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Russian history in the classroom
Did you know that the majority of Russians think Stalin has played a positive role in Russian history? After reading this article, I see why: Omitting the past's darker chapters
Russians remember the Siege of Leningrad--a brutal, 872-day blockade of Russia's second-largest city by Nazi troops that killed 1.7 million people--as a dark, crucial moment in their history. Yet one of the most popular history textbooks in Russian classrooms casually distills the event into a mere four words.
"German troops blockaded Leningrad."
Glaring omissions abound in Nikita Zagladin's textbook, "History of Russia and the World in the 20th Century." The Holocaust is never mentioned. The book barely acknowledges the Gulag labor camps.
And it flits past Russia's 10-year conflict with separatists in Chechnya, reducing a pivotal episode in modern Russian history to seven paragraphs.
For some Russian academics, Zagladin's penchant for smoothing over the bumps in Russian history is precisely the reason his textbooks have become mainstays in Russian classrooms.
In recent years, authorities have increasingly sought to whip up patriotic fervor among Russians, often at the expense of illuminating Russian history's darker chapters.
Josef Stalin oversaw a murderous regime that killed millions of Russians. But with the country's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Georgian-born ruler has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. The Siberian city of Mirny erected a statue of Stalin earlier this month, calling him "a great son of Russia who gave the people everything he had." The city of Orel recently asked the federal government for permission to change street names to honor Stalin.
It is in Russian classrooms, however, where authorities particularly want a renewed sense of national pride to take root.
When President
Vladimir Putin met with historians at the Russian State Library in late 2003, he stressed that history textbooks should "cultivate in young people a feeling of pride for one's history and one's country."
A month later, Putin asked the Russian Academy of Sciences to scrutinize the country's history textbooks "at the earliest possible date."
At the time, one of the most widely used history texts was Igor Dolutsky's "National History: 20th Century." For years, the book had been favored by teachers for its upfront discussion of sensitive topics, including Stalin's purges, Chechnya and anti-Semitism in Russia.
Dolutsky's textbook also did not shy away from talking about Putin, challenging students to discuss whether the former KGB colonel should be considered an authoritarian leader.
The Kremlin leader's comments were heeded by Education Ministry officials, who suddenly pulled Dolutsky's book from classrooms after having given it their endorsement for seven straight years.
"They said my book was `blackening' Russian history," Dolutsky said during a recent interview. "It was the first prohibition of a textbook in schools in 25 years."
The offending portions
Later, Dolutsky's publisher told him which historical references in the book irked authorities: Stalin's non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939; Soviet occupation of the Baltic states; the execution of thousands of Polish officers by Russian intelligence agents at Katyn in 1940; Stalin's deportation of legions of Chechens to Kazakhstan in 1944.
"Basically, they were dissatisfied with chapters devoted to Stalin's regime and Putin's leadership," said Dolutsky, 51. "Sections that dealt with [Nikita] Khrushchev and [Mikhail] Gorbachev, they ignored."
Dmitry Ermoltsev, a Moscow teacher who has used Dolutsky's book, said he believes Kremlin attempts to polish the history taught in classrooms simply reflect a national reluctance to examine and learn from low points in Russian history.
"Russians don't like sharp criticism of their country's history--it makes them feel humiliated," Ermoltsev said. "Revising history and history books helps them overcome this discomfort. And Putin reacts to these signals from society."
Dolutsky, who teaches at a private school in Moscow, says his students have little appetite for lectures on human-rights abuses or Stalin's repressions. Recently, when he tried to rouse students into a discussion about the human toll that World War II took on the Soviet Union--26 million Soviet citizens died in the war--they appeared bored.
"Their reaction was, `Let it be 100 million--we don't care about that,'" Dolutsky said. When he explained the war's impact in terms of the number of tanks and fighter planes destroyed, his students sat up in their seats.
"That's what really impressed them," Dolutsky said. "They didn't care about human life, but they cared about equipment."
Should textbooks shame?
Author Zagladin's view of history in the classroom differs radically from Dolutsky's. He agrees with Putin--a history textbook should make a pupil feel proud about Russia. It shouldn't depress, and it shouldn't shame.
"If a young person finishes school and feels everything that happened in this country was bad, he'll get ready to emigrate," Zagladin said during a recent phone interview. "A textbook should provide a patriotic education.
"It's necessary to show Russian youths," Zagladin continued, "that industrial development during the Stalin era was successful, and that the repressions and terror during that era did not touch all of the population."
Zagladin acknowledged making mistakes in "The History of Russia and the World in the 20th Century."
He said he barely mentioned the Siege of Leningrad because he believed he didn't have enough space. In hindsight, he said, "that's my mistake."
He added he should have included material about the Holocaust: "I decided to delete it because, if I mentioned it, I would have had to mention other repressions, also in detail," Zagladin said. "And I didn't have enough space in this book."
Despite such omissions, Zagladin's book has fans. Irina Safanova, a teacher at School 818 in Moscow, called the textbook "a very calm book, which tries to avoid shocking or extreme remarks. It's a strong point of the book.
"History books should not condemn," Safanova said. "It's important to avoid provoking feelings of shame in students."
Zagladin's critics say Russian students do not need to be shamed, merely enlightened about history's darker chapters, especially in a country where the truth has been lacquered over for so many years.
"According to polls, the majority of the population still considers Stalin to have played a positive role in Russian history," said Yuri Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum. "And the problem here is, our schools don't do anything to change this attitude."
Posted by zorkmidden on Jun 01, 2005 1:00 pm
recent comments
' The Palestinian Authority and Christian leaders on Thursday signed an accord to repair the Church of the Nativity
' Asked about Hamas on Thursday, White House Mideast envoy George Mitchell said: "We do not expect Hamas to
' Abbas and Netanyahu are far apart on issues that have eluded a solution for decades, including the borders
' To relaunch Middle East peace talks on Thursday, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and their American mediators quietly
Holy Shit. Anyone who voted for this nitfuck deserves the government that they've gotten. I feel sorry for the
#4 zorki: I think the situation is a little different _ via a vis _ South and Central American
[ #9 ]/ zorkmidden and shop for specials for denture adhesives. [img]
[ #3 ]/ Cam: I know the Chinese do that and that there are networks who loan money to
#5 zorki: She should be tried, then, for the crime of dumbfuckery - assuming that that is is a
#2 zorki: They work it off when they arrive.
A little OT, but every time I read the stories about illegal immigrants who come to the West for jobs,
packen, if you haven't seen "Fallen", you should.
[ #8 ]/ RWC: And when you're not robbing people of their bling, you can commiserate with evariste about
' Of course, I have no way of knowing if the Tamils’ claims are genuine: post-civil war Sri Lanka
It _ was _ surprising, but I felt the movie sacrificed its own internal logic and mood for the sake
[ #4 ]/ zorkmidden #3 RWC: Happy birthday, old man. Don't join a gang
[ PA arrests two Hamas members for the terror attack ]/ . The [ JPost article ]/ does not
[ #5 ]/ king's shadow: It surprised me and I liked it.
[ #6 ]/ Thousand Sons: And they wouldn't drop out of school if only they had schools. Or alarms.
The Fallen was a good movie, but I didn't like/buy the final twist.
Because gangbangers wouldnt be thuggin' or making quick, illegal cash if they just had _ jobs _ .
[ #2 ]/ zorkmidden: There's definitely a simlarity.
[ #1 ]/ zorkmidden Nice chilling story for a * hot day * . Which
' Is there a leak? Does anyone know? ' Apparently a small leak, that's not associated with
It reminded me a little bit of the movie " [ Fallen". ]/
29 comments, latest by Frank IBC at 6:51 pm 6/2
Where would they ever get that idea?
Hmmmm... that poster is not in Russian, but either Ukrainian or Byelorussian.
Papa!
"Papa" ???
That ain't Papa, it's Uncle Joe!
Uncle Joe? Not Papa? Aww...
Not to be confused with Uncle Ho!
Grandpa!
Who in a roundabout way made it possible for Thousand Sons to get his pho!
LOL
Otherwise you would have had to settle for faux pho
Oh no!
He he he. He said Pho-king.
Ukrainian.
Curiously, the woman has what appears to be some sort of Central Asian traditional clothes on. Probably a clumsy riff on the "Дружба ?ародов" theme.
That's not nearly as bad as the fact that US history lessons don't concentrate nearly enough on the horrors inflict by Lenin, Stalin, Ho, Mao, Pol Pot and the other Communists on the world.
The trend is to blame the world's ills on US faults, and not on other factors - like Stalin's insanity with the gulags, the Cultural Revolution (an oxymoron), the Killing Fields, or any of the other genocides/demicides/policides.
The only word I'm not quite sure how to translate properly is the adjective before Stalin's name: ridnomu. It's obviously a cognate of the Russian rodnoj, meaning "native" (anglijskij -- moj rodnoj jazyk, "English is my native language"). However, the Ukrainian meaning might be something different but conceptually related, like "of one's kin." It might also be functioning as a masculine noun rather than an adjective in Ukrainian (maybe it suggests "uncle"?).
The whole thing says:
Thank you to the Party, thank you to [something] Stalin for a happy and fun childhood.
"The liquidation of our parents was a small price to pay for the free toys and violin lessons!"
Druzhba narodov = "friendship of peoples/nations"
Not to be confused with Eau Noh -- the dramatic new perfume from Japan!
(Wish I could claim credit for that pun...)
Throbert #15
It means dear, beloved.
Okay, so "Thank you to [our] dear Stalin."
Now I've got this image of Stalin in the poster thinking "I'm so rone-ry," a la Team America.
Except, wait -- I seem to recall it was Lenin, not Stalin, who was known for having just a bit of an Elmer Fudd-ish problem with the Russian "r" sound... not that anyone would've been indiscreet enough to point it out.
Or, no, maybe it was one of the other Soviet despots with the "r" problem and Lenin who tended to mispronounce the Russian "g"?
Hey, let's play "Match the totalitarian leader with his speech-therapy issue!"
Where to begin...
To be exact, in 9 cases out of 10, that was a question not so much of a speech impediment as of a simple lack of education (not in Lenin's case, who did have a problem with "r", though). The Soviet propaganda touted the first Boslhevik govenment as "the most educated in Russia's history." It wasn't, of course -- but it was definitely the most educated in Soviet history.
Lenin's "r" problem became a staple of (and exaggerated by) the anti-Soviet humor (a one-rouble coin, bearing Lenin's image on the reverse, was sometimes called kartavy), just as Stalin's heavy Georgian accent. Not to mention Brezhnev's post-stroke grotesquely slurred speech. It was Gorbachev who mispronounced the Russian "g" -- pronounced it as Ukraininan one -- as well as stressed a number of words incorrectly. To be fair, the former is more "forgivable", since, being from the southern Russian city of Stavropol, Gorbachev simply spoke with the regional accent.
I've heard that Jews in Russia tend to not trill their "r's" in the typical Russian (and Spanish and Italian) way, but they pronounce them in the back of the mouth ala the Germans, French, and Israelis - sort of like the Arabic "gh" sound.
I remember that a Polish anti-Semite tried to out the hero this way in Europa, Europa.
Some, but by no means all, do. May have something to do with German origins of Yiddish.
Not just Polish. "Un-trilled r" is a permanent staple of Eastern European antisemitic stereotypes.
From kartavit', "to pronounce the 'r' and/or 'l' sound(s) incorrectly."
Russian has two separate "r" sounds and two separate "l" sounds; difficulty in articulating any or all four of them correctly/distinctly is regarded as the most widespread speech problem for native children. (For adults, it can be either a "speech pathology" or a marker of a regional or non-Russian accent, depending on the specifics of the mispronunciation.)
All four sounds are pronounced relatively near to the front of the mouth; for both letters, there is a "very front" (hard) version and a "not quite so front" (soft) version. In Lenin's case, if I recall correctly, he pronounced his r's much too far back towards the throat-- i.e., in a manner stereotypically associated with Froggies and Yids.
Actually, very few do. I've known a few ethnic Russians who картавили. Since there was nothing wrong with their level of education, I suspect it was a speech impediment. As Throb noted, most young children have problems trilling "r's", but usually outgrow it.
I'm a native American English speaker, and I've had trouble all my life with the American "r" - when I was little I sounded like "Baba Wawa". I actually find the trilled version easier.
Mostly, because Yiddish is no longer a first language for the majority of Russian Jews.
Also, according to the adult ESL students in Moscow who first taught me the word kartavit', a simple inability to trill is much less of a big deal, among Russian grown-ups, than "throating" the r sound. (That is, it's less likely to attract unwanted attention or be seen as some sort of affectation.)
This word came up in ESL class, incidentally, after my students complained about the thin/this sounds in English and asked whether American kids also found them difficult. I said, "Generally not, but..." and then introduced the word "lisp," and kartavit' was their reciprocal lesson for me.
I couldn't trill my r's until my third year of college Russian! My younger sister used to take huge delight in this when we were kids, since she did it effortlessly and I outperformed her at many other things.
What finally did it was long practice with a phrase suggested by one of my Russian TA's, who'd first learned it as a "tongueing" exercise for the clarinet or somesuch: "Teddy Eddy Freddy. Teddy Eddy Freddy."
I used to repeat this over and over and over while walking home from my evening karate classes (no one around to hear me, you see). I figured it was a waste of time, but couldn't hoit, and then one night... "Teddy Eddy Fr-r-r-r-r-r-r!!!"
At around the same time in college, I substantially reduced my accent in Russian within the span of a few weeks thanks to a patient native speaker equipped with simple diagrams of the teeth, tongue, and palate, a good ear, and a lot of repetitive drilling. (Once she made the initial breakthrough that allowed me to finally "hear" the difference between ла and л?, f'rinstance, the rest happened with dramatic speed -- it was, I kid you not, like that "rain in Spain" scene from "My Fair Lady.")
It's not that I was suddenly able to pass for a native Russian, mind you, even in short utterances -- it's just that I suddenly lost, or rather, consciously shed, most of the obvious markers that Russians associate with English speakers. (Thus, I could easily pass for an indeterminate Slav.)
I've thought about trying to summarize some accent-reduction strategies in the Root Cellar in case Zorkie and others are interested, but since I don't know the exact nature of their pronunciation difficulties, I don't want to make things worse.
An interesting bit of Russian wordplay I just noticed while reading this paragraph in the above article:
Googling confirms that this individual's surname is spelled Загладин in Cyrillic.
загладить, zagladit' = to make smooth.
Ona zagladila rubashku itjugom = "She pressed the shirt with an iron"
I can pronounce the "single r" in Spanish OK, if it's not next to any other consonants. I have trouble if it it is. And I'm still hit or miss with the initial/"double r" - sometimes I get it, sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't and it sounds like a voiced "zeta" ala a Guatemalan or Bolivian accent.