Abstract
The purpose of the article. The source representativeness of handwritten essays by teachers of folk (primary) schools in Dobromyl district, which were written in Polish in August and October 1920 and which covered the impact of the World War І on the education and upbringing of young people, formulated the tasks of schooling in the post-war period, is revealed. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, scientificity, authorial objectivity, application of source methods, in particular the method of internal critique of sources. The scientific novelty is that a published document is introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Three main ideological and semantic components of the analyzed documents are highlighted: 1) the war negatively affected young people, as it led to a decrease in school attendance and a decline in the moral level of social relations; 2) in the conditions of the national and state revival of Poland, attention should be paid to the development of schooling, the spread of education, and the development of moral and national-patriotic education of children and youth; 3) the main tasks and responsibilities are assigned to teachers, who must work hard for the good of the fatherland and the education of youth. Conclusions. The influence of positivism, modernization tendencies, civilizational rhetoric and national-civic ideas on the thoughts and views of the authors of the documents has been revealed. The linguistic style of the essays, which are characterized by a large number of Ukrainianisms, has been characterized. It has been found that the essays are representative historical sources for clarifying the views of at least some of the Galician public school teachers on the war and its consequences, on the possibilities of overcoming negative phenomena through the development of education. The essays make it possible to find out about the level of professional knowledge (including literacy), civic consciousness, and professional experience of the teachers of that time who were destined to survive six years of almost continuous wars: the World War І, the Ukrainian-Polish War, and the Polish-Soviet War. It is emphasized that when analyzing documents, one should take into account their “official” nature, their address to representatives of school authorities, and therefore take into account the motivation of teachers who sought to show their loyalty to the new authorities, to emphatically demonstrate their own civic position.