Chapter 10.5: Education

The Soviet regime destroyed the independence era education system. In its place the all-union school system was put in place. Many former teachers and professors were fired and made enemies of the people. The study programmes of general schools and universities were changed substantially, especially when it came to humanities.

Ideological education already began in kindergarten and would deepen in schools. Already in the first grade students would learn to read using texts which thanked the great leader of the Soviet Union Lenin. In the older classes ideological education was highly apparent in subjects like civic studies, history and geography, as well as literature. The teaching of other foreign languages besides Russian was cut back. The great friendship between the Soviet nations and loyalty to the great motherland was emphasised, whilst in the meantime the supremacy of the Russian people was also promoted.



Soviet era school uniforms (these ones are for girls of three age groups), which remained compulsory for all students throughout the occupation.

At first 7 years of education were compulsory, in 1959 it was increased to 8. In the 70s high school was also made mandatory. High school education had to either be acquired at a high school or a vocational school. Near maximum academic success rate quotas were forced on schools, which had to be kept to. Separate Russian primary and high schools were created for the increasing Russian population, which did not teach Estonian as a subject.



The Haabersti Russian High School is an example of the typical copy-paste high school projects that were built during the Soviet era. Many such school buildings exist in the Soviet era neighbourhoods.



Soviet era chemistry textbook. Whilst during the 1940s and 1950s, the textbooks were mostly translated versions of Russian ones, from the 1960s onwards locally written textbooks became common in Estonia.


In 1950 the Higher Art School Pallas in Tartu was disbanded and replaced by the Estonian Higher Art Institute (ERKI, nowadays Estonian Academy of Art, EKA) in Tallinn. In addition to that the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute (former University of Technology), State Conservatory (now Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre) and Pedagogical Institute (Nowadays the University of Tallinn) were active in Tallinn. In Tartu there were the Tartu State University and the Estonian Agriculture Academy.



The main building of the Estonian Agriculture Academy in Tartu, built in 1971. Today houses the Estonian University of Life Sciences.


Instead of the course system a programme system was implemented in universities. This decreased the amount of autonomy students had. To graduate one had to finish all compulsory courses and the amount of choosable courses was near non-existent. Courses like “The history of the Communist Party of the USSR” and “Socialist economics” were mandatory subjects for all university students. The number of university students increased from about 3700 in 1945 to 23 500 in 1985.


Instead of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, which had been closed in 1940, the Scientific Academy of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic was established in 1946. Instead of an academy that would unite the scientific scene, the new academy was rather a scientific research organisation with many institutions. Although some research remained at the Tartu State University and Tallinn Polytechnic Institute, the universities were left primarily with an educational role.



The campus of the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute that was built in the early 1960s. Today serves as the main building of the Tallinn University of Technology.


From the 70s onwards the pressure of russification increased. It became mandatory to defend scientific degrees only in Russian, the amount of Russian classes at schools was increased and in many public fields of life the until then de facto dual language system was replaced by monolingual Russian.


Extracurricular activity was subject to the party as well. Students were gathered into mass youth organisations according to their age. 6-10 year olds were “October Children”, involving only mild propaganda, 10-15 year old the “Pioneers”, involving heavy propaganda and militaristic activities and 14-28 year olds the “Communist Youth”, a stepping stone before joining the communist party.



Estonian Pioneers marching in Tartu in 1962.


Albeit they were officially voluntary, in most cases children were pressured into joining. All kinds of extracurricular activities were the prerogative of those organisations, so if a child wanted to partake in those activities, they had to join. The party demanded a constant increase in the membership of these organisations and thus schools and teachers had to manipulate children into joining. Youngsters that were not part of the Communist Youth also had a hard time getting into universities and finding jobs. Thus by 1986 there were about 167 000 members in the Estonian section of the youth organisations.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

 Hello, dear reader. I have compiled the contents of this blog over the course of one year. The chapters have been written in a way that they expect one to have read the preceeding ones to get the full picture. Unless you are already versed in Estonian history I would recommend you to follow this principle. If you have any questions or anything else to say, do not hesitate to make comments.  As it was a hobby project, I went more in-depth on topics that interested me, do not hold it against me :P   I hope you will enjoy this journey :)
Read more

Chapter 0: Prelude

Image
Estonian history begins with the Livonian Crusade in the early 13th century. The written sources before that time period are few and far between, so the time before the 13th century is classified as “muinasaeg” or “ancient time”. Most of the information about that period has been gathered via archeology. The earliest possible mention of Estonia could be from 98 AD, when the Roman historian Tacitus wrote in “Germania” about a people called “Aestii”, who lived on the eastern shore of the Baltic sea. However, it is very much questionable if he really referred to ancient Estonians. Estonia was covered by a glacier up until about 11 000 years ago. It was also around that time when the first people arrived here. Over the course of the following millennia there were several other waves of migration, during which there were seismic shifts in culture, for example how pottery was decorated or how people were buried. Modern Estonians are basically a mixture of these people, genetically speaking. ...
Read more

Chapter 1: The Ancient Era

Image
Estonia was not a single united country. Instead it was divided into loads of smaller “counties”, which were something between a tribe and a country. A map showcasing the approximate size and locations of ancient counties. (Fun fact: in Finnish Estonia is called Viro (from Virumaa) and in Latvian it is called Igaunija (from Ugandi) As can be seen from the map, the counties on the border were larger than the ones which were inland. The reason behind this is theorised to be the fact that border areas were more vulnerable, so it motivated smaller counties to peacefully unite into larger ones in order to be more powerful. However, there is a possibility that eventually the counties would have united to form a single kingdom. People exclusively identified themselves with their specific county during earlier periods, but by the 13th century there were already some specific mentions of “Estonians” and “Estonia”. The chiefs of all counties had annual meetings in Raikküla, which was in Harjumaa...
Read more