Sergey Devyatov: “The history textbooks should be uniform”

By Vestnik Kavkaza

In late May the Ministry for Education and Science adopted a united history textbook which consists of three lines of books written by different authors for 5-9th grades, and two lines for 10-11th grades. It is expected that all Russian schools will shift to the new books in the next 2-3 years. The three lines of books are united by a common approach to Russian history; however, some historical scientists who have studied the new materials have found mistakes. They believe that the united history textbook demands serious improvement.

Soviet and Russian historian, advisor to the director of the FSO, head of the Russian history of the XX century historical department of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Sergey Devyatov, says that “for each type of teaching – secondary, higher, higher specialized, humanitarian, and higher historical – different textbooks should be used. But the general principles of the textbooks should be the same, because it is a textbook. The monographs can contain a variety of conflicting points of view. But when a student learns, at the time of receiving primary knowledge, the textbooks should be uniform.”

According to Sergey Devyatov, professors of Moscow University didn’t take part in writing the new history textbooks. But they are often applied to for an expert opinion.

Devyatov supports the idea of a united history textbook: “Now we have dozens and even hundreds of different textbooks, but the situation leads to negative results. But there is one textbook which specifically contains information of the Public Theater, which did not appear at the time of the establishment of the famous Volkovsky public theater. It is considered to be the norm for all textbooks. Children who learn history can receive low marks. They cannot answer correctly because of a book that contains its own point of view. I had to meet with a schoolteacher. By the way, the textbook was very good, except for some controversies. I mean complete abstraction. In this case, the cultural and historical aspect. I speak about this because schoolchildren are beginning to get low marks. They are taught that the Volkovsky Theater was the first. When we met, I started to be convinced. I allowed them to go into detail, a bit deeper. The first public theater was established by Peter I on Red Square. It was a public repertory, available for the people. This was the Comedy Khoromina, located on Red Square. I said: ‘‘Well, I know that it is older than the Volkov Theater.”

“There is a certain amount of basic knowledge which corresponds to reality. Because they have been scientifically tested for many centuries, not even decades, but centuries. Of course, we need to have an accurate, extremely correct and precise attitude in relation to the framing of history. I mean educational framing. A textbook is the most important part of it,” Professor Devyatov is sure.

According to him, one of the most complicated and difficult questions in historical science is the ethnic issue: “Moscow State University has to prepare good professionals, who can deal with the history of ethnic matters, especially in the Russian Federation. The fact is that since both Stalin’s and Lenin’s times huge importance was paid to one aspect only. It is an element of the national liberation movement. In my opinion, this was absolutely wrong. The version of it is very scanty and extremely wrong. But I'm afraid these are problems that we will have to face not only yesterday, and not only today. These are problems that actually need scientific understanding. I think it will take us not years, but decades.”