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At Kherson in 1881, through a congress of schoolmasters, and after that by the Zenistvo itself; in Elisabetgrad in 1895, at Poltava in 1900, and in several other towns, the same demands were formulated.
During the period 1905–1917 these demands became more frequent, and almost all the Zemstvos of the Ukraine made the same demands (Tchernigov, Poltava, Loubni, Zolotonosha, etc.).
(c) The National Agitation After 1905.
The Congress and the Co-operative Societies.
Although the Revolution of 1905 betrayed the hopes of the Ukrainians it brought with it certain improvements in the administration. It was possible to publish—under a severe censorship, it is true—journals, reviews, and books dealing even with scientific and political questions, which, as we have seen, were formerly forbidden.
Despite the fact there were many difficulties in the way, and in spite of the risk of confiscation by the police, the books, etc., reached the hands of the people, spreading everywhere the sparks which led to the great national conflagration. At Kiev a scientific society was created, and at the same time all sorts of Ukrainian circles and societies of Prossvita (national instruction) were opened in all the towns and in many of the villages. The police watched them strictly and closed them, but often they succeeded in reopening. At all events they fulfilled their mission, and the more the police tried to hinder this movement the more it developed. So it was during the war, when persecutions were particularly terrible (suppression of the Press in Kiev, etc.), that the national activity made so much progress.
For a long time all the more or less democratic congresses that assembled in the Ukraine pronounced themselves in favour of national demands. And the Agricultural Committees convened in 1902 and in 1903 were, in spite of all obstacles, in favour of national schools and of the wishes of the country.
