The Future of Public History – What Shall We Teach Perceptively: Russian Situation

Abstract

Before we discuss the future of public history teaching a question should be raised if there is a future for the history in Russia? Francis Fukuyama saw the end of the history at the time of the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. And this was connected with the triumph of the West, with the victory of the international democratic liberalism for marxism. However, global contradictions have remained, they acquired a new shape and form, ensuring the continuity of history, and therefore its tomorrow. Yet, the history, of course, does not develop according to the paradigm explained by Francis Fukuyama, but according to its own laws. History have experienced in Russia serious difficulties in the last 25–30 years. It was tough for many Russian historians who defended the old marxist ideology to give up the idea that history cannot predict the future, and it does not have an authority to teach the lessons to the people. All alterations that happened in world historiography all the famous “turns” were met in Russia with much pain. Postmodernism was identified in Russia by many historians as a serious and harmful foreign influence on the verge of enemy ideology capable to undermine the very foundations of native Russian civilization and history. There exists an opposite point of view. Professor Andrei Sokolov encourages historians to experience “liberating influence of postmodernism on our historical consciousness, and on this basis to restore the prestige of history.”1 In general, the question of the future of history in Russia and possible ways of its teaching, especially in the field of public history, does not look simple and clear.