State Policy On Scientific Research On National Minorities In Ukraine As A Factor In Realizing Their Rights In The 1920s

Abstract

This scientific study aims to determine the influence of the state policy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) regarding the research of national minorities in Ukraine on the practical implementation of their rights in the 1920s in the context of forming a totalitarian political regime. The following methods were employed: statistical, synthesis, and textual analysis of legislative acts on protecting national minority rights in Ukraine, adopted by the USSR’s state bodies in the 1920s, as well as various archival sources on the topic. Given the multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism of Ukraine, the state undertook a large-scale reform aimed at the maximum use of national minorities’ potential for creating the state apparatus and developing the economy, science, and culture of the Soviet Union, which provided for the granting of equal rights to national minorities with the Ukrainian autochthonous population. To achieve optimal results, scientific research was organized and funded, and scientific institutions were established, including museums, institutes, electives, courses on the study of languages and the history of national minorities at higher educational institutions, and archive departments. The Cabinet for the Study of National Minorities under the Ethnographic Commission of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, created on March 29, 1929, headed this work. Its chairman, Yevhen Rykhlik, developed a new scientific discipline – national minority studies. He involved leading specialists in the work, founded a scientific periodical, worked out demographic statistics, and collected unique information. After economic and political stabilization, the Soviet Union government used the results of scientific research on the national minorities in Ukraine to eliminate their national identity.