Social and political sentiments of scientific and pedagogical workers of higher school of Ukraine in the period of partial democratic changes in the late 1950

Abstract

Today, the activities of the scientific and pedagogical intelligentsia of Ukraine require in-depth study within the framework of social history, since the influence of teachers upon the young students as the country's intellectual capital is extremely important. The article states that the scientific and pedagogical intelligentsia of Ukraine actively reacted to the decisions of the XX Congress of the CPSU, which became an important stage in the condemnation of Stalinism and some democratic changes in the country. Based on archival sources about holding a closed meeting of the party activists in order to discuss N. Khrushchev's secret report, it was concluded that there are three main types of reaction to his speech: confusion, given the unclear prospects for the educational process; approval and desire to continue the decisive struggle against manifestations of the “personality cult”; expressing concern and inexpediency of disclosing information about repressions under the pretext of potential reputational losses for the country.