History School Textbooks Evolution In Russia

Abstract

The present article is devoted to some methodical aspects of History textbooks describing the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern periods in the History of Russia. To conduct our study, we took a historical approach to the issue. The archive records we have explored, the textbooks under analysis and the studies conducted by the research workers have helped us to examine the peculiarities of History textbooks evolution in Russia over several historical periods. The article analyzes the issues topical for the national school. The issues are connected with the role of a History textbook in the teaching process and the search of its perfect model. We attempt to demonstrate the importance of the balance between the historical information represented in textbooks and mostly aimed at the formation of the national patriotism and an independent imaginative and critical thinking of students. The authors study the influence of historical events and changing state ideology on the content of History textbooks. They highlight the achievements and problems of the process of History textbooks development. They also demonstrate the difficulties that modern History teachers face. These difficulties emerged when a new line of Russian History school textbooks appeared, which were developed on the basis of the History-cultural standard after the year of 2015. The article proves that History textbooks should not only address the challenges of the modern period and breakthrough methodical ideas of the western world, but also take into consideration the experience, peculiarities and traditions of the national education.

Keywords: Critical thinkinghistory-cultural standardhistory textbooks

Introduction

History as a school subject has always played a key role in instilling primary worldview values into the younger generation. School textbooks are in turn an integral part of an educational process being a primary source of basic and thorough knowledge of History. They act as tools of organizing educational activities in class. History books have not only been a means of teaching History but also a means, which helps the younger generation to understand their mission and role in society, as well as, realize their national identity.

Thus, the topicality of this issue and close attention to it are determined, firstly, by the specifics of historical education and its influence on the formation of the worldview and competences that promote active citizenship in the younger generation.

Secondly, the issue of development of an up-to-date History textbook is of great importance nowadays as we experience pressing problems and difficulties accompanying the process of the country modernization. The modern teacher faces a difficult task of choosing the most appropriate History textbook among a great variety of them. Many History teachers believe that most of school History textbooks are rather boring as they seem to be too abstruse. As the result, more and more school students opt to watch films and TV series to study History instead of using textbooks. The problem is that many of these films and series are based on a personal author’s deliberately fictional representation of the events. Historical facts distortion can lead to elimination of historical consciousness.

Thirdly, this study is topical as the government has adopted a new policy towards historical education, which has resulted in developing of unified Russian History textbooks. Finally, it is obvious that the age of information technologies and market-driven economy requires the use of new textbooks, methods, educational tools for teaching History.

The issue of Russian History textbooks content has always received attention of many researches such as historians, teachers, school counselors and educational supervisor.

At the beginning of the 20^th century N.P. Pokotilo, an outstanding educational supervisor, analyzed the content of prerevolutionary school textbooks in Russian history. He distinguished two main groups of textbooks: the first one with a chronological and biographical text structure and the second one with a systematic structure (as cited in Orlovskiy, 2002, p. 24).

The textbooks of the first type (the textbooks by D.I. Ilovajskiy, S.M. Solovyev, S.E. Rozhdestvenskiy, K.V. Elpatevskiy, P.N. Polevoy and others) describe the historical process in a chronological order. It is specified that political history was a major focus of such books, while social, economic and cultural life facts were relegated to the second place (Kutykova, 2016, p. 116).

The history textbooks which had a systematic text structure, such as the textbooks by I.M. Kataev and M.N. Kovalenskiy, described historic events in the following order: 1) political regime; 2) social system; 3) culture and everyday life; 4) foreign affairs and territorial changes. As the result, a great number of major historical facts were described separately, without revealing cause-and-effect relations. (Orlovskiy, 2002).

Prerevolutionary researches didn’t share the same vision in regard to the place and role of a textbook in the school historical education. When students were supposed to work in class independently studying the sources of information, the main function of a textbook was to reinforce the knowledge and revise the material. It is worth mentioning that the textbook was supposed to include the minimum of facts (Volobuev, 2014).

N.I. Kareev adopted the same approach. The author of the Middle Ages History textbook presumed that the textbook should contain only a summary of the teaching material without any specific facts or details and illustrations (as cited in Studenikin, 2016, p. 48).

K.A. Ivanov held the opposite view. In his preface to the Ancient History book, he emphasized that to meet the needs of secondary school students the author of a textbook should provide it with a detailed description of the main facts, characteristics of historic figures, ancient legends, historic jokes and illustrations (as cited in Studenikin, 2016, p. 63).

During the Soviet period historiographers developed their own classification of school textbooks, which were issued from the late 19^th century up to 1917. All textbooks were divided into officially-conservative, liberal-bourgeois and democratic. The last group included the books of Marxist ideology (Volobuev, 2014).

The traditional view of a History textbook appeared in the Soviet didactics. The attention there is payed to the subject content. The texts of the book sections are designed for learning the material by heart and its retelling.

It is quite hard to agree with the opinion of Iu.L. Troitskiy, a supporter of the innovative technologies, who believed that it was enough for school children to work with documents, methodic books and teaching aids and that it is possible to exclude a textbook from the educational process (Troickiy, 1999).

The modern approach to a textbook is based on the idea of diversity of textbooks. It implies the authorial interpretation of the historic process. However, different methodological approaches which are connected with monoconceprual and polyconceptual narration of the historic facts and events do not always allow to define basic essential and advanced level of the students’ core knowledge.

Vyazemskiy and Strelova (2003), the leading researches and guideline developers in the field of History and Social Studies, believe that a History school textbook preserves the function of the main ‘scientific and educational tool’ (p. 32). The idea of a humanistic textbook is widely supported. The main requirements to the content of such a textbook are as follows: scientific and subject-focused narration of the material, informational value of the content of a textbook with a survey of the events and phenomena described, revealing of the past, present and future facts.

The present study is based on the materials of the archival records, the published statutes and regulations, textbooks and study guides.

The chronological framework of the article includes the period from the late 19^th up to the early 21^st century. They are determined by the time when the systematic structure of the texts of History school books appeared, as well as understanding of the textbook as a tutorial.

The innovativeness of the study involves detection and analysis of the processes, which have influenced the evolution of the Russian History textbooks within quite a long period of time including the prerevolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet historical periods which are fundamentally different in their nature.

Problem Statement

The present article studies the Russian History textbooks describing the prerevolutionary, Soviet and modern periods. We have distinguished a number of learning and teaching aspects of History textbooks, which cause a lot of contradictions among educators and teachers. They became topical in course of the Russian education system reforming within the last two decades. Here we will state some of them.

What is the role of a textbook in the training process and is it still the main means of teaching History? What is the perfect model of a textbook according to the requirements of society and time to its content and structure? Should a History textbook contribute to the formation in the younger generations of only positive attitude to the previous periods in Russian History? How can patriotic ideas communicated through History textbooks be combined with students’ independent critical thinking?

Research Questions

In the late 19^th and early 20^th century our country had a state program which included a number of requirements and recommendation s for the authors of History textbooks. The Scholars’ Committee of the Russian Ministry of Education assessed the quality of textbooks. If a textbook was approved, the Committee stated whether it will be used as a ‘study guide’, ‘teaching aid’ or a ‘textbook for school and main libraries’.

In the late 19^th century the textbooks of so-called officially-conservative direction, which described historic events from the monarchy point of view, prevailed at school.

In the early 20^th century a new set of textbooks by V.O. Kliuchevskiy, S.F. Platonov and other prominent representatives of the Russian liberal historiography replaced those study guides (Vyazemskiy, 2019, p. 61). From 1900 till 1917 the liberal authors wrote and released more than forty Russian History textbooks for secondary school students.

Later, the books written by Moscow historians, who were the followers of V.O. Kliuchevskiy, such as M.M. Bogoslovskiy M.M. Kataev, V.E. Romanovskiy V.N. Stroev, and the books by St. Petersburg scholars, the followers of S.F. Platonov, such as K.A. Ivanov, A.E. Presnyakov I.V. Skvortsov, were distinguished (Dneprova, Egorova, Panachina, & Tebieva, 1991).

At a prerevolutionary school, textbooks worked out by secondary school teachers themselves were used as well. Among the authors of such book were M.N. Kovalevskiy, A. Ya. Efimenko, K.A. Ivanov, K.I. Dobrynin and others. The modern scholar E.E. Viazemskiy believes that these were teachers’ textbooks that were especially popular with the teachers of that period of time (Vyazemskiy, 2019, p. 61).

According to the archival records there were appropriate Russian History study guides for primary school pupils at secondary school in the early 20^th century. According to the records of The Meeting of the Russian language and History teachers of the Orenburg Educational District, which took place in June of 1906, the study guides by D.I. Tikhomirov named ‘Iz istorii rodnoj zemli’ (‘The History of the homeland’) and by P.N. Polevoy named ‘Illyustrirovannye rasskazy iz otechestvennoj istorii’ (‘The National History in illustrated stories’) were acknowledged to be the most progressive and appropriate textbooks. The ad hoc ‘Committee for the issues of History textbooks and teaching aids’ concluded that ‘both books are quite laconic but complete at the same time’ (Fuks, 2009, p. 104).

The textbook by M. Ostrogorskiy was considered to be the most appropriate one for studying a brief course in Russian History in the third form of grammar schools for girls and for boys, as well as, for nonclassical secondary schools (as cited in Kutykova, 2016, p. 116).

As for the textbooks developed for the third form of nonclassical secondary schools, the abovementioned committee chose the book ‘Elementarnyj kurs istorii drevnego mira’ (‘The elementary course in Ancient History’) by K.A. Ivanov as the most appropriate one for such students. Other books which were recommended to the teachers by the committee were the textbooks in Ancient History by Professor R.Yu. Vipper (Kutykova, 2016, p. 117).

At the turn of the 20^th century sideline Russian History textbooks of various types, which were the subject to the state expert review, appeared at school. Teachers and curriculum developers underlined the necessity to improve existing textbooks taking into account the social goals of school, the achievements of History science, the development of didactics and teaching methods, the development of new programs in History. The researches acknowledged that new textbooks should be developed by university teachers and grammar school and nonclassical secondary school teachers together.

Before the revolution in 1917 a History textbook was considered to be a teacher’s guide where the most important and essential historical facts and phenomena were demonstrated. The textbooks of that period were the subject to the state expert review and, since 1905 – of the sanitary examination. The Ministry of Education strictly monitored all academic course books.

According to the rules established by the ministry in 1884, a teacher could choose any textbook of those which were officially approved and permitted by the ministry. However, these rules were quite often violated by both: teachers and local school authorities. As a result, ordinary teachers often used alternative History textbooks (Kutykova, 2016).

Nevertheless, many books which were not included into list of officially permitted ones had a lot of advantages. They took into consideration some nontraditional for that period of time methods of training, such as laboratory method, report presentation, the method of staging and History course recording.

Nontraditional books based on the comparative historical approach (such as the textbook by N.A. Rozhkov and M.N. Kovalenskiy) were not officially approved and permitted to use in the educational process but still were used by some teachers. Such textbooks helped students to evaluate historical facts independently and to analyze the information in more details (as cited in Kutykova, 2016, p. 117).

During the prerevolutionary period secondary school curricula were substantially revised with the direct involvement of P.N. Ignatev, a liberal minister of the public education. The best curriculum developers were involved into the process of curricula development in History and other subjects. Later, in 1918-1919, some parts of those curricula were used for the development of teaching aids for the Soviet school (Dneprova, Egorova, Panachina, & Tebieva, 1991, p. 71).

After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 school textbooks were mostly based on the Marxist understanding of the historical process. When M.N. Pokrovskiy, an outstanding Russian historian, suggested announcing a competition for developing new History textbooks, the radical reformers of People’s Commissariat of Education found it quite ridiculous. They believed that it was an absurd task. They thought that History was supposed to be taught through labour. They also believed that a traditional textbook was inconsistent with the principles of the Soviet labour school (Danilov, 2005, p. 63).

In 1920-s the labour books in Social Studies provided senior school students with elementary knowledge of political order in the USSR, the revolutionary movement in Russia and in the western world, the history of the Communist party.

To teach and study the Russian History two parts of ‘Russkaya istoriya v samom szhatom ocherke’ (‘The short review of the Russian History’) by M.N. Pokrovskiy were published in 1920 (Orlovskiy, 2002, p. 128).

In the mid-1920-s, in the course of educational reforms, the officials attempted to substitute the traditional class-and-lesson teaching system with a so-called complex system of training. The knowledge of History and Social Studies was also a part of the complex curriculum. That is why History textbooks were almost never used. However, labour History books were preserved.

After the issue of the resolution by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks named ‘O nachal'noj i srednej shkole’ (‘On primary and secondary school’) in 1931 the schools returned to the traditional subject-based training system. Scholars began developing textbooks in accordance with the newly-established rigid ideological guidelines. The textbook named ‘Kratkij kurs istorii SSSR’ (‘The short course on the USSR History’) for the third and the fourths forms of the primary school developed by the History department of Moscow Pedagogical University under the guidance of Andrey Shestakov was approved by the strict committee chaired by I.V. Stalin and A.A. Zhdanov. (Fuks, 2009). The textbook edited by A.V. Shestakov is considered to be a breakthrough book for that period of time (Orlovskiy, 2002, p. 135). The authors managed to give a short summary of all past historic events in our country based on the historicism principle.  

The issue of the textbook edited by A.V. Shestakov terminated the ‘diversity of views’ of the Soviet historiography concerning the basic theoretical issues of the Marxist methodology.

The textbook was used at schools up to 1956. It was reissued 12 times and was translated into many languages of the peoples of the USSR, as well as, into English, German and French. The general circulation of the book is estimated at 30 million copies (Fuks, 2009, p. 105).

By 1940 high school History textbooks were developed by a group of teachers and historians. Students could get a full picture of human society development process with its help. The courses were arranged by the academic levels based on linear principle, which helped to save study time and maintained the students’ interest in History by the novelty of the learning content. One of the peculiarities of the book was the fact that the events in the Russian History were compared to the most important events in the World History.

The textbooks by A.V. Shestakov and A.M. Pankratova provided total party-state control over historical education and became the basis for teaching History at school within the next several decades (Fuks, 2009, p. 106). There were only some minor changes introduced into their closing chapters.

The first stable Soviet textbooks in Ancient History edited by Professor A.V. Mishulin, in History of the Middle Ages edited by Professor E.A. Kosminskiy, in Modern History edited by A.V. Efimov issued in 1940 also lead students to the materialistic understanding of the world (Fuks, 2009, p. 107). The books had a number of disadvantages: they contained too much information and were not quite comprehensible to students. However, they were written in a scientific language, had good quality illustrations, textual and coloured maps.

In the 1960-1980-s key methodic issues of school History were studied by the group of eminent curriculum developers of the Soviet period represented by E.V. Agibalova, N.V. Andreevskaya, P.V. Gora, N.G. Dairi, G.M. Donskoy, N.I. Zaporozhets, P.S. Leibengrub, I. Ya. Lerner, F.P. Korovkin and others (Studenikin, 2016, p. 85).

It is obvious that the Soviet History books, as well as all other textbooks of that period were ideologically-focused. They followed the formational approach and aimed at the formation of the Communist outlook in students. The lack of information sources, exceedingly academic narration form was the distinctive feature of high school textbooks. It could be explained by the fact that most of such textbooks were developed by the academics who bore no relationship to school.

Within the period from the 1990-s till the early 21^st century the epoch of historical and methodological diversity began. Fundamentally new forms of History textbooks were being developed during that period. They were developed under such projects as ‘Uroki Klio’ (‘CLIO lessons’) and ‘Mozaika kultur’ (‘Mosaic of cultures’) with the assistance of the European Association of History Educators named ‘EUROCLIO’. These new study guides were not very popular nationwide and were used only by dedicated and highly-motivated teachers in a number of regions (Borzyh, 2014).

The transition to the concentric structure of historical education in the 1990-s is associated with a great variety of textbooks and publishing houses, which issued them. The books were based on different methodological (civilizational, modernization, positivistic, totalitarian and other) and methodical (the educational system ‘school 2100’ and other) approaches.

One of the first attempts to withdraw from the formational approach to historical information narration was the textbook for high school students developed by L.N. Zharova and I.A. Mishina and named ‘Istoriya otechestva. 1900-1940’ (Studenikin, 2016, p. 106).

Another book of that period was the study guide for the students of the 11^th form, which was called ‘Istoriya otechestva. 1939-1991’ published in the same year and developed by the authors under the guidance of V.P. Ostrovskiy. These textbooks were developed based on the civilizational approach, which was popular at that period of time. L.N. Zharova and I.A. Mishina’s view of the historical process in the 20^th century was based on their idea that after the revolution of 1917 due to the utopian program developed by the Bolsheviks Russia was suspended from the mainstream way of the world civilization development for a long time (as cited in Vyazemskiy, 2019, p. 61).

We should also mention the textbooks based on the concepts of totalitarism. One of such books which was criticized more than others was the textbook ‘Novejshaya istoriya zarubezhnyh stran’ (‘Modern History of foreign countries’) written by Kreder (1998). All in all, it is a rather good study book in Modern History, which, however, substantially diminished the role of the Soviet people in the World War II. That is why many people believed that it was an ideological order of the Open Society Foundations founded by George Soros. A well-known writer Yuriy Polyakov denounced Kreder publicly for propagating antipatriotic, ‘treasonable ideologies’ (Polyakov, 1997, p. 29).

The diversity of textbooks and study guides contradicted the lack of instructional materials and teaching aids at school. The model of the Russian society which was established within the first decade of the 21^st century had such specific features as neotraditionalism and desovietisation (departure from the Soviet system). It had a certain impact on the state of school textbooks. The Soviet policy was justified in the teachers’ book edited by Filippov, (2007a,b) which was based on the theory of mobilization development of the country. The book itself and, later, Filippov, (2007a) his textbook Filippov, (2007b) were also the subject to ambiguous reviews. The author attempted to directly rehabilitate Stalin and his regime in his books.

Among the most outstanding History textbooks of that period the books which were developed within the framework of the educational system known as ‘School 2100’ (Danilov, Liseycev, Klokov, & Kuznetsov, 2014, p. 42). It is based on one of the principles of the developmental teaching, which was developed by Academician A.A. Leontev and is known as the principle of minimax (Vyazemskiy, 2019, p. 61).

The new History-and-culture standard for developing of new Russian History textbooks in 2015 didn’t imply that there should be one universal book for one definite course. The textbooks of a new generation should reflect the requirements to the personal, metasubject and subjects results of training, which are prescribed by the Federal standard. Nowadays History textbooks are published by the following major publishing houses: ‘Prosveshchenie’, ‘Russkoe slovo’, ‘Drofa’, ‘Mnemozina’, ‘Balass’, ‘Ventana-Graf’, ‘Akademiya’, ‘Clio Soft’.

Living in an information-oriented society and experiencing pressure from digital Mass Media, realizing its influence on young people’s minds, it is quite important to reach an appropriate balance between information and educational components of school textbooks.

Purpose of the Study

The authors of the article set a goal to analyze the historical traditions, modern tendencies and the prospects of Russian History textbooks development. This study is of theoretical and practical significance as Russian historical education is undergoing the next stage of textbooks transformation.

Research Methods

The study is based on structural, structural-functional, conceptual, methodological approaches, which are used while studying the issues of education history. The authors applied the following major historical principles (methods): problematic-and-chronological, retrospective, the methods of objectivity and historicism to purposefully select facts, analyze events and their consequences.

Findings

The prerevolutionary school had a diversity of textbooks and teaching aids, such as chrestomathies with a selection of documents; study guides combining the features of a textbook and of a chrestomathy; reading-books. All textbooks included the information, which was obligatory for students and was supposed to be thoroughly studied by them. Textbooks of various type which were the subject to the state commission assessment were aimed at religious, ethic and patriotic upbringing of young people.

The Soviet school textbooks didn’t have any illustrations from prerevolutionary books. Nowadays there are many of such pictures in modern Russian History textbooks. For example, these are paintings on the subject of religion.

The theory and practice of History textbooks development saw substantial transformations after the Russian revolution of 1917. In 1920 the Soviet school mostly drew on the foreign experience in teaching in the form of research methods of teaching. That leads to abandonment of History textbooks and underestimation of systematic knowledge, while students’ independent work comes to the forefront.

Within the period from 1930 up to 1950-s historical education was under the total party-state control. The process of historical education reinstatement began. The authors of textbook face the task of developing textbooks, which are able to provide high ideological and scientific level of teaching the basics of Marxist-Leninist historical science at school. The main attention in the textbooks was drawn to the scientific outlook of historical process.

The disadvantages of the given textbooks were as follows: they provided too much information; the texts were sometimes incomprehensible for students; the lacked documents and methods motivating the cognitive activity of students; they lacked questions and tasks to the sections of a textbook.

Within the period from 1960 till 1980-s teaching History was still mainly based on the Marxist-Leninist theory. The content of the textbooks is limited by the formational approach. However, some teachers start paying more attention to the cognitive activity of students. They apply such methods as discovery teaching, the study of historical documents, independent students’ work. During that period of time such teachers and curriculum developers and others started developing new History textbook, the same as it used to be I the prerevolutionary time. The textbooks by F.P. Korovkin named ‘Istoriya drevnego mira’ (‘Ancient History’) and by E.V. Agibalova and G.M. Donskoy named ‘Istoriya srednih vekov’ (‘History of the Middle Ages’) were awarded with the USSR State Prize (Vitevickiy, 2016, p. 94).

Meanwhile, the most outstanding curriculum developers of the country started developing the structure of a school textbook in general including a History textbook. History textbooks were supposed to consist of such components as the text itself (main, additional and explanatory), non-textual part (questions and tasks to the texts) and illustrations. This new approach was hardly applied to high school History textbooks.

In the late 20^th century a new model of Russian society is being formed, which is based mostly on the principles and values of modernization, humanization and liberalization of society. Russia takes part in brainstorming workshops connected with the issues of historical education within the framework of cooperation with the experts of the Council of Europe. Based on this experience, the content of History textbooks is being changed and new methodological approaches are applied. So-called developing textbooks (for example, educational system ‘School 2100’) take the leading position among a great variety of other textbooks.

During the first decade of the 21^st century the content of the historical education is being revised. Now, the textbooks are focused not only on military and political issues but also on personalities, culture, everyday people’s life. O. Yu. Strelova and E.E. Viazemskiy, the leading curriculum developers of the country, attempt to develop modern requirements to a History textbook (Strelova & Vyazemskiy, 2006, p. 135). There are many discussions and studies devoted to the issue of a ‘school textbook of a new generation’. Scholars and scientists expect various types of digital textbook to be introduced into educational system. Paper books will be digitalized and new ‘robo-textbooks’ will appear.

There are two main documents that regulate the development of school historical education within the second decade of the 21^st century. They are the general education Federal Educational Standard of the 2^nd generation and the Historical-Cultural Standard.

The Historical-Cultural Standard is a scientific-historic document with the elements of ideology, which was developed for the textbook authors first of all. Though it is a quite significant document, it still has a lot of disadvantages and contradicts the general education Federal Educational Standard as well as the Education Act. One of its major drawbacks is that it is overloaded with teaching units and does not take into account school students’ age peculiarities and cognitive abilities. The acting educational documents have disagreement of educational models.

Conclusion

Russia has a great experience in developing school History textbooks as a means of teaching and upbringing of the younger generation. From late 19^th till early 21^st century scholars, teachers and curriculum developer were looking for new methodological basis of study guides and textbooks.

During the Soviet period the school History textbook was considered to be the main source of knowledge. At that period of time the textbook authors’ main task was to form the Communist outlook in students. The textbooks for the eighths, ninth and tenth-year school students were written by the academics who bore no relationship to school. The Soviet History textbooks, especially the ones for the fourth, fifth and sixth-year school students were subject to experimental validation.

Despite the lack of the evidence base of the Soviet books, they still helped to develop the ability to work with historical illustrations. The scholars and the teachers of the Soviet epoch left important and rich teaching legacy for the future generations. It should be noted that the development of advanced teaching methods and ideas outstripped the content of teaching.

It is worth mentioning that The Soviet books contained a lot of historical knowledge. The process of teaching History was aimed at state patriotism upbringing being a key component of a Soviet school student’s education and upbringing.

The diversity of different types of school textbooks and publishing houses in the 1990-s caused many difficulties in understanding of some historical events and phenomena. The attempt to create a ‘unified textbook’ in the second decade of the 21^st century failed as there was no unity among scholars, researches, teachers and parents in regard to this issue. In our opinion a History textbook in the modern society cannot be the main source of historical information for students.

The content of new Russian History textbooks developed in accordance with the Historical-Cultural Standard after the year of 2015 does not comply with those knowledge, skills, experience and values that students are supposed to master by the end of the course. While teaching a modern History teacher faces a number of problems. The experts believe that teachers are limited in their choice of the best possible textbook for their school. The books lack questions and tasks to the sections. The textbooks haven’t undergone a proper assessment.

Modern History textbooks should comply with time challenges, achievements in the western teaching practice, as well as take into consideration the experience, peculiarities and traditions of the Russian education. While developing textbooks of a new generation, it is really important to preserve the value component aimed at formation of patriotism in students and to teach them evaluate the historic information critically and to form their own attitude to it.

Acknowledgments

Research grant of the Russian Foundation for Humanities ‘Ural: istoriya, ekonomika, kultura’ 2010 (the Ural: history, economy, culture’ 2010) – the Republic of Bashkortostan. On the topic ‘Istoriya shkolnogo obrazovaniya na Yuzhnom Urale v sovetskij period’ (‘The history of school education in the Southern Urals during the Soviet period’). Regional project №10-01-84115а/У. The project supervisor: Almaev R.Z. The execution period: 2010-2011 (Almaev, 2014).

Research grant of the Russian Foundation for Humanities ‘Ural: istoriya, ekonomika, kultura’ 2012 (the Ural: history, economy, culture’ 2012) – the Republic of Bashkortostan. On the topic ‘Istoriya uchitelstva na Urale v pervoj treti XX veka’ (‘The history of teaching on the territory of the Urals in the early 20th century’). Regional project №12-11-02009. The project supervisor: Baishev I.N. The execution period: 2012-2013.

Research grant of the Russian Foundation for Humanities ‘Ural: istoriya, ekonomika, kultura’ 2014 (the Ural: history, economy, culture’ 2014) – the Republic of Bashkortostan. On the topic ‘Sovetskoe uchitelstvo na Yuzhnom Urale v 1941 – 1991 god’ (‘The Soviet teaching in the Southern Urals in 1941-1991’). Regional project №14-11-02012а/У. The project supervisor: Almaev R.Z. The execution period: 2014-2015.

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