Bookvica

[PUPIL AND TEACHER COOPERATION ON SCHOOL BUSINESS] Ditocha kooperatyva. Praktychnyi poradnyk dlia uchyteliv vseliudnykh shkil [i.e. Children’s cooperative. A practical guide for teachers of general schools].

Voichak, Levko

Item #2326

Lviv: Drukarnia Stavropyhiiskoho Ynstytuta pid upravoiu for Vydavnytstvo „Svit Dytyny”, 1927. 54 pp., [10] pp. addendum of explanatory tables. 17 x 12,5 cm. Original publisher’s typed paper wrapper. In Ukrainian. Overall very good condition. Illegible mark in blue pencil on the title, numbers in pencil on the back cover.

Publisher and respected teacher Mykhailo Taranko (1888-1956) combined his knowledge of psychology, publishing and education to target all the audience groups involved in the teaching process. His enterprise, Nakladnia Mykhaila Taranka is responsible for this book. It was a noticeable in interwar Western Ukraine, issuing periodicals both for the teachers like Uchytel and for the youth like Svit dytyny or Moloda Ukraina. We’ve analysed one of the older catalogues of Svit Dytyny series and it appears that by late 1930’s 227 titles were published and additional 76 books mentioned as independent Taranok’s child book repertoire available in sale. Most (like this at 0.5 zl.) were priced under 1 zl, with only lengthy books such as Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe or richly illustrated editions were more expensive. The books were really made to be affordable as this price was comparable to the price of a bread loaf or a cup of coffee. A pictorial publisher’s mark on the back cover signed P.K., a monogram of prolific artist Pavlo Kovzhun (1896—1939).

Lev “Levko” Voichak (1895-19??) was a Galician teacher and a pioneer of in-school trade-oriented cooperative organizations. Remembered for his studies and articles on organization of
educational and economical processes, in this guide Voichak provides in 23 short chapters an overview on how to seed, discuss, help to organize and develop children’s cooperatives within a school. The focus is on the middle grade pupils and higher and the book is a guide for the teachers. First, the teacher should understand the importance of such an organized and structured
entrepreneurship, provide children with an initial inspiration using fairytales and success stories like info on Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. Eventually, the teacher himself ought to become just a mentor with the children, the cooperative itself fully responsible for running the trade: electing a committee, forming a managerial board, organizing stock & trade, as well as reinvesting and overall fund management. Accounting was of special importance with the supplemented bookkeeping examples provided under divisional title Zirtsi formuliariv i knyh dlia
dilovodstva shkilnoi kooperatyvy [Stars of forms and books for school cooperative records] being indeed rather advanced and handy for the future CEOs and financial managers.

The form of profit-oriented cooperatives became widely used in Eastern Ukraine from 1922, just as it adopted Soviet NEP. However, this brochure was printed in Polish Lviv, so we can assume that there was no influence of Soviet economic design. It was more likely inspired by the habitual way the Galician farmers were carrying out their sales, joining forces and working together in a
multicultural region. Moreover, in the preface Voichak states clearly that the collective organization should be done also as a preemptive attempt to “seed good seeds into the soil” to prevent it from “bad seeds”, hinting at the danger of communist ideas spreading among the youth. We know that some teachers indeed used such guides encouraging children to engage in trade.

Ukrainska knyha v Halychyni, na Bukovyni, Zakarpatti, Volyni ta v emihratsii, 1914–1939.
Bibliohrafichnyi pokazhchyk. Vol. II, pt. 2: 1926-1927, (Lviv, 2016), #6337
Bozhykovskyi, A. Na zustrich maibutnosty: Narys. Lviv, 1928

Rare. The only copy of the book in the West found at University of Manitoba. According to the aforementioned bibliography, there is only one copy in Ukraine, at Vasyl Stefanyk National Scientific Library.

Price: $450.00