All-Ukrainian Teachers' Association

All-Ukrainian Teachers' Association (Всеукраїнська учительська спілка; Vseukrainska uchytelska spilka or ВУС; VUS). A professional organization of teachers and activists in public education in Ukraine, formed in May 1906 in Kyiv on the eve of the Convention of the All-Russian Teachers’ Union in Finland. The founders of VUS included Borys Hrinchenko, Vasyl Domanytsky, Volodymyr Durdukivsky, Serhii Yefremov, Volodymyr Strashkevych, Volodymyr Chekhivsky, and Spyrydon Cherkasenko. The purpose of VUS was to establish a Ukrainian school system and to spread public education. As Russian internal politics became increasingly more reactionary, VUS operated illegally for some time and then ceased to function.

At the outbreak of the Revolution of 1917 VUS was re-established in Kyiv in April 1917 as a professional association of elementary school and secondary school teachers. It represented gubernia, county, and district unions of teachers. At the end of 1918 there were 78 unions, with a membership of 20,000. In August 1917 and January 1919 all-Ukrainian teachers’ conventions were held and adopted a program for organizing Ukrainian schools and extramural education. The founders and most prominent members of VUS were Sofiia Rusova (president), A. Bakalinsky, O. Omshansky, Leonid Biletsky, Avksentii Bolozovych, Oleksander Doroshkevych, S. Romaniuk, Oleksander Muzychenko, Teoktyst Sushytsky, Petro Kholodny, and Spyrydon Cherkasenko. VUS played an important role in the struggle for Ukrainian statehood, Ukrainian education, and culture. It published the journal Vil’na ukraïns’ka shkola.

Petro Polishchuk

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]