Redesigning the Past: History in Political Transitions

Abstract

Redesigning History in Contemporary Russia (Catherine Merridale) History was always an important tool in the hands of Soviet propagandists. All types of historical work were subject to state interference, from school textbooks and encyclopedias to formal historical research and the commemorative use of public space. This article traces the fate of history in Russia through glasnost and the collapse of communism and into the twenty-first century. It discusses the role that history played in current politics, and also the relationship between popular understandings of the past and the formal teaching of history in schools. It argues that history was central to the ideological ferment of the 1980s, but that it has become increasingly marginal, for economic as well as intellectual reasons, as the new Russian state consolidates its position. The argument is made that the decline of history, which some regard as a sign of Russia’s so-called normalization, allows some past injustices to endure, and also permits prejudices to survive unchallenged. Instead of history, today’s Russians — with some conspicuous exceptions — seem to prefer romantic escapism. They are exhausted by political infighting, including morally-charged debates about the recent past. It remains to be seen what price they may pay for turning away from a closer engagement with the painful memories of their grandparents. The Origins of the Two ‘World Wars’: Historical Discourse and International Politics (David Reynolds) It is now almost impossible to imagine the history of the twentieth century without the terms ‘first world war’ and ‘second world war’. Yet using the language of ‘world war’ to describe these two great conflicts was by no means axiomatic. This article on conceptual history concentrates on four principal belligerents — Britain, France, Germany and the USA. It looks first at how the war of 1914–18 was conceptualized at the time, noting the preference in France and particularly Britain for ‘the Great War’, and then examines rethinking during the 1920s and 1930s. It goes on to show how the term ‘second world war’ triumphed during and after the conflict of 1939–45 — though with important exceptions such as China, Japan and the Soviet Union. In both conflicts the leading proponents of ‘world war’ came from Germany and America, and the ultimate triumph of this concept owes much to the ideological battle between Hitler and Roosevelt in 1939–41. The article ends by suggesting that this dominant paradigm may in some respects distort our understanding of modern history. Journal of Contemporary History Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, Vol 38(1), 163–166. [0022–0094(200301)38:1;163–166;029970]