Ukrainian Educational Institutions in Kerch a Century Ago: Hopes and Reality
Development of Ukrainian educational institutions in Kerch in the first half of the 20th century.
Serhii Konashevych. "Krymska Svitlytsia" newspaper, 2018, Issue No. 42
From Zdolbuniv, near Rivne, to Crimean Kerch is over a thousand kilometers. However, a century ago, graduation certificates from the private Zdolbuniv Girls' Gymnasium were issued to noble girls of Kerch for several years. The founder, owner, and director of this educational institution was Baroness Eleonora Oleksandrivna von Taube. The gymnasium operated in the building of the two-class city railway school built in 1905 — the very first educational institution of Zdolbuniv, founded in 1877. Currently, this building houses the main building of secondary school No. 5.
The Zdolbuniv Girls' Gymnasium was opened in 1914 — the year of the outbreak of the First World War. The western borders of the Russian Empire, near which Zdolbuniv was located, became a front-line strip. Consequently, the educational institution was evacuated in 1915 (according to other sources — indeed in 1914) to the 'calmer' Kerch. Such evacuation was total because the imperial government resorted to 'scorched earth' tactics: all territories abandoned during the war were completely cleared, all enterprises (as well as the population) were forcibly evacuated entirely, along with equipment and employees, and the infrastructure was deliberately spoiled and destroyed.
The gymnasium, 'transferred' from near Rivne to the shore of the Kerch Strait, operated throughout the war — including during and after the revolution that destroyed the Russian Empire, and with the proclamation of Crimea as an 'independent state' under the leadership of the 'Crimean Regional Government' controlled by the German occupation administration.
In the issue of the Kerch newspaper "Volna" of July 23, 1918, we find a short note of the following content: 'The temporary manager of the Ministry of Public Education, Nalbandov, turned to the Kerch City Board to ask if there were any obstacles on its part to permitting the founder of the Zdolbuniv Girls' Gymnasium, Baroness E. O. von Taube, to hold classes in the 1918–1919 school year in her gymnasium, following the example of the last three years, during the second shift in the premises of the Kerch Girls' Public Gymnasium. Undoubtedly, the City Board will in no way prevent this, since it has already been deemed necessary to leave the Zdolbuniv Gymnasium, evacuated here due to wartime circumstances, in Kerch forever.
Moreover, it is currently overcrowded with purely local female students.' However, in the next issue of "Volna," an announcement was published signed by Baroness von Taube: 'The Zdolbuniv Girls' Gymnasium, with the full rights of government gymnasiums, is looking for suitable premises for the proper conduct of classes. With proposals, please contact me personally every day at 3–5 o'clock at the address: Instytutska, No. 25 (now Krupska Street; currently, the city maternity hospital is located at this address — Author's note), apartment of M. H. Todorov. At the same time — acceptance of applications for admission to all classes of the gymnasium.' The subsequent fate of the educational institution and its owner is lost.
A note in the Kerch newspaper "Volna", 1918
Earlier, on July 16, "Volna" noted that the "Duma" (obviously the city duma) welcomed the opening of a polytechnic institute in Kerch: on the eve, this idea had raised no objections during the provincial zemstvo assembly in the commission for establishing the higher education institution. On the eve, the city was visited by Oleksandr Korobov, a graduate and employee of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, authorized by the institute to negotiate the creation of a polytechnic institute in Kerch. It was planned that this higher education institution would be located in the premises of the oldest educational institution in Kerch — the Kushnikov Institute of Noble Girls, opened back in the 1830s and named after the active state councilor Grigory Kushnikov and his eldest son Dmitry, who were its patrons (the institute ceased to exist in 1920; now school No. 1 named after Volodia Dubinin is located in its building).
However, the administration of the institute did not welcome this news very joyfully, stating that this was out of the question since the 'regional government' decided to expand the higher education institution — contrary to the prospect of its closure. Therefore, the 'minister of public education' Nalbandov advised Korobov to consider Sevastopol as a 'starting pad' — although neither any specialized commission nor the city itself raised such questions. Meanwhile, the residents of Kerch were saddened by the lost opportunity to provide the only suitable building for the higher education institution.