Alena Marková (Charles University)
The aim of this paper is to analyse the first educational reform in post-Soviet Belarus during the initial years of the country’s independence (1991–1995). Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decline of intensive Russification, the need for educational reform emerged. The principal objective of this reform was to create a new model of the national school based on a distinct national identity. The reform encompassed the promotion of a distinctive national consciousness, the introduction of folk pedagogy into the educational system, and the cultivation of a distinct (Belarusian) national character. All these objectives were intended to facilitate the national revival (nacyjanaĺnaje adradžennie) of Belarus and to promote the development of the so-called national-ethnic identification of pupils and students, which was expected to provide the symbolic foundation of the post-Soviet Belarusian education system.
The analysis is based on legal and regulatory documents, archival sources, pedagogical publications, and educational concepts developed by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus in cooperation with the National Institute of Education during 1991-1995. The paper argues that, following the collapse of the Soviet socialist system, the newly formulated model of the national school – and the corresponding model of national identity – had a distinctly ethnonational character that was founded on the promotion of national consciousness, the national (Belarusian) language, national culture, national history, and folk traditions.