Teaching Comparative

New Russian history

Last July, The Washington Post reported on the revisions of Russian history presented to teachers in Moscow. I cited that article as evidence of the revival of ideology in Russia.

Recently, The Economist reported on the same topic with some new insights. Either or both articles would be good discussion starters or beginnings of case studies.


The rewriting of history

The Kremlin uses its version of the past to forge a new ideology for the present

"The decade after the collapse of communism was notable for the absence of any official ideology. Weary of grand designs, the Russian elite preferred pragmatism and enrichment. Asked about his national dream in 2004, President Vladimir Putin said that it was to make Russia competitive. But Russia's new oil-driven strength and its aspirations to be a world player have once more created a demand for something more victorious and uplifting. And as Mr Putin looks for ways to stay in power after his second presidential term expires next March, his ideological comrades are placing him in a gallery of Russia's great leaders, a quasi-tsar.

"'The attitude towards the past is the central element of any ideology,' Yury Afanasyev, a Russian liberal historian, has written in Novaya Gazeta. Indeed, in Russia arguments about history often stir greater passions than do debates about the present or future. What kind of country Russia becomes will depend in large part on what kind of history it chooses. And that is why the Kremlin has decided that it cannot afford to leave history teaching to the historians.

"Earlier this year it organised a conference for history teachers at which Mr Putin plugged a new history manual... entitled A Modern History of Russia: 1945-2006: A Manual for History Teachers. Were it not for the Kremlin's backing, it would probably be gathering dust on bookshelves... New textbooks based on it will come into circulation next year. Russian schools are still free to choose which textbook to teach. But the version of history now proposed by the Kremlin suggests that freedom may not last.

"The manual... celebrates all contributors to Russia's greatness, and denounces those responsible for the loss of empire, regardless of their politics. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is not seen as a watershed from which a new history begins, but as an unfortunate and tragic mistake that hindered Russia's progress...

"Rabid anti-Westernism is the leitmotiv of the new ideology. In return for Russia ending the cold war ('we did not lose it', the manual insists), America ... fomented colour revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, turning them into springboards for possible future attacks. 'We are talking about the failure of the course started by Peter the Great and pathetically continued by pro-Western democrats after 1988. We are talking about a new isolation of Russia.'

"How should Russia respond? The manual's answer is a new mobilisation of resources and a consolidation of power in the hands of a strong leader (no prizes for guessing who)...

"The manual's final chapter, on 'Sovereign Democracy', reflects the views of one of the Kremlin's chief ideologues, Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of the presidential administration, who invented the phrase. Mr Surkov argues that Russia needs a political system to suit its national character and that it should disregard international norms of behaviour as 'foreign pressure'..."

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Labels: politics, Russia, socialization

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:49 AM