Teachers' Society of Subcarpathian Ruthenia

Teachers' Society of Subcarpathian Ruthenia (Учительское товарищество Подкарпатской Руси; Uchytelskoe tovaryshchestvo Podkarpatskoi Rusy). A teachers' organization founded in Uzhhorod in 1920. It soon developed a Russophile orientation, caused a split in the society in 1929 and the formation of the Ukrainophile Teachers' Hromada of Subcarpathian Ruthenia. The society campaigned for the introduction of Russian as the language of instruction in the schools of Subcarpathian Ruthenia and attempted to organize a broad cultural program and support for students and teachers. It published the monthly Narodnaia shkola (1921–38). Among the leading activists in the society were V. Shpenik (the first head), M. Vasylenkov, and P. Fedor. After 1929 the society declined, together with the entire Russophile movement in Transcarpathia, and most teachers joined the Teachers' Hromada of Subcarpathian Ruthenia; unlike the Hromada, however, it was not closed down following the Hungarian occupation of Carpatho-Ukraine, and it continued its activities until the end of the Second World War.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]