| This dissertation looks at the debates over history instruction in Russia between 1890 and 1917. The purpose is to describe how Russians understood their national identity during this time. Using a variety of sources, including the minutes of meetings in the Ministry of Education, memoirs of history teachers, and history textbooks, this thesis argues that there was no shared, unifying conception of Russia's national identity before 1917. Rather, this was a period of bitter divisiveness and contention, with rival visions of the Russian nation struggling for supremacy.;This thesis, written under the supervision of Richard Pipes, seeks to contribute to the understanding of the intellectual climate in Russia in the years leading up to to 1917. The clashes over the teaching of history mirrored the larger conflicts in the Russian Empire between state and society, between those who wished to preserve the autocracy unchanged, and those who desired to create a democratic or socialist state. By 1917, all attempts to compromise and find a path of national unity had failed.;The dissertation describes the fundamental conflict between the official history curriculum, promoted by the Ministry of Education, and the unofficial approach to history, advocated by various pedagogical societies. The Ministry of Education wished to teach a Russian history that would present Russia as an immutably autocratic country, unified under the benevolent authority of the Tsar. Pedagogical societies, often founded and attended by secondary school history teachers, wished to teach a "scientific" history of Russia--one that would prove that Russia, like the rest of the world, was logically evolving into a democratic and egalitarian society. Although the Ministry's view prevailed in textbooks and curricula prior to 1905, after 1905, many textbooks and organizations began to openly propagate the teaching of history based on democratic and even socialist principles. |
