Prescribed Ignorance: What Stories and Persons Didn’t Get on the Pages of Pre-revolutionary School Textbooks on Russian History

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of some omissions and undesirable topics in pre-revolutionary school textbooks on Russian history. The object of study is the training manuals recommended for use by the Ministry of Public Education. In total, these are 54 books for junior and senior classes of gymnasiums and real schools. As a result of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the Ministry offered the younger generation a certain constructed concept of national history, first of all the history of the dynasty. Only the chronological framework of the course was clearly spelled out in official documents: for most of the period under review, the current reign was not studied on a school bench. When selecting the actual material for the study manuals, there were no direct prohibitions, only the most general recommendations, but the potential authors understood perfectly well what should not be written, what assessments to give, how to put emphasis, etc. At the same time, it should be noted that, despite censorship, the authors still had a certain field for maneuver and the possibility of personal choice.