Date
Author
Юлия ХОМЧЕНКО; Астана; Дарья ЛУГАНСКАЯ
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Preserved copy
Translated material
One true story
Teachers and officials from the CIS countries discussed the possibility of writing a common textbook
Yesterday, at the first congress of teachers and education officials of the former Soviet republics since the founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991, which began its work in Astana, Deputy Minister of Education of Belarus Kazimir Farino proposed creating common history textbooks for all states of the Commonwealth.“We need to return to discussing this problem. History in a single textbook of the CIS countries should be presented reasonably and concisely, while the national characteristics of the republics should be reflected in it,” said Mr. Farino. In particular, according to him, the history of the Great Patriotic War should be presented “without redistributions and ideological components,” which are present in the presentation of historical events in school textbooks of some Commonwealth states.
At the same time, Mr. Farino has no doubt that the initiators of the idea of writing a single history textbook will be able to reach an agreement with all representatives of educational departments from the CIS member states.
It is noteworthy that during yesterday’s discussion of the problem of disunity in the education systems of the Commonwealth states as a whole, the idea of synchronizing historical data was supported by a representative of the new government of Ukraine. “This is a difficult, including political issue. We have common roots, a common development trend, and when political motives interfere in issues of education, in issues of history, this does not meet the interests of people, the common man and the child,” Yuri Solovyov, head of the education department of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, told Vremya Novostey. In his opinion, lessons dedicated to the 65th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, which, by agreement of the Commonwealth countries, should be held this year in secondary schools of the former Soviet republics, “this is the very sprout of general coordination of history.”
The Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Zhanseit Tuimebaev, said yesterday that historians of the Commonwealth countries should “get together, give an assessment and provide objective information.” In addition, according to Mr. Tuimebaev, we must not forget about recent history. “Citizens should know about all the changes in social and political life over the past 20 years,” the representative of Kazakhstan complained that in many CIS countries there are still no reliable textbooks and the actual modern history of independent states.
However, perhaps, Russia, which considers itself the legal successor of the USSR, is more interested in the appearance of new textbooks than others. Let us recall that last year Russian scientists analyzed 187 school history textbooks from 12 countries of the former Soviet Union and came to the conclusion that the authorities of states in the post-Soviet space, with the exception of Belarus and Armenia, give a distorted nationalistic interpretation of history.
The report, entitled “Covering the General History of Russia and the Peoples of Post-Soviet Countries in School History Textbooks of the Newly Independent States,” contains just under 400 pages and is available on the website of the National Foreign Policy Laboratory (NFLP). Summarizing their research, the authors of the report emphasize that in most post-Soviet states Russia is represented as an enemy and adheres to “a nationalistic interpretation of history based on myths about the antiquity of their people, the high cultural mission of their ancestors and the “sworn enemy.” The beginning of the Second World War “textbooks in Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine and Estonia are associated with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and call the Soviet Union the aggressor,” the authors of the report note. Speaking about the interpretation of not only the period of the Second World War, but also the general history of the former republics of the USSR, the researchers note that “with the exception of Armenia and Belarus, history textbooks of new national states bring charges against the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union for the genocide of their people.”
True, it is possible that researchers from other CIS countries would call the educational works of the authors of the Russian report themselves very biased, because it was prepared by a group led by the editors of the scandalous textbooks on modern Russian history, Alexander Filippov and Alexander Danilov. However, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, NLVP Deputy Director Alexander Filippov, assessing the prospects for the emergence of a single textbook, noted not so much the ideological contradictions of historians in the post-Soviet space as technical obstacles. “Textbooks are approved by national ministries, each country has its own programs, and school education systems in general - in Armenia, for example, today there is a twelve-year school, in Kazakhstan they study for 11 years, like ours. It literally won’t be a textbook,” he said.
However, representatives of the Commonwealth countries do not expect that interaction in the process of creating a single textbook will be easy. In particular, Zhanseit Tuimebaev predicted that the development of a new generation textbook, and moreover, designed for several states at once, would cause “heated debate.” And Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Russia Isaac Kalina told reporters that “I would be glad if teachers in the Commonwealth countries used a single methodological literature on history.”
“Let everyone have their own textbook, each country has its own accents, but the teacher’s book needs to be made common so that history teachers have a general impression of the history of our states,” says Mr. Kalina, recalling that teachers’ manuals are always broader than the textbook itself. He recalled that the unified educational space of the USSR was based both on the uniform content of textbooks and on a common methodological approach. And now, in conditions of autonomy of states, it is necessary to “synchronize the methodological approaches of teachers.”
Alexander Filippov also believes that unified books for teachers may well be written. He cites the Baltic countries as an example, where today uniform books for teachers are published. Most likely, historians from the CIS countries will also follow this path. As Alexander Chubaryan, director of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vremya Novostei, the proposal to write a unified textbook on the history of the Great Patriotic War for the countries of the former USSR was already discussed on April 9 at a meeting of the Association of Directors of Historical Institutes of the CIS Countries. According to him, the experts abandoned the idea of writing a general textbook, considering this idea too difficult to implement. But at the meeting it was decided to publish a book for teachers on the history of this period. “Countries are now working on this issue,” said Mr. Chubaryan. “By the end of the year, we will have prepared a working version of this manual.”
It is noteworthy that the forum taking place in Astana demonstrated that the desire to unify educational programs on the territory of the Commonwealth is not limited to the historical theme. At the first congress of teachers from the CIS countries, organized with the participation of the Interstate Fund for Humanitarian Cooperation (IFHC), statements about the need to coordinate all education systems were increasingly heard. For example, to develop the academic mobility of students, graduate students and teachers in the post-Soviet space, according to the executive director of the IFGS Armen Smbatyan, this year the so-called “network open university of the CIS” will begin work on the basis of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.