The aim of the work is to reveal the transformations in the content of primary education and to determine the methodological and didactic principles of its construction during the revival of the national school in Ukraine in 1991-1996. Methodological basis of research is the source (provided the opportunity to identify and analyze different types of sources, which outlines the development of the content of primary education in selected chronological framework), historiographical (contributed to the identification of problems in the historical-pedagogical science), system (provided the consideration of the content of primary education as a system and its components) approaches and epistemological principles of historicism, objectivity, historical and logical consistency. To implement the research goal, a set of methods was used: General scientific (analysis, synthesis, comparison, systematization, generalization), historical-structural, historical-genetic, comparative-comparative. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the study identifies and systematically highlights the transformations in the content of primary education in the selected chronological framework; it is justified that its construction was based on new methodological (democratization, depoliticization, deideologization, national orientation, child-centered) and didactic (variability, humanitarization, humanization, differentiation, integration) principles. Conclusions. The leading trend during the revival of the national school was the moderni­zation of the content of primary education, which turned out to build it on new methodological and didactic principles, which led to changes in the structure and content of curricula, the introduction of new academic subjects and courses, the development of variable curricula and programs, filling the content of academic subjects with Ukrainian studies, strengthening their axiological component, the appearance of new types of textbooks (alternative, two-level).