AIPH 30 – Shaping Public History in Russia: Forms, Places and Media

Abstract

Public History as a discipline and as a problem field covers a wide range of issues related to the existence of individual and collective ideas about the past, representations of the past in media and educational practices, its political instrumentalisation, and the role of professional historians in these processes. While Public History as a discipline appeared in Russia just a few years ago, its practices have existed obviously for a long time. In the 2010s, attention to historical subjects in Russian public space became extremely noticeable. Given the specifics of Soviet and modern Russian history, the past often becomes object of close scrutiny by the authorities and increased interest on the part of various media and the public, turning it into an instrument of political game, propaganda or protest. Suffice it to mention the discussions around the attempt to introduce a “single history textbook”, the installation of new monuments to significant historic figures in different cities (the first monument to Ivan the Terrible in Orel in 2016, the monuments to Prince Vladimir the Great in Moscow in 2016, the monument to Alexander III in Yalta in 2017, etc.), the historical films that were sponsored by the Cinema Foundation of Russia and actively advertised in the Russian box office (Yaroslav. A Thousand Years Ago, 2010; 1812: The Ballad of Uhlans, 2012; Viking, 2016; Salyut-7, 2017, etc.). At the same time, key actors are often not professional historians but politicians, journalists, or civic activists. In this situation, several educational programs on Public History have appeared in Russia over the past few years. Nevertheless, the lack of platforms for presenting expert opinions on various issues related to history and the past is being made up for in different ways: whether it is private initiatives to present military history, civil actions to create museums of Stalin’s terror and repression, or spontaneous civic actions to save memorial places. Our panel aims to understand the specifics of the forms and practices of Public History that can be seen in contemporary Russia.