Do It the Russian Way: Narratives of the Russian Revolution in European History Textbooks

Abstract

The article presents the results of narrative analysis of contemporary European history textbooks' coverage of the 1917 Russian Revolution. The sample consists of 101 textbooks from 22 European states, published between 2000 and 2015 and currently in use in secondary and high schools. The results show that the Russian Revolution, unlike most other events in Russia's history, is narrated as a story not about Russianness, but about shared European historical experiences and social issues. The article discusses the implications of this way of narrating the Russian Revolution for the perceived logic of European history.