Historical and Legal Features for the Development of Legal (Law) Education in 30-40s of the XX Century

Abstract

Historical and legal features for the development of legal (law) education in the pre-war period on the territory of modern Ukraine, as well as the state of regulatory provision of the educational process in higher educational institutions have been studied. The genesis of Ukrainian legal education has been analyzed and the state of training of legal personnel for state authorities has been characterized. Some features of the University education system and unification policy of the Soviet government have been highlighted. The disadvantages and advantages of the development of legal education in the studied period have been outlined.

It has been substantiated that on the eve of the Second World War there was the system of University legal education in Ukraine, which emerged on the basis of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa and Chernivtsi Universities. The Soviet model of higher education of the outlined period proved itself to be a system which was accompanied by repression and arbitrariness of the authorities, imposition of Marxist ideology and lawlessness in all spheres of public life, which affected the educational activity of law faculties.

There were two opposite tendencies in 30s and 40s of the XX century: on the one hand, the return to University legal education, the normative consolidation and streamlining of the educational process, the increase in the quantitative indicators of the training of lawyers for various sectors of the national economy; on the other hand, the reorganization of a number of higher educational institutions, including those which had law faculties and emerged in independent Ukraine after 1917, namely the Kyiv Ukrainian People’s University and the Ukrainian State University in Kamianets-Podilskyi, and unjustified Stalinist repression, the imposition of Marxist ideology.