Page 187 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

Volhynia agreed that villagers simply did not see toilets as necessary and only began to use them as a

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consequence of “administrative orders and police measures” during the 1930s.

As had been the case with land reform, the precise question of how elementary schools could

change peasant behavior fed into broader conversations about the relationship between outposts of

state authority and local citizens. The Volhynian press certainly painted a vivid and horrifying picture

of the everyday conditions in the province’s schools, which appeared to be replicating, rather than

providing the antidote to, unsanitary rural conditions. While articles in the Volhynian Review argued

that schoolhouses should strive to be more like their counterparts in western Europe, and particularly

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in Sweden, they fell short of such ideals in practice. Schools, one article from the summer of 1924

claimed, were “overwhelmingly housed in low, dark, and sometimes damp buildings. […] There are

no lockers, toilets, or places of recreation. There is a lack of ventilation, a lack of healthy water to

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drink, and a lack of washrooms and towels.” Such conditions meant that children risked contracting

infectious diseases and found it impossible to learn anything at all. In the cold autumn and winter

months, the article went on, “the atmosphere in the school becomes heavy, the mind becomes

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befuddled, [and] children are visibly nauseous and not in a position to think.” If the arrival of the

pro-Sanacja authorities in 1926 brought more concerted efforts to challenge this state of affairs,

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including a change in personnel, the problems of schooling could not be rectified overnight.
The role that the schoolhouse would play in forging rational citizens from the children’s

parents and grandparents, as well as from the children themselves, was also contested. Although they

did not always agree on the best remedies, Polish officials tended to analyze rural problems by

83 Garczyński, Wołyń naszą ojczyzną, 66.
84 “Nasza szkoła,” Przegląd Wołyński, July 16, 1924, 1-2. Other European countries faced similar shortages in the
period after the First World War. See Harp, Learning to Be Loyal, 198; Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater
Romania, 35.
85 “Nasza Szkoła,” Przegląd Wołyński, July 16, 1924, 1.
86 Ibid., 1-2.
87 “Katastrofalny stan powszechnego nauczania na Wołyniu”, Przegląd Wołyński, February 22, 1931, 5; “Stan
szkolnictwa powszechnego w pow. Lubomelskim,” Przegląd Wołyński, May 17, 1931, 3.

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