Between Radical Shifts and Persistent Uncertainties: The Cold War in Russian History Textbooks

Abstract

Alexander Khodnev explores how, in four different Russian history textbooks, all widely used and all aimed at eleventh graders, the Cold War is approached and responsibility for its origins apportioned, aiming to understand how textbooks alter and are also shaped by the construction of historical memory and shifts in historiography. The chapter examines the extent to which each textbook upholds a patriotic ‘master narrative’, the standards of teaching in Russia which further establish this narrative and the lasting impact of the Soviet era on Russian textbooks. Yet Khodnev also considers how ambivalence is introduced into these textbooks through the inclusion of other countries’ histories, the history of decolonisation, the linguistic choices of different authors and the spatial design of each textbook.