Maintenance Of The Chechen-Ingush State Pedagogical Institute During The War Years

Abstract

The organizational formation of the Chechen-Ingush State Pedagogical Institute (ChISPI) (Grozny Pedagogical Institute since 1944) took place in the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War and then the restoration of the economy. ChISPI was opened only in 1938 and, not having its own educational facilities, dormitories, on the eve of the war used rented ones. Despite this, it was possible to successfully solve the problems of organizing a full-fledged educational process, maintaining and strengthening the material and technical base of the institute. ChISPI consisted of several structural subdivisions. All students and teachers of the institute had to experience the adversities of wartime. The Institute had to overcome difficulties with heating, food, which, however, did not prevent successful work and study. The leadership of ChISPI, transferred the institute property to a number of military establishments and institutions for temporary use. The material and technical base of the institute was also damaged during the move to another premise and partial evacuation in September 1942, but was largely preserved and began to improve since February 1943, when the educational building occupied by military units was returned. After a minimal renovation of the educational building, textbooks, household equipment, and a library were transported from the Petroleum Institute, and student recruitment was announced. Classes at the University were resumed from March 1, 1943. The dormitory of the Institute was renovated. Despite the prevailing difficult conditions, ChISPI retained all structural units, student and teaching staff.

Keywords: Institutebuildingspremiseswarrenovationevacuation

Introduction

During the Great Patriotic War that began on June 22, 1941, the working conditions of ChISPI changed. Allocations for public education needs were significantly reduced due to the increase in military spending of the state. If in 1941 the budget of the Pedagogical Institute (without Correspondence and Evening Departments, a Teachers' Institute and course activities) amounted to 1022 000 rubles, then in 1945 the balance was 640698 rubles. The reduction in funding was due to a decrease in administrative expenses, and a slight reduction in the payment of teaching staff and research. The Institute experienced great difficulties in household, material-and-technical support. The hardest years for ChISPI, as well as for the whole country, were 1941 and 1942. However, despite the organizational and material difficulties of the wartime, the work of the Institute was not interrupted. The ChISPI team coped creditably with the challenges of the war.

Problem Statement

Soviet and modern Russian historiography published works that explore the state and contribution of the higher education system, as well as individual universities in the Victory in the Great Patriotic War – Dzhafarov and Dzhafarov (2003), Garkin and Shirokov, (2008), Speransky (2015), Fominyh, Sorokin, Nekrylov, and Litvinov (2015), Bykovskaya and Dubinina (2017). A lot of works is devoted to the activities of individual higher educational institutions, in which various areas of their work are characterized, including the state of the material and technical base –Pryazhennikova (2009), Voroshilova and Tolmacheva (2017). The studied problem did not become the subject of special studies but found some reflection in the anniversary works devoted to ChISPI (Aliroev & Pavlov, 1985; Saidov, Magamadov, & Matagova, 2018), in the works of Matagova (2009, 2013) and several articles by contemporary authors. The lack of local archival materials complicates the research task. Today there is no work devoted to the history of ChISPI during the Great Patriotic War, which determines the relevance of the study on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Victory.

Research Questions

The subject of the research is the material and technical base of the Chechen-Ingush State Pedagogical / Teachers' Institute (Grozny Pedagogical Institute since 1944) during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945).

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to consider the changes that occurred in the material and technical base of the Chechen-Ingush State Pedagogical / Teachers' Institute (Grozny Pedagogical Institute since 1944) during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945).

It covers the seizure of educational buildings and student dormitories, the problems encountered with the provision of necessary materials (fuel, reagents, materials, scientific equipment) and with financing.

Research Methods

The methodological basis was the principles of objectivity, scientificness and historicism, implying the study of facts and phenomena in all their diversity, in the specific historical conditions of their origin and development and allowing highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of the analyzed historical events.

Findings

On the eve of Great Patriotic War in 1941, the Chechen-Ingush State Pedagogical / Teachers' Institute (ChISPI) included the Pedagogical Institute with faculties – physical and mathematical, historical, language and literature); Teachers' Institute consisting of three departments – physical and mathematical, historical, language and literature; Evening Department of Pedagogical Institute with physical and mathematical, historical faculties; Correspondence Department of Pedagogical Institute with physical, mathematical, historical, language and literature faculties; Preparatory Courses of Pedagogical Institute as a part of one group.

The number of students of all the above structural units as of January 1, 1941 was 616 people. In the first year of the war, many students voluntarily and on mobilization were called into the ranks of the The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.

As of January 1, 1942, the institute had 8 departments, 1 laboratory and 10 classrooms, and a scientific library that had existed since the beginning of classes at the institute (1938).

As of January 1, 1941, the full-time teaching and educational support staff of ChISPI was 33 and 14 people, respectively, and as of January 1, 1942, respectively, 22 and 9 people.

The material and technical base of the Chechen-Ingush State Pedagogical / Teachers' Institute was only developing before the Great Patriotic War since the ChISPI was opened only in 1938. It should be noted that its opening was planned in 1932. However, due to the lack of suitable buildings and premises in Grozny, the opening of the Pedagogical University in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was postponed. The leadership of the Republic in 1936 applied to the representative office of Checheno-Ingushetia of the Presidency of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress in Moscow with a request to transfer the North Caucasus Pedagogical Institute to the disposal of Chechen-Ingushetia for the training of teachers (Dzhambulatova, 1974). In case of impossibility to transfer this Institute, it was proposed to permit its construction in Grozny, and to allocate for this purpose 5 million rubles (Dzhambulatova, 1974).

As a result, it was decided to begin construction of the building for the Pedagogical Institute planned for opening since 1932 in Grozny. Construction of the ChISPI building in Grozny began in March 1937. The completion of construction by the People's commissariat for education was appointed in the 3rd quarter of 1941. However, since 1939 the construction site was on semi-conservation due to insufficient funding and lack of materials, mainly timber. Attempts of the institute and construction leadership to draw the attention of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR to the conditions of construction and to take effective measures to improve the construction did not lead to anything. Due to the lack of basic building materials, the building was not built in 1940 (readiness on August 6–61 %). The ChISPI Directorate was proposed to ensure the implementation of the construction plan in 1941. However, the construction was not completed in 1941, and the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War led to its conservation.

Information about the material base of ChISPI educational buildings as for January 1, 1941, gives the following table 1 .

Thus, ChISPI was opened before the completion of its building and in the first years of existence was located in rented premises. By January 1, 1941, out of 63 pedagogical institutes of the country that submitted information, only three educational institutions did not have their own premises. Among them was Ivanovsky, Leningrad State Institute of Culture named after N.K. Krupskaya and Chechen-Ingush.

ChISPI also used a rented dormitory building to accommodate students until June 1941. Expenses of the Pedagogical Institute until June 1941, on the dormitory amounted to 14262 rubles, including a payment for accommodation in the dormitory from students of the Institute – 4175, from others – 430 rubles, and 9706 rubles – budget subsidies; to rent an apartment for students – 31 700 rubles. Expenses of ChISPI Correspondence Department on dormitory rent for the period of session made 10082 rubles, expenses of Preparatory Courses on apartments rent for pupils – 6854 rubles.

The table 2 above shows that in terms of the war, the number of students living in apartments rented by the Pedagogical Institute was reduced from 110 to 41 people, and the institute no longer had a dormitory in the 1941–1942 academic year. In July 1941, a rented dormitory was taken away by court order, and all students were moved to private apartments.

Thus, despite attempts to solve the problems of material and technical support of ChISPI, the problem remained unresolved: the only pedagogical university in the republic was left without its own educational building and dormitories and in such a state was caught by the war.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in connection with the opening of military hospitals, the institute had to be significantly compacted. The leadership of ChISPI, on the basis of resolutions of Defence Committee of Grozny, transferred the institute property worth 90251 rubles 39 kopecks to a number of military establishments and institutions for temporary use. Military hospital No. 3546 was given property in the amount of 76122 rubles 76 kopecks; hospital No. 1412 – in the amount of 2608 rubles 75 kopecks; hospital No. 1623 in the amount of 1762 rubles 50 kopecks; hospital number 1625 – in the amount of 1792; Molotovsky District Military Commissariat – in the amount of 2800 rubles; Military Tribunal – in the amount of 4364 rubles; 14th Operational Battalion of People's Commissariat of Internal Affaires – in the amount of 300 rubles; communication office – in the amount of 500 rubles.

The seizure of premises and property had negative consequences for the educational process and the conducting of scientific research. In general, the total area occupied by the institute was significantly reduced. Instead of seized buildings, the institute was allocated new premises that had to be adapted for lecture, laboratory and practical classes.

The institute had to provide itself with fuel. Collecting firewood and deliver it to the buildings of the institute became the concern of the whole team. Fuel costs for 1941 amounted to 24436 rubles.

During the first months of the war, the financing situation was difficult. In subsequent periods, funding has more or less stabilized.

At the Institute by the beginning of the war there were 8 classrooms: Marxism-Leninism, Pedagogy and Psychology, General Linguistics, Literature, History, Physics, Mathematics and Military Physical Training. Considering the wartime, there were almost no new acquisitions for the classrooms and their replenishment was partly due to visual aids prepared by laboratory assistants and students. As a result, the following classrooms were better provided with visual aids: Pedagogy and Psychology, Marxism-Leninism, General Linguistics, Literature, History (in sections of the ancient world history and the history of the USSR), Military and Physical Training. Significant further equipping was necessary for the following classrooms: Physics, Mathematics, History (in the sections of the Middle Ages history and the modern history of the East), classroom of Military and Physical Training (sports equipment). The provision of textbooks was not entirely prosperous at this time. Textbooks and anthologies on Russian Literature, on Western Literature, History of the USSR, General History, History of Pedagogy and foreign languages textbooks were in short supply.

The situation was particularly difficult in 1942 when Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic became a front-line area. As a result, according to the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on September 6, 1942 the evacuation of the Institute to Barnaul began. The files of the institute, documents and some property of the Physics Faculty were removed. The equipment of the Institute was located in Barnaul until the summer of 1943.

All the equipment of the institute, the library, much of the property of the Physics classroom and laboratories, all the property and visual aids of the Literary and History faculties completely remained in Grozny. At that time the Institute was located in the educational building of the Institute of Petroleum, evacuated in August to Kokand.

The educational, industrial and material base of the Institute was partially damaged during the move to another premise and partial evacuation, but was mostly preserved. The supply of materials and scientific equipment to the institute worsened during the war years.

The evacuation of ChISPI was suspended in September, and in October 1942 it was decided to resume training at the institute. The material and technical base of the University began to improve in February 1943, when the leadership of the Institute managed to achieve the return of the educational building occupied by the military units, which was in unsatisfactory condition. After a minimal renovation of the educational building, textbooks, household equipment, and a library were transported from the Petroleum Institute, and student recruitment was announced. Classes at the University were resumed only from March 1, 1943.

To normalize the educational and training work in the Pedagogical Institute, it was necessary to restore its material base, weakened during the war years. Renovation of the Institute building, furnaces, windows and doors was completed by September 15, 1943. Glazing of the entire building was started, a central heating system was installed instead to replace the furnace heating, but labor difficulties delayed the completion of the work by the beginning of the academic year. However, this was not a direct threat to the disruption of classes, since there was already the furnace equipment brought into service. After the end of the summer examination session in 1944, by efforts of students and partly teaching staff and personnel 236 cubic meters firewood was collected in the summer of 1944. The lack of its own transport created difficulties in the delivery of collected firewood to the building of the Institute.

The dormitory of the Institute was renovated. However, the dormitory did not meet all needs, as it accommodated only 39–40 people, and most nonresident students were accommodated in private apartments rented by the institute. A notable disadvantage continued to be the incomplete provision of students with blankets, sheets, pillows. The order of the People's commissariat for education dated September 7, 1943, on the provision to the Institute of a fabric for bedding in the amount of 10,000 rubles was not executed. The Institute canteen provided all students with a one-time ration meal per day. Students and teachers got vegetables collected from the farm of the institute.

Despite the current difficult conditions, ChISPI retained all the faculties and departments.

As in the first year of the war in the 1944–1945 academic year, the Grozny Pedagogical Institute (ChISPI was renamed in Grozny in 1944 after the expulsion of Chechens and Ingush, and the liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR) had three faculties – History, Language and Literature, and Physical and Mathematical with a student population of 178 people. There were two departments in the Pedagogical Institute in the first year: History and Philology, and Mathematics and Physics, but in the second year – three departments – History, Russian language and Literature, and Physical and Mathematical. In addition, there was a Correspondence Department with the same faculties. The student contingent of the Pedagogical Institute was 77 people.

In the 1944–1945 academic year, 45 teachers worked at ChISPI, 9 departments functioned – Marxism-Leninism, Pedagogy and Psychology, Foreign Languages, Military-Preservice Training, General Linguistics, Literature, History, Physics, and Mathematics.

Funds were allocated for repair and restoration work and it was planned to update and replenish scientific and educational equipment. The last military academic year Grozny Pedagogical / Pedagogical Institute met in more or less normal conditions.

Conclusion

Thus, the educational, production and material base of ChISPI, which formation began in the pre-war years, was subjected to wartime challenges. The leadership of the Institute took measures to preserve and restore the material base weakened in the first years of the war: repair of educational buildings and dormitories was completed, and a subsidiary farm was strengthened.

In conclusion, it should be noted that despite the difficulties of wartime, in Grozny Pedagogical / Teachers' Institute scientific research was conducted without interruption, which became the foundation for further post-war development.

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