The Status of the Ancient Greek Language in the “Latin Schools” in Hetmanshchyna and Sloboda Ukraine (Eighteenth – Early Nineteenth Centuries)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to establish the role and place of the ancient Greek language in the curriculum of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Pereiaslav collegiums in the 18th – early 19th centuries. The article explains the methods of teaching this language; quantitative, class and other characteristics of teachers and students; motives for learning the language by the clergy and representatives of other classes.

The methodological principles of intellectual and cultural history, history of everyday life and prosopography are used in the work (when creating a collective portrait of a language teacher). The study focuses on the identification and analysis of record keeping, on the basis of which training practices are reconstructed.

Conclusions. Interest in the ancient Greek language has always been emphasized in the Orthodox Church discourse, and it has had different manifestations at different times. The teaching of the Greek language in the Kyiv-Bratsk Collegium began in the 17th century, and the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Pereiaslav collegiums focused on this experience. In the 1730s and 1760s, the teaching of Greek in these schools acquired a systematic and disciplinary status. Such achievements were associated with the use of new European centers of Oriental studies and practices of various educational institutions (universities, Jesuit collegiums). In the last third of the 18th century, the ancient Greek language became in these “Latin schools” a full-fledged academic discipline, meeting the requirements of secular and spiritual institutions of the modern era. Addressing key issues related to the Greek language (how to teach what, to whom, at what stage of education, why) was combined with broader discussions, religious, ideological and cultural pursuits of the era. The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and collegiums have formulated their response to these challenges, successfully combining the inertia of traditions with the desire for innovation.