Conference Agenda

The Roma ethnic group has been living on the territory of Lithuania since about the 16th-17th centuries (Mróz, 2015), so they cannot be considered newcomers. On the contrary, they are historical neighbours of Lithuanians, with whom Lithuania shares common history. But in spite of this, we are still faced with mutual misunderstanding and sometimes complete ignorance. As an example, cureent presentation gives a brief history of Roma[1] education in Lithuanian capital - Vilnius.

Historically, Vilnius city (where the concentration of Roma students is largest in the country (Romų platforma, n. d.)) faced a paradoxical situation: for more than 30 years, the education of Roma children was very isolated, with only a few schools educating them. This situation was influenced by the geographical location when the former nomad Roma, after becoming a very sedentary, immobile, and isolated community, were educated in the schools closest to the Roma settlement. An interesting and unique field of education for Roma children in Vilnius emerged when by collecting oral history interviews from older and younger generations of the Roma people, teachers and other participants in the field of education, as well as by analysing archival data, strategic educational documents, and visual sources, an attempt was made to distinguish the historical cross-sections that have not only influenced the elements of change in the situation of Roma education, but have also determined the reproductive situation of Roma education today. The field of education in question has been confronted with both local educational challenges and global ones that are characteristic of other European countries educating Roma children: early dropout of school, ethnic marginalisation (Alexiadou, 2019; ERRC, 2017), school absenteeism, low academic achievement, early marriage and childbirth, gender inequality (FRA, 2014, 2016; REF, 2010), etc. These schools, which had educated Roma children for more than 30 years, accumulated a wealth of experience that perfectly illustrates the interesting, localised relationship between the Roma and the others (non-Roma) (Stonkuvienė, Žemaitėlytė-Ivanavičė, 2019). Currently, when referring to the education of this ethnic group in the educational field of Vilnius, examples of both segregation and excellent inclusion, local achievements can be provided, but they are revealed only by studying the historical context.

At present, the situation is drastically changing: the Roma settlement (Kirtimų gyvenvietė) have been liquidated by government decision, almost all the families who lived there have changed their living places, and Roma children are starting to attend new to them schools. Lithuania is also introducing drastic changes to inclusive education policies and practices, which will directly affect the education of Roma children. Non-governmental organisations and day care centres have also contributed to these changes. Therefore, considering how these and other factors will affect future processes of Roma education processes in Vilnius and all over the country remains a challenge.

[1]The term Roma is used here to refer to different groups (Roma, Litovska roma, Polska roma, Ruska roma, Kalderash). It is recognised that Roma are a heterogeneous group, and there is a need to be sensitive to framings that problematise the minority (Matras, 2011).

My presentation attempts to represent a relatively unknown aspect of Cold War history, based on unique sources, which has not been analysed deeply in the history of education. The sources are interviews with children fled from Hungary to Austria between 1950 and 1954, stored in the Radio Free Europe Archive (OSA). The specific aspects of childhood memories gain highlight here, through considering possible official US goals. The result is a «(re)-ideologized childhood»: both Hungarian and US administration could only see the children through the lenses of their own political intentions. The research aims to exceed the simplifying dichotomy of resisting society vs. repressive power with these examples, showing a more complex and dynamic environment. In this situation, I am going to utilize a double, inside/outside perspective, as we can see childhood experiences from a retrospective and transformed view.

When researching everyday educational history in a totalitarian-authoritarian political system, it is difficult to find sources and narratives because of a definite state/party control over public opinion and discourses. If we see for instance the Soviet system in its «’totalizing’ environment (…) everything necessarily became political» (Johnson, 1996, 290) and even self-expression, identity making appeared in a ritualized, Party-like language using, clearly showing the overall influence of the ideology (Halfin, 2000). It is a great challenge to find sources free from the official political implications of the communist period, including personal dimension, with honest feelings and thoughts: private diaries or memories can be good options to do this (Hellbeck, 2006; Paperno, 2009). In this analysis, I am going to portray a kind of counter-ideology of Marxism-Leninism in Hungary in the 1950s, through interviews conducted with emigrant children in Austria and Germany. They fled with their families from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Their situation meant that US officials might have got insider information about the East Bloc. Usually older students were the ones delivering relevant reports on living in a communist country (Sheridan, 2016); children under 14 rarely come into a historian’s sight. I am going to focus on the memories of this age, based on the reports – two sources were over 14 at the time of interviewing, but they spoke about their previous experiences, which allowed featuring them in the study.

My main concept defined in the term of re-ideologized childhood, a typical feature of these interviews. This approach shaped by an English abstract of a Polish doctoral dissertation utilizing the Soviet idea about making a new Man (Kadikało, 2012; to the complex nature of this educating process: Kestere & González, 2021). In his summary Kadikało depicted an ideal development, which started from the early childhood, targeting children through different forms of popular culture: tales, intended values, propaganda campaigns, and content of learning, etc. An equivalent meaning to Kadikało’s ideologized childhood was the leading slogan of «struggle for hearts and minds» in the «Free World» in the bipolar 1950s (Borhi, 2016, 94-103). The reports went through different, usually unknown transformations during the interactions of the interviewer(s) and respondent(s). We cannot be sure, but we can presume that the anonymous western officials controlled these interviews. This a priori aspect and determination is a clear limitation of such analyses: after making, selecting and transcribing these narratives, an explicit counter-ideology (a re-ideologized childhood), and an anti-communist viewpoint developed by the US officials in the 1950s, on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Benedetto Croce recounts that during a lecture a student asked Labriola how he would educate a Papuan. Labriola replied that he would provisionally enslave him and then see if with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren he could teach him something.

Antonio Labriola (1843-1904) was an important Italian philosopher and educationalist. His studies marked the second Italian 19th century: he was the first recognised interpreter of Marx and Engels' thought and his works influenced thinkers such as Gentile, Gramsci and Croce.

Starting from this famous provocation on the education of the Papuan, we intend to analyse the theme of diversity by defining it within Labriola's thought.

We will not rely only on his most famous and significant writings, but we will provide examples of how this thought threaded through many of his communications and correspondences.

We will analyze the sources trying to understand in what terms the theme of 'different' is grasped in Labriola's theoretical framework and how it is linked to his ethical, political and pedagogical framework.

The problematic nature of this theme and these links was grasped by Gramsci himself when he commented on Labriola's statement on the Papuan in his quaderni dal carcere. In this case, it will be interesting to see how the theme of the 'different' is dissect in a sharper and more defined manner from the perspective of the 'spirit of the split' and the emancipative value of educational action.