Urban Space and Higher Education: The Functioning of Kyiv’s Educational Institutions under Nazi Occupation

Abstract

The article comprehensively analyses how the network and functional orientation of Kyiv’s higher education institutions transformed under the influence of Nazi occupation policy during 1941–1943. The aim of the work is to provide a detailed description of the invaders’ educational measures, clarify the strategic goals of the occupation administration regarding the city’s intellectual potential, and reconstruct the specific features of restoring the activities of higher education institutions under the “New Order”. The scientific novelty lies in an attempt to provide a systematic analysis of the academic environment in Kyiv during the Nazi occupation. The study focuses on the organizational restructuring of higher education and the practical challenges faced by individual institutions attempting to resume their operations. It is established that despite the availability of a solid material base and qualified personnel, the Nazi administration viewed higher education exclusively from the perspective of the Third Reich’s pragmatic needs. The functioning of higher education institutions remained limited and strictly subordinated to the requirements of the occupation regime. The study proves that the legalization of medical, agricultural, veterinary, and other institutes, as well as the conservatory, was not intended to foster genuine scholarship. Instead, it aimed at exploiting human resources to serve the economic interests of the occupiers. The educational process was restricted, ideologically controlled, and focused on the rapid graduation of narrow-profile specialists necessary for the exploitation of the occupied territories and their natural resources.