around local experiences while simultaneously educating students about the broader intentions of the socialist state.25 In the end however, the great deal of autonomy given to individual schools and teachers muddled the program's ultimate goal of instilling in children a clear sense of Ukrainian national identity. A number of scholars have offered their opinions for why the Soviet state interacted with various nationalities the way they did. Gellner specifically addresses how he believes the Soviet government viewed national movements in his "Wrong Address Theory." Through this Marxist interpretation of national movements, revolutionary leaders believe that the zeal felt for national sentiments by communities was incorrectly awakened where the focus should have been on developing class-based divisions. The feeling that the national masses "got it all wrong" can be seen in Stalin's writings on the future Soviet solution of the national problem. His focus is on

24 25

Ibid., 92. Ibid., 86.

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awakening national groups to the spirit of internationalism with communism acting as the principle re-educator.26 Gellner holds that the Soviet state's desire to move communities from national recognition to class recognition was one of the biggest flaws in its nationalities policy. The developmental aspects of the Soviet's nationalities policy are also addressed in Francine Hirsch's Empire of Nationals. She describes the Bolshevik's nationalities policy as one of "state-sponsored evolutionism," allowing national groups to move along an accelerated path through the Marxist timeline.27 The Ukrainization of schools in the 1920s can be interpreted as following this logic where the Soviet state was motivated to develop a strong sense of Ukrainian identity in children so that they could then move on to the next stage of embracing the ideologies of socialism and internationalism. This point demonstrates a significant departure from the motivations of the previous Tsarist era. While Il'minskii and other reformers were focused on strengthening Orthodoxy in national groups, the Soviet reformers wanted to bolster national identities with the eventual goal of creating a united generation of Soviet supporters. At this point, I would like to bring into the conversation the thoughts of John Dewey when he visited the Soviet Union in 1928. Dewey was a well known American educator and professor who published multiple significant works in the fields of education and philosophy. His thoughts on the interactions between states and schools were transmitted around the world where they were met with praise, criticism, or something in the middle. In Russia, many education reformers pulled from Dewey's philosophy of education and his impact on early

26

Joseph Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism: Lectures Delivered at the Sverdlov University (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), 97-111. 27 Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge & the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 9.

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twentieth century schooling was significant.28 29 In the summer of 1928, Dewey was offered a visit to the USSR by the Soviet government to view the improvements in the educational system since the Revolution. Dewey wrote about his experiences in a book titled John Dewey's Impressions of Soviet Russian and the Revolutionary World: MexicoChinaTurkey, however his interpretations of the Soviet educational system need to be taken with some caution. Dewey was taken on a state-sponsored tour of some of the top schools in Leningrad and Moscow. This presents one problem, as my focus in this study is on non-Russian schools. Secondly, Dewey's impressions may have been jaded by the fact that he did not see many of the other struggling schools that recent scholarship has brought to light, a warning editor William W. Brickman makes to the reader throughout the text in his footnotes. Despite the imperfections of this primary source, Dewey's thoughts can supply some objective observations for what the Soviet state was attempting to implement on a mass scale to all of its educational institutions. Dewey mentions specifically some of the points brought up earlier in this paper about the relationship between the state and the school. He commends the Soviet's for their liberal and decentralized stance on the education of minority populations. "Soviet education has not made the mistake of confusing unity of education with uniformity: on the contrary, centralization is limited to the matter of ultimate aim and spirit, while in detail diversification is permitted, or rather encouraged."30 This description draws parallels to the Ukrainization efforts of the 1920s and the encouragement by the state to promote local studies. Dewey continues: "Each province has its own experimental school, which supplements the work of the central or federal

28

John Dewey and William W. Brickman, Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World, Mexico, China, Turkey, 1929 (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964), 16-17. 29 Note that attitudes towards Dewey and his teaching philosophy grew increasingly hostile by the Soviet government after 1930. 30 Ibid., 93.

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experimental stations, by studying local resources, materials and problems with a view to adapting school work to them. The primary principle of method officially laid down is that, in every topic, work by pupils is to begin with observation of their own environment, natural and social."31 Once again, Dewey's observations fall in line with the educational state-building efforts found in other regions. While praising some of the more liberal aspects of the Soviet education policy, Dewey was not afraid to offer some criticism. Dewey mentions at multiple junctures in his report that education, especially in the Soviet Union, does not happen exclusively at school. Because of the dramatic change in governmental leadership and ideology, all interactions between the state and the people were essentially "re-educating" what it meant to be living within the Russian sphere of influence. The "education" being presented outside of schools however was incongruent with the ideals that were being taught inside schools. The frustration of this reality for teachers is presented through a conversation Dewey had with various educators during his visit.32 Throughout the account of his visit, Dewey continuously refers to the Soviet system as an experiment. His intrigue of the school system can perhaps be best summed up in one of the closing paragraphs of his conclusion. "... I find it more instructive to regard it [the Soviet school system] as an experiment whose outcome is quite undetermined, but that is, just as an experiment, by all means the most interesting one going on upon our globethough I am quite frank to say that for selfish reasons I prefer seeing it tried in Russia rather than in my own country."33

31 32

Ibid. Ibid., 79-80. 33 Ibid., 103.

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The early Soviet period saw a massive expansion in state involvement in the education of non-Russian children. While the qualitative success of state efforts is a bone of contention within the scholarly community, the quantitative increase in schools, teachers, and pupils throughout the 1920s is generally accepted. Some statistical measurements provide evidence to the Soviet state's focused promotion of national identities through native-language instruction in schools. For example, by 1927 the number of students taught in their native languages in Ukraine, Belarus, Gerogia and Uzbekistan were all above 90 per cent. Similar numbers were achieved in several of the Autonomous Republics, such as 89.1 per cent in Kazakhstan and 95.7 per cent in the Tatar Republic.34 While the factuality of these Soviet statistics can be disputed, the Bolshevik intensions for native-language education were more actively sought out than any previous Russian administration. While the scale of the Soviet program trumped the Tsarist efforts, it was also driven by a different set of motivations. The Tsarist national education program wanted more than anything to promote Orthodoxy and eventual Russification through its Enlightenmentcharged modernizing mission. The Soviet period however was motivated to reverse the damage done by the previous regime through promoting the growth of national identities with the hope that the next generation would be loyal to the structure of the Soviet state.

Conclusion The motivations for educating non-Russians changed dramatically during the transition of power from the Tsar to the Bolsheviks. What was once an attitude founded in the Enlightenment principles of culturally modernizing backward nationalities shifted to an active campaign of promoting certain national identities in an effort to pacify any festering resentments to the new

34

Jeremy Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917-23 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 157.

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Soviet state. Both efforts by the Tsarist and Soviet state faced multiple barriers to educating children in national schools. The linguistic diversity of non-Russian groups made it difficult to find adequate human and material resources to provide a quality native-language education. Additionally, the Soviet state had to focus on making its ideological convictions into an everyday reality so that the structures taught in schools would live up to their real-life expectations. While the Soviet efforts to provide quality native-language schooling for non-Russian children varied dramatically based on local conditions and the availability of resources, the quantitative results demonstrate the states desire to distance itself from the negative associations of the Tsarist regime. While this paper ends in the 1920s, further discussion on Soviet national education policy would lead into the 1930s, a period marked by increased suspicion of national movements and their suspected subversive motivations. Looking further into the shift in education policy may draw some interesting parallels to the pre-Soviet attitudes towards national groups.

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Bibliography
Dowler, Wayne. 2001. Classroom and Empire: The Politics of Schooling Russia's Eastern Nationalities, 1860-1917 -Queen's University Press. Dewey, John, and William W. Brickman. 1964. Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World, Mexico, China, Turkey, 1929. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University. Gellner, Ernest. 2006. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hirsch, Francine. 2005. Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge & the Making of the Soviet Union. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Pauly, Matthew D. 2009. "Tending to the "Native Word": Teachers and the Soviet Campaign for Ukrainian-Language Schooling, 1923-1930." Nationalities Papers 37: 251-276. . 2010. "Teaching place, assembling the nation: local studies in Soviet Ukrainian schools during the 1920s." History of Education 39: 75-93. Smith, Jeremy. 1999. The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917-23. New York: St. Martin's Press. Stalin, Joseph. 1942. Joseph Stalin: Marxism and the National Question, Selected Writings and Speeches. New York: International Publishers. . 1965. The Foundations of Leninism: Lectures Delivered at the Sverdlov University. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. Sunderland, Willard. 2004. Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.