Little known chart of the history of Polish publishing. School textbooks in Soviet Lithuania

Abstract

The article discusses the problem of school textbooks for the Poles living in Lithuania, published in the years 1951-1981, and developed by the Polish Language Textbooks Department in the Pedagogic Literature State Publishing of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. Due to lack of access to the records in Lithuanian archives, the author analyses this topic referring to a very few articles, press notes, lists and publishing reports, as well as the textbooks themselves. Author grouped these publications – promoting Soviet views, and deprived of a so-called national spirit – into editions translated from Russian language (textbooks in history, social studies, biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, geography, Russian language) and – less numerous – textbooks translated from Lithuanian language (in history, biology, mathematics, geography, Lithuanian language). Within 30 years of its activity the Department published in total 1467 titles of textbooks, of a general edition amounting to more than 4,1 million copies. The author states than exploration of this production (including authors, co-operators, contents, and language of publications) requires further in-depth studies.