1931 m. Lietuvos ir Latvijos mokyklų konvencija ir lietuvių mokyklų padėtis Latvijoje

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama 1931 m. sausio 24 d. pasirašyta Lietuvos ir Latvijos mokyklų konvencija, kuria šalys įsipareigojo švietimo srityje viena kitos diasporos atžvilgiu vadovautis didžiausio palankumo principu bei atsisakyti bet kokių asimiliacinės politikos apraiškų. Tyrinėjant konvenciją, dėmesys išimtinai nukreipiamas į lietuvių mokyklas Latvijoje, siekiant šių mokyklų pavyzdžiu išsiaiškinti konvencijos sudarymo ir nutraukimo aplinkybes, pasekti konvencijos vykdymo praktiką ir pabandyti atsakyti į klausimą, ką ji davė lietuvų mokykloms Latvijoje.In the beginning of the third decade of the 20th century, educational issues in Latvia were a serious problem to Lithuanian community. The main problem was the lack of Lithuanian schools in Latvian province. While solving the educational problems, the Lithuanian embassy in Latvia came to help the Lithuanian diaspora, and the embassy supported functioning Lithuanian schools and sought to create a suffi- cient network of Lithuanian schools by initiating establishment of new Lithuanian schools. Nevertheless in the Lithuanian diaspora problems of education questions were solved with great difficulty. The situation of Lithuanian schools in Latvia was tried to regulate by international agreement. On 24 January 1931, the convention on Lithuanian-Latvian schools was signed; this meant a bipartite agreement to reject any manifestations of assimilative politics in regard to each other’s ethnic minorities. The convention obliged to follow the biggest favour principle and to provide conditions for ethnic schools that the affection to the historical homeland would be developed in the young generation of the diaspora. However, the implementation of the convention was hindered from the very beginning – it was mutually reported that the other side wanted to get rid of the liability of convention implementation. On the other hand, the school convention itself was established not to show the greatest favour to the neighbouring state’s ethnic diaspora, but it was born from the conjectural need – to use this convention to ally the states in the international arena. However, the political conjuncture changed and both states did not hurry to follow the biggest favour principle. The school convention did not fulfil the hopes, and probably the disputes concerning the convention implementation became a source of constant friction between the states. In 1937 the school convention was stopped and was changed by the gentelmenly agreement to save the status quo in regard to schools