| Bolhrad High School | |
| City: | Bolhrad |
| Province: | Odesa Oblast |
| Country: | Ukraine |
| Coordinates: | 45.6756°N 28.6157°W |
| Founded: | 1858 |
The Georgi Sava Rakovski Bolhrad High School (Ukrainian: Болградська гімназія імені Г.С. Раковського, Bolhrads′ka himnaziya im. H.S. Rakovs′koho; Bulgarian: Болградска гимназия „Георги Сава Раковски“, Bolgradska gimnazia „Georgi Sava Rakovski“) is a gymnasium (high school) in Bolhrad, Odesa Oblast, southwestern Ukraine. Founded in 1858 at the request of Bolhrad's Bessarabian Bulgarian population, the Bolhrad Gymnasium is regarded as the oldest high school of the Bulgarian National Revival.[1] [2]
Bolgrad Glacier in Sentinel Range, Antarctica is named after the Bulgarian High School of Bolhrad.
The Russo-Turkish Wars of the late 18th and early 19th century prompted many Bulgarians to leave the Ottoman Empire and settle in the southern domains of the Russian Empire and specifically in the Governorate of Bessarabia. These Bessarabian Bulgarians, together with Gagauz people founded 43 villages in Bessarabia, as well as the cities of Bolhrad and Comrat. As early as 1832, Ukrainian Slavist Yuriy Venelin had suggested that Bolhrad become a centre of Bulgarian culture and education in the Russian Empire; however, the idea was not put into practice at the time.[1]
After the Crimean War (1853–1856), southern Bessarabia (including Bolhrad) came back under the rule of the autonomous Principality of Moldavia. In 1857, Nicolae Vogoride, a Moldavian statesman of Bulgarian origin, became Caimacam (Ottoman-appointed regent) of Moldavia. Bulgarian revolutionary Georgi Sava Rakovski, the school's modern patron, personally lobbied in front of Vogoride for the high school's opening. On 10 June 1858 in Iași, the Caimacam granted trust committee members Nikola Parushev and Panayot Grekov a charter permitting the establishment of the high school. The charter outlined the goals which the school's establishment set, as well as some basic rules. The high school was open to all colonists, so long as they were of Eastern Orthodox confession. Graduating from the Bolhrad High School would require a total of seven years of education, the first three of which were regarded as progymnasium, or junior high school. Latin, Bulgarian, Romanian[3] and Church Slavonic were part of the curriculum.[1]
The school's own edifice was completed in 1873, when Bolhrad and Moldavia had been absorbed by the larger Principality of Romania. The gymnasium was financially independent from state and church, as it relied on income from rents.[3] It had been transferred full ownership of several lakes with fishing grounds—Beleu, Cahul, Cartal, Cugurlui, Ialpug—and also owned one half of Catlabuga and one tenth of Chitai.[4] The school's first director of the Bolhrad High School was Sava Radulov of Panagyurishte. Between 1858 and 1879, 685 people enrolled at the gymnasium and 214 graduated; of these 214, 203 were ethnic Bulgarians. Notable students included Aleksandar Malinov, Angel Kanchev, Danail Nikolaev, Dimitar Agura, Dimitar Grekov, Ivan Kolev and Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan.[1] [2]
In 1879, after southern Bessarabia reverted once again to the Russian monarchy, the school gradually lost its entirely Bulgarian character. A significant part of the students, however, remained Bulgarians, and the Bulgarian language, history and geography have been part of the gymnasium's curriculum for most of its later existence,[1] including today.[3] For much of the 1910s, Gavril Bezvikonny, supported by the Bulgarian and German colonists, was the regional navigation inspector. His attempt to link the southern Bessarabian lakes with the Danube Delta through a series of canals was vetoed by the high school, which stood to lose its fishing income.[5] In 1914, the Russian authorities assigned a Bessarabian Romanian, Ștefan Ciobanu, to a teaching position at the gymnasium. After the Russian Revolution of February 1917, he involved himself in the struggle for Bessarabian autonomy, which resulted in the establishment of a Moldavian Democratic Republic on Governorate territory; at an early stage in this process, Ciobanu also represented the local Zemstvo at the Bessarabian Teachers' Congress, where he advocated for a Romanian-centered curriculum.[6]
As a result of the 1918 union process Bessarabia was included in the Kingdom of Romania (or "Greater Romania"). Among those who rejected this new arrangement was Bolhrad alumnus Pavel Chioru, who swam across the Dniester into the Soviet Union, served in the Red Army and the Cheka during the Russian Civil War, and emerged as a founding figure of the rump Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.[7] In the 1920s, the gymnasium, known as the "Bolgrad Boys' Lyceum", was touched by controversy, with allegations that its headmasters were cultivating Bulgarian nationalism and actively pushing out Romanian teachers, in connivance with the students.[8] According to an anonymous report published by Universul in July 1931, the institution was purposefully ignoring the law on ethnic proportionality, giving preference to staff who had graduated from the Sofia University, and recruiting some 80% of its scholarship students from among the ethnic minorities.[9]
During this second Romanian interval, Vladimir Cavarnali, a poet and Romanian loyalist of mixed Bulgarian and Gagauz heritage,[10] was both an alumnus (1928) and professor (1933–1940).[11] Around 1930, when Romanian Bessarabia was dominated by the National Peasants' Party, the trustees included H. Hristoforov and Boris Kamburov, who were members of that group.[12] The school had continued as a financially self-sufficient center of learning: in 1932, it still had a budget of 1.8 million lei, with only some 500,000 being used to house and feed its 450 boarding-house interns. In these circumstances, the Bulgarian trustees decided to donate profits toward the upkeep of primary schools in places such as Cartal, Etulia, Frecăței, Împuțita, and Vulcănești.[13] In 1935, S. Botușanu, who took over as the main trustee, reported that the Hristoforov–Kamburov administration had reduced the available funds down to 32,900 lei, accumulating debts of 2 million. He also claimed that National Peasantist regime had allowed them to make illegal use of the fishing grounds.[12] The Romanian Ministry of Education was by then persuaded that the lyceum was earning too much money from its rents, and opted to sue over the issue. Botușanu endorsed this move from within the trustees' council, which resulted in tensions surrounding his reelection in January 1935; that event also witnessed additional tensions between the Bulgarians and other communities, with representatives of the latter issuing a public letter of protest.[12]
Bolhrad remained Romanian-ruled until the Soviet invasion in June 1940. In early 1937, during the final stages of Greater Romania, the lyceum was officially renamed after the Romanian King, Carol II (Liceul de băieți Carol al II-lea). The local students, assisted by teacher Gheorghe Bujoreanu, were putting out a Romanian-language magazine called Familia Noastră ("Our Family");[14] it was later edited by Cavarnali.[11] In 1938–1940, Carol suspended democracy in favor of a single-party regime, centered on the National Renaissance Front—whose youth movement was called Straja Țării. The lyceum was integrated within this trend: in August 1939, Straja organized a regional training camp at Volcioc. Fifteen teachers who were advanced to mid-level executive positions in the regional Straja; most of them were Bolhrad lyceum cadres, sent in by the trustees.[15]