The Multicultural Education in Bucovina during the Austrian Domination

In 1775, the territory of Bucovina became part of the Habsburg monarchy and it stayed like that for 143 years. All throughout this period when the Romanians lived here next to Ukrainians, Germans, Jews and other nationalities, the Austrian government took into consideration their need for culture, which resulted in the development of a multicultural teaching system. This implied that the languages of teaching in the Bukovinian schools were: Latin, Greek, Romanian, Ukrainian and, more often than not, German. Although the weighty presence of the German language in the academic institutions limited the number of young Romanians in schools, the teaching in German enabled the access of the Bukovinian students to the great European universities from Vienna, Salzburg, Lemberg, Kraków or Prague, before the founding of the Chernivtsi University (1875). Thus, beyond the negative aspects of the separation of this territory from Romania, the Austrian occupation represented an effervescent period from a cultural viewpoint, which lent a specific identity to the teaching system in Bukovina