What constitutes patriotism?

 

By "Vestnik Kavkaza"

Last week President Vladimir Putin met with young scholars and teachers of history at the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia. The President noted that today "there are attempts to re-code societies in many countries, including the society of our country. This cannot be associated with attempts to rewrite history, changing it to meet someone's geopolitical interests." The question of comprehensive coverage of past events and their correct understanding, which historians are capable of doing, is very important in this regard.

A member of the Academy of Sciences, the dean of the History Faculty of Moscow State University Sergei Karpov, believes that history teaching plays a key role in developing patriotic feeling among today's young people: "Patriotism consists of very different and complex phenomena, starting with tactile ones by touching the soil, birch trees, one's mother's hand - and ending with deep philosophical ideas that explain what homeland and the universe are."

Sergei Karpov is convinced that three subjects raise children to be patriotic. The first is the history of their fatherland. "National history educates people, makes them love the graves of their fathers and understand the past, which ties them to their ancestors. Shaking the hand of a person, the person does not understand that he is shaking the hand of many forefathers as well," the dean of the history department of Moscow State University said.

The second subject is the native language and literature "without which there are no educated men or men who love their country," Karpov stressed.

"The third subject is the underrated geography, which is in demand. Geography is a very exact sphere with space as its foundation," Karpov said. "There can be focuses in education. There can be political science or anything you want. But they are secondary. The most prominent are the following three subjects: history, native language and literature, and geography. These three subjects should be the focus of school education. It will allow us to provide a broad patriotic education."

Talking about the development of joint projects in the field of  historical science, Sergei Karpov said that there are many projects related to the study of neighboring countries, languages, culture and the historical past. "We are currently writing the history of Belarus together with our Belarusian colleagues as our first project," the dean of the History Faculty of Moscow State University said.

He stressed the importance of the Caucasus in different periods of Russian history: "The histories of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the republics which are part of our country, are very important, they are studied in a broader context - independently at the Department of History of Neighboring Countries and at departments studying different periods in the history of Russia." Karpov said that it is very important to focus on training future historians and developing high-quality projects.