Contribution about the Study of Soviet Education and Pedagogy under the First Republic

In the period between the two World Wars the amount of knowledge in Czechoslovakia about Soviet education and Soviet pedagogy was substantially smaller (especially in comparison with Germany before 1932 and with Bulgaria) than the knowledge about pedagogical life in the rest of the world. Knowledge about Soviet education and Soviet pedagogy was being acquired during that period (thanks mainly to the initiative of leftist and communist teachers), within the limited possibilities, in two ways: 1. indirectly, through the intermediary of educational literature, periodicals and daily papers, lectures and exhibitions; 2. directly, by means of visits by Czech teachers and educationists to the Soviet Union. This jubilee article, using concrete and sometimes still uncompiled materials, points out what role was played by some Czechoslovak educational periodicals (and especially by the leftist cultural and political periodical ≫Tvorba≪) and the repercussions of educational visits to the Soviet Union in educational publications. The author characterizes original articles and translations of Soviet, Czech, and German authors published in ≫Tvorba≪ (e. g. Lunacharski, Protopopov, Shulgin, Krupskaya, Hoernle, and others). The Czechoslovak teachers and the Czechoslovak public formed their ideas about Soviet education and Soviet pedagogy on the basis of considerably divergent, one-sided, and often even contradictory information. The author demonstrates this also by quoting the then published reviews of publications about Soviet education. There were then no comprehensive works in book form about the development of Soviet education and pedagogy in the Czech History of Pedagogy and Education. In conclusion, the author pointed out how fruitful it is to seek connections between the internal political development in the Czechoslovak Republic and the development of its political contacts with the Soviet Union on the one hand,, and the intensity and extent of acquaintance with Soviet education and pedagogy in Czechoslovakia. It is apparent from the facts quoted in this contribution alone that there is, e. g. direct proportion between the establishment of normal diplomatic and economic relations of Czechoslovakia with the Soviet Union and the number of visits of Czechoslovak teachers to the U.S.S.R. and the repercussions of these visits in the pedagogical press.