ABSTRACT
Teachers in revolutionary Ukraine have often been imagined as paradigmatic Ukrainian nationalists. Trying to apply a universal label to teachers in the pre-1917 Russian Empire is difficult. For example, Ben Eklof cautions that we should not look to teachers as automatic agents of cultural change in the countryside. Teachers in the Ukrainian national movement arguably always thought of their duty in this manner. A leading advocate of Ukrainian-language instruction was Sofiia Rusova, a prominent educator and campaigner. The First World War reopened discussion of reform in the Russian Empire. The history of the Ukrainian revolution becomes decidedly complicated after 1917. The 1923 Soviet nationalities policy of Ukrainization was premised on the idea that elements of national culture advocated by the UNR Central Rada could be co-opted and transformed to serve the new proletarian state. Like the Soviets, Sofiia Rusova desired an education that was compulsory and free of dues.
