The collection of articles tells about the history of public education (primary, secondary, higher, as well as preschool and orphanages) in the Vitebsk region in the pre-revolutionary era and during the years of the Soviet power. It is analyzed by the state of the school in the Vitebsk province by 1917, the development of education and student self-government in the pre-war years, its restoration after the Nazi occupation. For everyone interested in local history, the history of Belarus and the history of public education in tsarist Russia and the USSR.