Brotherhood Schools

Brotherhood Schools 

educational institutions that operated in Central and Eastern Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries; they were set up by national religious and enlightenment organizations, called brotherhoods.

The best known of the brotherhood schools were those set up in the Ukraine and in Byelorussia (both part of the Polish-Lithuanian state from the 15th to the 17th centuries). The brotherhood schools were a form of struggle for national independence and played an important role in the reunification of the Ukraine with Russia. The brotherhood schools were opened in big cities as well as in rural areas. The best known of the brotherhood schools were the L’vov (founded in 1586), Vil’nius (1585), Kiev (1615), and Lutsk (1624) schools. The work of the schools was governed by charters, the prototype of which was a charter of the L’vov School organized by the Uspenskoe Brotherhood. There were elementary, secondary, and advanced brotherhood schools; the subjects studied were Slavic, Greek, and Latin (grammar, rhetorics, and poetics); dialectics; and music. The study of the Orthodox religion held an important place. Sometimes the schools had boarding houses for orphans and indigent pupils. The rector and the teachers of the brotherhood schools were elected at the meetings of the brotherhood. In 1632 the school of the Kiev Bogoiavlenskoe Brotherhood and the higher collegium of the Kievo-Pecherskaia Laura were merged and reorganized into the Kiev Mogila Collegium (from 1701, the Kiev Mogila Academy).

REFERENCE

Medynskii, E. N. Bratskie shkoly Ukrainy i Byelorussii v XVI-XVII vv. i ikh rol’ v vossoedinenii Ukrainy s Rossiei. Moscow, 1954.