Bureaucrats must not teach historians how textbooks should be written – Naryshkin

(Interfax – KAZAN, July 16, 2013) Historians and history teachers, not bureaucrats, should decide how Russian history should be taught to Russian students, said Sergei Naryshkin, the Russian State Duma’s speaker and president of the Russian Historical Society.

“Experts in history have wisely asked the Russian Historical Society to provide guidelines for teaching history as a subject, which will be used to write an array of history manuals for schoolchildren, all of which will help avoid speculation and complaints that bureaucrats have again written a history textbook,” Naryshkin told a founding conference of the Russian Historical Society’s branch in Kazan.

Importantly, historians have started viewing the Russian Historical Society as a venue where university lecturers, school teachers, scholars, archivists, librarians and museum workers can jointly discuss the most acute aspects of how history should further developed as a subject and how history knowledge should be popularized, he said.

“State support is essential, of course. But under no circumstances should bureaucrats teach historians how to write history. This is very important,” he said.

History textbooks are written by those for whom history is part of their life: scholars, historians, university lecturers and school teachers, he said.

“An extremely interesting discussion is unfolding. I know that various groups of experts are being formed and differing opinions are being voiced, sometimes rather critical. We are ready to accept all constructive proposals and we want to work jointly and to take all opinions into account,” Naryshkin said.

However, the Russian Historical Society will not react to provocative and blunt attacks, he said.

“We are aware that there are quite a few critics, mostly, perhaps, among those who are very far from the field of history and those who provoke speculation in order to cover their own inconsistencies,” Naryshkin said.

We will respond willingly to any positive and constructive criticism of the Russian Historical Society, he said.