Arguments Against a Single History Textbook for Former Soviet Union

In the near future, countries of the Former Soviet Union will have a networked university and a common history textbook for the purpose of strengthening the integration process. This was announced during a meeting of an international group under the auspices of the Chair of Russia's Federation Council. The initiative was announced by the rector of Moscow's State Institute of International Relations, Anatoly Torkunov, and the chair of the Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko.

This is not the first time an attempt has been made to create a single history textbook. As told to Epress.am by Sasun Melikyan, the head of the Management and Coordination of Professional Education division at the RA Ministry of Education and Science's Department of Higher and Post-Graduate Professional Education, in the 2000s, there was an EU program to write the history of the Caucasus, but this attempt failed since Armenia's and Azerbaijan's historians could not reach an agreement. 

According to cultural critic Vardan Jaloyan, such initiatives can be considered politics of memory; that is, an attempt to use historical memory for political purposes. Jaloyan said that Russia already has several types of history textbooks, which, he says, "try not to allow the history to contradict the official viewpoints."

Those chronicling history in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Jaloyan continued, mainly carry out orders; therefore, the opposition and the authorities cannot agree on anything written there. As a result, the authorities' version is accepted as the truth while the opposition version is censored. This situation, according to Jaloyan, is especially characteristic of Armenian historiography. 

"In the Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltic states, also written is the point of view other than that of the authorities, which Russia doesn't like, since those books speak about the Russians being vicious imperialists," he said. 

According to Jaloyan, in Armenia's case, neither in recent history nor in the historiography of the19th century is there a single episode represented that is contrary to Russia's interests. 

"If at least they recalled what Leo and Ashot Hovhannisyan wrote about the role of Russians in Armenia. There is also no dialogue with historians of the [Armenian] diaspora, most of whom in Armenia are considered traitors of the nation and whose works absolutely do not match the history written in Armenia," he said. 

Ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan, also weighing in on the matter, informed Epress.am that history is a strictly political phenomenon and generalizing it will lead to the dominant history in those books being Russia's, with only a few words about other states; for example, the section about Armenia will only be about the Arshakuni dynasty, Urartu, and so on. 

"During the Soviet years, we also studied the history of the USSR, which was basically the history of Russia. There are other similar examples in the EU: Germany and France attempted to create common textbooks," she said. 

According to Kharatyan, the political weight of participating countries is important in the depiction of historical events in common books: after all, it's not a coincidence that history is Eurocentric.