Historical memory: schoolchildren and students about the history of Russia

Abstract

The article raises the problem of preserving national identity in the context of hybridisation / universalisation of the values ​​of the Russian youth. In this regard, the concept of "historical memory" is applied to the data of two studies carried out in schools and five universities (both at the capital and regional level). The purpose of the article is to assess the content and vector of historical knowledge of students about their country, the attitude to this knowledge among young people and adolescents at different educational levels. The process of continuity of school and university education in the national history is considered, the points of breaks are revealed. A general assessment is given on which periods of Russian history retain the connection with the young generations of Russians, and on which ones go into the past, revealing the main narratives of historical memory. The main conclusions are as follows: 1. the continuity and general assessment among schoolchildren and university students is maintained in relation to at least two events in the Russian history - the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 and the historical figure of Peter I as the first emperor of Russia, who turned the country to the West and made a breakthrough in its modernization; 2. there is a gap in historical memory in relation to events associated with the period of Ancient Rus, a connection with the Soviet past is revealed; schoolchildren even single out the Soviet period as the most interesting and memorable; 3. there are gaps in the continuity of historical knowledge at the level of school and university education, this concerns, for example, such an event as “the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014”; 4. among schoolchildren dominates (58%) a group of students who are proud of the country history, whilst there is a group of those who are indifferent to their history or express negative assessments (8%) and have a neutral attitude to the history of Russia (34%), there is a high percentage (76%) of those who believe that there are different events in the history of Russia and it is important to remember the “dark” pages of one´s own history; 5. as a result, we see young people behaving differently depending on the age, who, for some reason, began to doubt their country and are ashamed of its past, but at the same time are ready to participate in the country's transformations.