Elena Godlevskaya: Russian History Doesn't Explain Why Russia is Great
While scholars dispute the epistemological foundations of the discipline known as history, educationalists are working to solve a task of national importance – how to use the past to glorify the present. In the Russia that was conquered by the Bolsheviks, this was a problem that took many years to solve, and so for a long time history was not taught in school at all – it only appeared as a subject in 1934. From that time on, Soviet people were taught that the history of any nation is the history of class struggle, the crowning glory of which was the Great October socialist revolution. Then there was continuing conflict with counter-revolution, capitalists, kulaks, wreckers, cosmopolitans, Western ideology etc. – until the last enemy, in the form of low oil prices, brought about the collapse of the USSR....
The ideology of textbooks today is different: Russia is a great country. We really do have something to be proud of. But as you read paragraph after paragraph, you start to think that you’re missing the most important thing. There are plenty of victories, no problem with that. The facts which before could only be read about in samizdat or discovered from reports by Western radio stations, which were jammed with enviable consistency, – they’re all here: the destruction of the peasantry, the repressions and the undemocratic nature of the one-party system. Names have appeared which were previously unmentionable. So what’s missing? Reasons and arguments. Russia is a great country simply because it is great.
In the early 20th century the renowned French historian Lucien Febvre complained: “…universities don’t require their students to have a critical understanding of the text. They teach them to make do with mere words – dates, names of historical figures and places…” He called this “parrot history” and called on his colleagues to “fight for history”.
History teacher Alexei Semyonovich has been fighting this battle for 31 years now.
“School textbooks have improved,” he says. “But how can there be any depth of knowledge if only two hours is devoted to studying history per week and Russian schoolchildren only study eight months a year? And that’s only if there are no frosts or flu quarantine etc! Things are presented in black or white, so a historical figure is either good or bad. In many cases what used to be hushed up, still is. The past is still mythologized. The main problem is that the textbooks don’t make the pupils or the teachers think. Alexander Nevsky made concessions to Batu Khan, the enslaver of Rus’, so why was he canonized by the Orthodox church? Why did Ivan the Terrible need book printing? Why is Joseph Stalin still so popular among the people that even though he wiped out millions of our fellow citizens, he came third in the TV history project “Name of Russia”, getting just 4,000 fewer votes than the great reformer Pyotr Stolypin?...
Suddenly the peace of the café where we are talking is disturbed by the shouts of a group of tipsy youths of about 19. They’re in the mood for a party and they’re having fun choosing songs on the jukebox. First they put on a prison song “I’m leaving all my money in the kitty, I don’t need a lot or a little…” and then “Victory Day”, a song that isn’t exactly a part of youth culture, about the victory in the Great Patriotic War. “This Victory Day smells of gunpowder, it’s a holiday with grey hairs, it’s joy with eyes full of tears. Victory Day! Victory Day! Victory Day!” What an odd symbiosis, I thought, they’ve probably made a mistake. But no, “Victory Day” came on again. “Victory Day, Victory Day” – they either sang it or demanded it should be played, bawling the words at the top of their voices. Suddenly I realised that this was no coincidence, and that the boys were singing for a reason. They had a feeling of doom and a strong desire for victory day. Victory over everyone and everything… a living illustration of our conversation....