Authors

Yoko Aoshima³; Hanna Bazhenova⁴; Marina Germane²; Petru Negură⁵; Olena Palko¹;  ¹ University of Basel, Switzerland;  ² University of Vienna, Austria;  ³ Hokkaido University, Japan;  ⁴ Institute of Central Europe, Poland;  ⁵ University of Regensburg/Moldova State University, Germany

Discussion

This roundtable has been organised by the BASEES Study Group for Minority History.
Education in the borderlands has long occupied a paradoxical role: while often deployed by states as a mechanism of assimilation and standardization, it has simultaneously served as a powerful tool of agency for minority communities. This roundtable focuses on educational provisions for minorities in the western imperial and Soviet borderlands, examining how (private) educational institutions, supported through national networks, the press, and religious organizations, became crucial arenas for resisting official policies of assimilation and cultivating collective identity. By highlighting the strategies of minority activists and local teachers, we explore how education functioned not only as a means of preserving and enhancing national identity, but also as a platform for community building and political mobilization. Particular attention will be given to the ways these institutions negotiated their position within state systems - sometimes accommodating, sometimes resisting - and how they developed alternative visions of belonging that challenged dominant narratives. In doing so, the panel underscores the complex interplay between education, identity, and power in the contested spaces of the borderlands, with a particular focus on the western and southern border regions of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (that of Poland, the Baltic Regions, the Western Krai, and Bessarabia).