History Textbooks as Social Contract: Educational Reform, the Unified History Textbooks and Patriotism in Contemporary Russia

Abstract

This article examines uniform standardized history education in Russia. It focuses primarily on the process of designing unified national history textbooks in 2013-2017, and also examines the educational reform that followed this process, along with the role of Russian society in the formulation of the textbook’s content. The new historical-cultural criteria—and the Unified textbooks based on them—are considered as a product of social contract as it was revised and approved by the different levels of Russian society: academics, parents, teachers, and government. In essence, the new textbooks are the first joint project made by the government, academics and society in the history of the Russian state. The new history textbooks are regarded as an attempt by the state and society to link Russian history with world history; previously, each discipline was studied separately. It is also an attempt to acknowledge and accept all of Russian history as one historical process of the evolution of Russian statehood, including all successes and achievements as well as black spots and wrongdoings. Although the unified textbooks are the most prudent revision of history in contemporary Russia, however there are several improvements required to redirect textbooks from being simply a tool for the construction of patriotism in schools to also being a mechanism of development of the younger generation’s critical thinking.