Three Historical Subcultures in Post-Soviet Russia

M.E. Sharpe Inc. 80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, NY 10504. Tel: 800-541-6563; Fax: 914-273-2106; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.mesharpe.com

Y

26

Foreign Countries; Subcultures; History Instruction; Historiography; Social Change; Teaching Methods; Political Influences

Russia; USSR

10.2753/RES1060-9393560502

1060-9393

The teaching and public dissemination of Russian history in post-Soviet historiography has been shaped by a variety of approaches, including state-sponsored interpretations, views expressed in mass culture, and the work of academic historians. In this article, the author employs a specific method of differentiation to distinguish his present attempt at interpreting and comprehending post-Soviet historiographical tendencies from his previous three attempts made over the last twenty years. This method of differentiation, one that is approved by the world academic community today, is "the identification of historiography with historical culture, breaking it into a number of differing subcultures" (see Tishkov 2011). He considers three of these as the most important and evaluates each in this article. There is the "popular subculture," which reflects the perception of history in the mass public consciousness. There is the "state political subculture," which has been created to some extent by state mandate or by political party publicists and ideologues. Lastly, there is the "scientific academic subculture," created by professionals on the basis of documentary sources and the criteria of scientific disciplines. Herein, he illustrates the relevance of examining post-Soviet history, singling out different historical subcultures, on the basis of a number of facts.

ERIC

27

2014

EJ1034604