EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: LEGACIES AND PROSPECTS (The Cummings Center Series)

E DU C AT I ONAL RE F O R M I N P OS T- S OV I E T RU SSI A

This volume consists of a collection of essays devoted to the study of the most recent educational reform in Russia. In his first decree, Boris Yeltsin proclaimed education a top priority of state policy. Yet the economic decline which accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union dealt a crippling blow to reformist aspirations and to the existing school system itself. The public lost faith in school reform and by the mid-1990s a reaction had set in. Nevertheless, large-scale changes have been effected in finance, structure, governance and curricula. At the same time, there has been a renewed and widespread appreciation for the positive aspects of the Soviet legacy in schooling. The essays presented here compare current educational reform to reforms of the past, analyse it in a broader cultural, political and social context, and study the shifts that have occurred at the different levels of schooling – from political decision-making and changes in school administration to the rewriting of textbooks and teachers’ everyday problems. The authors comprise Russian educators, who have played a leading role in implementation of the reform, and western scholars, who have been studying it from its very early stages. Together, they formulate an intricate but cohesive picture, which is in keeping with the complex nature of the reform itself. Ben Eklof is Professor of History and Education at Indiana University. Larry E. Holmes is Professor of History at the University of South Alabama. Vera Kaplan is a research associate at the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies.

T HE CUM M INGS CEN TER F O R RUS S IAN AND E AST EU ROPEAN S T UDIE S T E L AV IV UNIVERSITY

The Cummings Center is Tel Aviv University’s main framework for research, study, documentation and publication relating to the history and current affairs of Russia, the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. The Center is committed to pursuing projects which make use of fresh archival sources and to promoting a dialogue with Russian academic circles through joint research, seminars and publications. THE CUMMINGS CENTER SERIES The titles published in this series are the product of original research by the Center’s faculty, research staff and associated fellows. The Cummings Center Series also serves as a forum for publishing declassified Russian archival material of interest to scholars in the fields of history and political science.

Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Gorodetsky Editorial Board Michael Confino Igal Halfin Shimon Naveh Yaacov Ro’i Nurit Schleifman Managing Editor Deena Leventer

Titles in the Cummings Center Series

1. SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917–1991 A retrospective Edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky 2. JEWS AND JEWISH LIFE IN RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION Edited by Yaacov Ro’i 3. MUSLIM EURASIA Conflicting legacies Edited by Yaacov Ro’i 4. ENVOY TO MOSCOW Memoirs of an Israeli Ambassador, 1988–92 Aryeh Levin 5. EGYPT’S INCOMPLETE REVOLUTION Lufti al-Kkuli and Nasser’s Socialism in the 1960s Rami Ginat 6. RUSSIAN JEWS ON THREE CONTINENTS Migration and resettlement Edited by Noah Lewin-Epstein, Yaacov Ro’i and Paul Ritterband 7. IN PURSUIT OF MILITARY EXCELLENCE The evolution of operational theory Shimon Naveh 8. RUSSIA AT A CROSSROADS History, memory and political practice Edited by Nurit Schleifman 9. POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN CENTRAL ASIA AND AZERBAIJAN Sources and documents Edited by Vladimir Babak, Demain Vaisman and Aryeh Wasserman 11. THE 1956 WAR Collusion and rivalry in the Middle East Edited by David Tal

13. DOCUMENTS ON ISRAELI–SOVIET RELATIONS, 1941–1953 Part 1: 1941–May 1949; Part II: May 1949–1953 14. DOCUMENTS ON SOVIET JEWISH EMIGRATION Boris Morozov 15. DOCUMENTS ON UKRAINIAN JEWISH IDENTITY AND EMIGRATION, 1944–1990 Vladimir Khanin 16. LANGUAGE AND REVOLUTION Making modern political identities Edited by Igal Halfin 17. STALIN AND THE INEVITABLE WAR, 1936–1941 Silvio Pons 18. RUSSIA BETWEEN EAST AND WEST Russian foreign policy on the threshold of the twenty-first century Edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky 19. DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA Edited by Yaacov Ro’i 20. EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA Legacies and prospects Edited by Ben Eklof, Larry E. Holmes and Vera Kaplan

E DUC AT IONAL R E F O R M IN P OST- S OV I E T RUS S IA Legacies and prospects

Edited by Ben Eklof, Larry E. Holmes and Vera Kaplan

F RAN K C A SS London and New York

First published 2005 by Frank Cass 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Frank Cass 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. "To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk." Frank Cass is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Ben Eklof, Larry E. Holmes and Vera Kaplan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Educational reform in post-Soviet Russia: legacies and prospects / edited by Ben Eklof, Larry E. Holmes, and Vera Kaplan. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Education—Russia (Federation)—History—twentieth century. 2. Education—Russia (Federation)—History—2lst century. 3. Educational change—Russia (Federation) 4. Post-communism—Russia (Federation) I. Eklof, Ben, 1946– II. Holmes, Larry E. (Larry Eugene), 1942– III. Kaplan, Vera. IV. Title. LA839.2.E39 2005 370’ .947’086——dc22 2004011601 ISBN 0-203-31867-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0–7146–5705–0 (hbk)

IN F OND M E M ORY OF FRIE DRIC H KUE BART AN D S COT T S E RE GNY

CONTENT S

xi xv

Notes on contributors Preface 1 Introduction – Russian education: the past in the present

1

BEN EKLOF

PART I

Educational policy

21

2 Educational change in time of social revolution: the case of post-Communist Russia in comparative perspective

23

VYACHESLAV KARPOV AND ELENA LISOVSKAYA

3 School and schooling under Stalin, 1931–1953

56

LARRY E. HOLMES

4 The experimental tradition in Russian education

102

STEPHEN T. KERR

5 Democratizing the Russian school: achievements and setbacks

129

ISAK D. FROUMIN

6 Demographic change and the fate of Russia’s schools: the impact of population shifts on educational practice and policy

153

STEPHEN T. KERR

7 The education of Russian-speakers in Estonia KARA D. BROWN

ix

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CONTENTS

PART II

The teacher, the textbook and educational practice 8 Teachers in Russia: state, community and profession

195 197

BEN EKLOF AND SCOTT SEREGNY

9 Civic education in a changing Russia

221

JANET G. VAILLANT

10 History teaching in post-Soviet Russia: coping with antithetical traditions

247

VERA KAPLAN

11 Rewriting the national past: new images of Russia in history textbooks of the 1990s

272

ALEXANDER SHEVYREV

12 New trends in historical scholarship and the teaching of history in Russia’s schools

291

IGOR IONOV

13 Teaching literature in the new Russian school

309

NADYA PETERSON

14 The conduct of lessons in the Russian school: is real change on the way?

322

JAMES MUCKLE

Appendix A: Russian education system Appendix B: Russian general school system Appendix C: Core curricula of the Russian school system

334 335 336

Glossary Index

338 341

x

CONTRIBUTORS

Kara D. Brown is a PhD candidate in the Education Leadership and Policy Studies Department at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her dissertation, ‘Grassroots and Globalization: Bringing Võro-Language Programs into Southeastern Estonian Schools’, will be defended in December 2004. Brown’s research focuses on minority communities in the Baltic States, language preservation and schooling, women and education, rural education, and regional-language groups and the law. Her Master’s thesis, ‘Learning to Integrate: The Education of Russian-Speakers in Estonia, 1920–2000’ traced Estonian-language education issues in Russian schools over the course of the twentieth century. Brown’s current research is on rural education reform and community preservation in Estonia. Ben Eklof is Professor of History and Education at Indiana University and editor of Khronika: Chronicle of Education in Russia and Eurasia. Among his books are Russian Peasant Schools (1986), Soviet Briefing (1989), School and Society in Tsarist and Soviet Russia (ed., 1993), Democracy in the Russian School (ed., 1993), Russia’s Great Reforms, 1855–1881 (ed., 1994), The World of the Russian Peasant (ed., 1990). Recently, he edited the twovolume English language translation of Boris Mironov’s acclaimed Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917. Prof. Eklof continues to work on a volume on the daily life of the Russian school before the revolution, and to publish on education in the post-Soviet era. Isak D. Froumin is Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank (Moscow Office). His research interests lie in the areas of educational policy and civic education. His recent publications (in Russian) include: School Secrets (1999), Problem-Based Approach in Civic Education (2001), Educational Policy: Practice of Analysis (2002). He was principal of the Univers experimental school in Krasnoiarsk from 1987 until 1999. Larry E. Holmes is Professor of History at the University of South Alabama. During the 1992–93 academic year he lectured in Russian and Soviet history at Rostov State University. His publications include: The Kremlin

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and the Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917–1931 (1991), Sotsial’naia istoriia Rossii: 1917–1941 (1994), and Stalin’s School: Moscow’s Model School No. 25, 1931–1937 (1999). A book, Grand Theater: The Administration of Schools in the Russian Republic, 1931–1941, is under preparation. Igor Ionov is a senior fellow at the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the editor of the Russian Civilization department of the journal Obshchestvennye nauki and sovremennost’ (Social Sciences and Contemporary History) and specializes in historical theory, intellectual history and history of Russia. He has published widely and is co-author of a monograph entitled The Theory of Civilization: From Antiquity to the End of the Nineteenth Century [in Russian] (2002) and has authored a high school textbook entitled Russian Civilization from the Ninth to the Twentieth Centuries [in Russian]. Vera Kaplan is a research associate at the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, Tel Aviv University. She currently coordinates a research project on ‘The Teaching of History and Formation of New Historical Narratives in Post-Soviet Russia’. She has authored a number of scholarly papers on the history of Russian education, as well as on educational policy and history teaching in contemporary Russia and co-edited a volume entitled, The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia: Trends and Perspectives (Tel Aviv, 1999). Alongside her research work, Dr Kaplan teaches courses on modern Russian history at the Department of History, Tel Aviv University. Vyacheslav Karpov is Associate Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan University. His research in comparative sociology of education, politics and religion is published in leading journals including Social Forces, Sociology of Religion, Comparative Education Review and others. He is the co-author of The Perplexed World of Russian Private Schools: Findings from Field Research (2001) and is currently writing a book on religion and intolerance in Russia. Stephen T. Kerr is Professor of Education and Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the College of Education at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. His chapters and articles on education in Russia address questions of social and institutional change, professional preparation of teachers, and the persistence and modification of cultural norms within education. Elena Lisovskaya is Associate Professor of Comparative Education and Sociology at Western Michigan University. Her research interests lie in the areas of ideological and institutional changes in post-Communist Russia. She is the author of The Dogmatism of Ideology: A Content Analysis of

xii

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Postcommunist Russian Textbooks (1999); New Ideologies in Postcommunist Russian Textbooks (1999), and The Perplexed World of Russian Private Schools: Findings from Field Research (co-author, 2001). James Muckle is Special Professor in the Centre for Comparative Education Research, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. He is joint editor with W. John Morgan of Post-school Education and the Transition from State Socialism (Nottingham 2001), and edits the journal Education in Russia, the Independent States and Eastern Europe. Nadya Peterson is an Associate Professor of Russian language and literature at Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the author of Subversive Imaginations: Fantastic Prose and the End of Soviet Literature, 1970s–1990s (1997) and of a number of articles on Russian and Soviet literature. Her research interests include women’s writings, education, the work of Anton Chekhov, and contemporary Russian literature. Scott Seregny (1950–2003) was professor of Russian history at Indiana University, Indianapolis. He received a doctorate in Russian history from the University of Michigan in 1982. His research focused on the educational system, peasant life and culture, and rural society of tsarist Russia before the 1917 revolution. Dr Seregny spent two years at the Russian Research Center at Harvard and was the recipient of many prestigious awards and fellowships, including several from the Fulbright Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He wrote a seminal study, Russian Teachers and Peasant Revolution (1989) co-edited a study of politics and society in rural Russia, and produced over forty articles, book chapters, conference papers, reviews, and translations. Alexander Shevyrev is Associate Professor of Russian History in the History Faculty of Moscow State University. From 1992 to 2002 he was head of the Department of Historical Education at the Moscow Institute for Development of Educational Systems (MIROS). Since 1997 he has served as the President of Moscow Association of History Teachers and since 2002 has been a coordinator of the international MATRA project on the teaching of history in multicultural society. He has published widely on the problems of Russian history education and is currently engaged in research on metropolitan culture in Russia, 1800–1917, comparative studies of history education in Russia and Europe, teaching the history of everyday life and teaching history in multicultural societies. Janet G. Vaillant is an Associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies at Harvard University. She was the Associate Director of Harvard’s National Resource Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies from 1980 to 1997. For the last decade she has worked as a consultant on projects of civic education, history, and law education in

xiii

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Russia. She is the author of From Russia to USSR and Beyond, A Narrative and Documentary History (2nd edition 1993) and of articles on social studies, civic education and history teaching in Russia and the US.

xiv

P REFACE

The chapters in this volume were adapted from material originally presented at two conferences: a research workshop of the Israel Science Foundation entitled ‘Unravelling the Threads of Time: The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia’, which took place at Tel Aviv University in December 1999 and ‘Post-Soviet Education . . . A Working Conference’ held at Indiana University’s Bloomington campus in June 2000. Generous support by several funds and institutions made the organization of these conferences and publication of this volume possible. The editors would like to express their gratitude for financial assistance provided by the Israel Science Foundation, The Cummings Center for Russian and European Studies at Tel Aviv University, Indiana University’s Russian and East European Institute, the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, and the Center for the Study of Global Change. The conference devoted to Post-Soviet Education was sponsored in part by funds from the US Department of Education’s Title VI National Resource Center. The Cummings Center also hosted and supported editorial work on this volume. The Institute for the Study of Russian Education at Indiana University organized the conference on post-Soviet education, where the idea of this book originated Numerous individuals contributed significantly to the project. The head of the Cummings Center, Professor Gabriel Gorodetsky, initiated the cooperation between Tel Aviv University and the Institute for the Study of Russian Education, took it upon himself to advance the publication of this volume, and played a pivotal role in bringing it all to fruition. The organization of the conferences and production of the book would have been impossible without the assistance of our colleagues at Tel Aviv and Indiana Universities. Sharing with us his vision and experience, Dr Pinchas Agmon played a very significant role in organizing the Tel Aviv workshop. Dr Shimon Naveh, Director of the Cummings Center in 1999–2000, resolutely resolved financial and organizational problems. Tali Nevo and Catherine Dubrovskii were exceptionally devoted and efficient in handling the logistics of the workshop. While the Institute for the Study of Russian Education at Indiana University organized the conference on Post-Soviet education, special thanks are also due to the xv

P R E FA C E

staff at the Russian and East European Institute, and especially its Assistant Director, Denise Gardiner, for exceptionally efficient and gracious help in looking after the critical arrangements which make or break a conference. The transition from original and inspiring conference papers to an enduring volume of essays demands considerable effort from scholars, translators, and editors. We would like to thank Nadya Peterson for translating the chapter by Isak Froumin from Russian, and Deborah K. Howard and Sergei V. Nikolaev for co-translating the chapters by Alexander Shevyrev and Igor Ionov. Beryl Belsky of the Cummings Center made use of her skill and experience to smooth out the rough spots and turn the papers into a cohesive volume. We owe special appreciation to Deena Leventer, who, beyond her position as editor, was our active partner at every stage of the work. The appearance of this volume gives us great satisfaction and joy. It is also associated with great sadness. Two of our dear friends and colleagues, Scott J. Seregny and Friedrich Kuebart, passed away in the course of our work on this book. Dr Seregny, Professor of Russian History at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, was the co-organizer of the Indiana conference and the co-author of the chapter on Russian teachers, which was to become his last scholarly work. Dr Friedrich Kuebart, the head of the Ruhr University’s Center for Comparative Education Research, participated in both conferences and generously shared with us his expertise and experience. We dedicate this volume to the memory of Scott and Friedrich – internationally recognized scholars, devoted educators and beloved friends.

xvi

1 INTRODUC TION Russian education: the past in the present Ben Eklof

When the Soviet Union gave up the ghost in 1991, a vast social and political landscape extending across eleven time zones was transformed. The political map of the region was redrawn as new (or newly reconstituted) states emerged; monopolies over the political process, the press, and the economy were challenged, or even ended. The enormous energies released in this process have undoubtedly benefited some regions of the former Soviet Union. But uncertainty, impoverishment, and marginalization have also been the lot of many millions since 1991. Some 80 million blue-collar workers saw their living standards plummet as their factories have closed or failed to pay wages for months on end. Disproportionately, women have found themselves out of work. Russia’s large middle class, and especially its intelligentsia, which had initially supported Gorbachev’s reform politics and hoped for a ‘normal’ life resembling that of their professional counterparts in the west, in fact experienced a catastrophic loss of income and status: no wonder perestroika became, in common parlance, katastroika. For some 25 million Russians living in the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union, ‘independence’ meant that overnight they became foreigners or minorities in countries now detached from their Russian homeland. Border disputes proliferated, and a plutocracy built out of the Soviet Union’s old informal networks linking the criminal underworld and the party bureaucracy emerged to feed on the carcass of the Soviet economy. On at least two occasions, in 1991 and 1998, people saw their life savings and investments vanish, and the post-Soviet economy underwent a protracted decline in the 1990s that dwarfed America’s Great Depression. Since 1998, the Russian economy has stabilized and generated steady annual growth, but dire poverty remains widespread, inequality continues to grow and nostalgia for the Soviet era is frequently encountered.1 Since 1991, educational reform has also swept across the former Soviet Union. Attempts have been launched to dismantle the Soviet legacy and to 1

BEN EKLOF

bring schools into line with European and American practices. Reformers have also turned to older, national and imperial legacies for inspiration and emulation. Broadly speaking, reformers have pushed for democratization of governance and classroom practices, for diversification and choice, for decentralization (or even privatization) of education, along with an increased role for the humanities in the curriculum. Some seek to use the schools to transform society; others hope that a revamped education system can generate human capital, enhance economic productivity and provide the skills needed to thrive in a market economy. Still others hope the new school can create ‘social capital’ or the civic values underpinning a law-governed, transparent society and polity based upon the consent of the governed. And finally, there are many who see individual development, the promotion of lichnost’ (identity) as the proper goal of the school.2 The culture of the school is notoriously resistant to change and many scholars insist that schools are more likely to reproduce than they are to transform society.3 So, it should come as no surprise that the reform movement in education has encountered obstacles and resistance in its path. Such difficulties could only be exacerbated by the economic decline and social turmoil that ensued after 1991. On the other hand, the western public often overlooks the considerable resources and potential available to those who seek to emancipate or transform Russia: a highly educated population with a strong respect for science and culture; a venerable tradition of theoretical research and experimentation in education; and a scientific community enjoying world renown. Thus, while it seems appropriate to treat sceptically the claims of Russian school reformers that they could remake education, we should also avoid the premature conclusion that their reform agenda was doomed to fail from the start. The chapters in this volume seek to measure the progress of change in Russian education since 1991. Some of the contributors have actually taken part in the practical implementation of Russian educational reform and the range of their knowledge and experience is vast. Chapters such as the contribution by Vyacheslav Karpov and Elena Lisovskaya reach for a comparative perspective on change, and see a distinct pattern in educational reform movements that accompany revolutionary political and social transformations – a ‘Thermidorian’ tendency. Likewise, Ben Eklof and Scott Seregny look at the profession of teaching in Russia over the past century, compare Russian teachers with their western counterparts, and emphasize their tendency to look to the state rather than the local community for support and protection. Larry Holmes’s chapter offers a grand synthesis of the Stalinist school, and suggests that a knowledge of Soviet education can ‘help us avoid the doom and gloom that pervade so many commentaries on the present scene’. He argues that despite rigid central control and standardization, and despite ‘suppression, fear, and numbing routine . . . the curriculum, classroom instruction, and administration [of schools] departed, at times dramatically, from official rhetoric and 2

I N T RO D U C T I O N

blueprints’. He also finds that teachers and pupils alike often remembered these schools with fondness, and concludes that ‘traditional and authoritarian methods’, such as the ‘cookbook curriculum’ and ‘eggcrate classroom’ combined with hierarchy and order can, when ‘applied sensibly’ and when room is left for spontaneity and creativity, result in ‘effective teaching and learning’. Isak Froumin and James Muckle, drawing upon lifetimes of experience in classrooms, examine the culture of the classroom in post-1991 Russia. Stephen Kerr provides a stimulating and useful addition to our understanding of Soviet educational history by emphasizing the experimental tradition that survived in the margins during the Stalinist era, and persisted into the 1980s, contributing directly to the pedagogy of cooperation that informed the reform movement in the Gorbachev era and beyond. Kerr also provides a disturbing chapter on the social burdens being imposed upon the school in the postSoviet era. Many of the contributors examine the curriculum: Nadya Peterson looks succinctly at literature, while Vera Kaplan, Alexander Shevyrev, and Igor Ionov look at how history is taught, and history texts are written today. Kaplan’s chapter, which examines the evolution of official policy on history, as well as at the public discourse of reform and the writing of textbooks, concludes that despite a worrisome revival of nationalism, and a renewed appreciation of the role of the state in Russian history, ‘reform has achieved remarkable results’. She argues that the ‘paradigm of teaching history’ has fundamentally shifted, and despite the ‘numerous controversies’ provoked by the new model of instruction, educational theory and practice have been enriched, and ‘years of reform have proven to be anything but a waste of time’. Janet Vaillant expertly looks at the introduction and evolution of ‘civic education’ in the reformed schools. As she points out, civic education is not a subject, or discipline, but joins content and process. Thus, her approach brings together the various threads of investigation, which makes the guarded optimism of her conclusions more compelling. Finally, a chapter by Kara Brown represents a case study of the fate of the Russian-language school in a successor state to the Soviet empire – in this instance, Estonia. In these introductory comments I offer a brief overview of the history of Russian education in the twentieth century, with particular attention to policy initiatives and legislation, as well as reform agendas. The goal below is to provide useful background for the in-depth analysis and diverse perspectives and interpretations provided by the authors of the chapters that follow.

Old regime schools In the Russian empire, which at its zenith encompassed roughly one-sixth of the earth’s land surface, eighteenth-century rulers made education a state concern by establishing a university, an academy of sciences, and then secondary schools.4 The Orthodox Church also founded seminaries, many of whose graduates later became prominent civil servants or revolutionaries. The 3

BEN EKLOF

Ministry of Education was created in 1802, and the Great Reforms of the 1860s included legislation encouraging state schooling for the newly liberated serfs and expanding opportunities for women at the secondary level. Trying to finance an army to support Russia’s imperial and great power ambitions on the basis of a backward economy, the state had little left to spend on basic education. However, in the quarter century before World War I, a combination of societal and state initiative gave an enormous boost to public schooling for the lower classes, and educators hoped to achieve universal literacy in the empire by 1922, a hope that was dashed by the outbreak of World War I. Russian pedagogy and classroom practices were derivative of European, especially Prussian, approaches. Universities, though plagued by issues of autonomy and political freedom, made substantial contributions to world science. At the secondary level the atmosphere was formal, discipline often harsh, and the curriculum rigorous. At the primary level, however, Tolstoyan child-centred practices were influential, and after the turn of the century, progressivism made deep inroads into educational practice. Dewey’s democratic classroom became part of a powerful radical democratic and socialist movement against autocracy, in which redistributive justice was combined with decentralization and political freedom. Indeed self-government, or samoupravlenie, came to be seen as a panacea in education: if only the oppressive weight of the central state could be removed, popular initiative would be unleashed and Russia catapulted into a better world.5 The core tenets of experimental psychology and progressivism, nurtured in the late Tsarist era, carried over into the early Soviet era, and shaped the goals of educators during the era of NEP (1921–29). Religion and language were problems for educators, whether oppositionist or autocratic. Most progressives insisted on the right to use local languages in the schools, yet most also believed in the civilizing mission of empire and argued that Russian should also be taught. Reformers were overwhelmingly secular in orientation and believed that the Orthodox Church had no place in the schools. Yet many, believing in cultural autonomy, argued that local populations should be allowed to establish private confessional schools, whether Catholic, Muslim, or (Orthodox) Old Belief. The practical problems involved in implementing such policies (teachers facing a classroom with children from a half dozen minority groups, for example) were never confronted, and tensions over ethnic and linguistic issues mounted in Russia’s borderlands after 1900.

Soviet state and Stalinist school The Russian Revolution of 1917 swept away the old tsarist empire, state, and social order. After a brutal civil war (1918–21) the new Bolshevik leaders, borrowing heavily from Dewey, set about creating a new, secular, democratic, and progressive school system without uniforms, grades, textbooks, or conven4

I N T RO D U C T I O N

tional disciplinary boundaries. Open access to all rungs of the school ‘ladder’ was guaranteed for workers and peasants, and the walls separating school, work, and community were to be broken down. In 1921, as part of the introduction of a mixed economy in Russia, school financing was made the responsibility of local government. But seven years of international conflict, revolution, and civil war had destroyed the Russian economy, and its people were cold, hungry, and diseased. By the end of the first decade of Soviet rule, although the economy had rebounded to its prewar level, the result of experimentation amid economic hardship, deprivation, and social instability was a thorough discrediting of the democratic and decentralized school in Soviet Russia.6 In 1929 Stalin swept away the mixed economy; he also inaugurated a new era in the schools. The Stalinist school system created after 1931 imposed a breathtaking uniformity and hierarchy upon education across the vast territories and ethnically diversified populations of the Soviet Union (by now approximating the boundaries of the old tsarist empire without Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states). Stalinist education was nominally egalitarian as well as ‘polytechnical’, and strongly ‘collectivist’ in that it discouraged individual initiative or choice. Textbooks were restored to their traditional place, the authority of the teacher was reinforced, uniforms were reintroduced, and rote learning once again reigned supreme. Rapid expansion of education did provide opportunity for millions of peasants and workers, many of whom gained a secondary technical education and rose to positions of power and status. But the genuinely emancipatory and redistributive aspects of socialism, not to mention the learner-based tenets of democratic education, were scarcely evident in this system. All were cogs in a wheel, some were more equal than others, and everyone – teacher, student, administrator – knew his or her place in a ‘command system’. After graduating, students were assigned jobs by the state. In reality, the system was not foolproof, and millions of enterprising individuals managed to circumvent the rules to get the education and career they wanted, regardless of the state’s plans for them; but individual choice was not prominent. Stalinism also meant the ruthless suppression of local languages (and often those who spoke them) in an attempt to establish a ‘New Soviet Person’ implicitly dominated by Russian culture. By 1953, whether in Ukraine, Russia, Central Asia, or Moldavia, all schools looked alike, all textbooks were the same, and all teachers followed the same lesson plans. This represented another sea change from the NEP era, which had avidly pursued the preservation of local languages and cultures within the newly constituted empire. In the Stalinist school system an insidious ideology of bombast, distortion, and untruth corrupted the teaching of history and literature, and it profoundly compromised the singular achievement of unprecedented educational expansion, the other hallmark of Stalinism.

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Achievements and problems of the Soviet school The achievements of the Soviet-type school were considerable. First, it was effective in delivering full literacy under Stalin and, under his successors, a complete secondary education to the population of a far-flung and linguistically diverse country. By the 1980s access to higher education lagged only behind that of the United States. Vocational and technical schools, one network of special schools for the gifted and another for children with special needs, boarding schools, a vast network of preschool and extramural institutions – all enhanced opportunity and recruited talent. The Soviet regime also opened up greater access to all levels of education for women. As for the quality of this education, there is no simple formulation. Graduates of Soviet schools who have emigrated to the west often praise the education they received and speak of caring and highly competent teachers; émigré children who enrol in American schools tend to be two to four years ahead of their cohorts in science and mathematics, and they are far better read. Many Soviet schools developed innovative art and music programmes in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, according to a World Bank study, students in these schools, although excelling at the awareness of facts, fared less well in their application, and did poorly at using knowledge in unanticipated settings.7 Preschool institutions were woefully overcrowded, vocational schools had severe discipline problems, and 70 per cent of all university graduates earned engineering degrees of questionable worth. Children with special needs were isolated, gender stereotyping was ubiquitous in textbooks, and minority cultures were paid only lip service. Fitting the curriculum of the humanities and social sciences into the straitjacket of Marxism–Leninism had a stupefying effect. Even in the better schools a ‘conceptually overtaxing’ curriculum resulted in first-grade children having up to three hours of homework daily, widespread falsification of records, and grade inflation.8 Bribery was pervasive as competition for places at universities intensified. One of the most important weaknesses of Soviet education was the centralized nature of the state’s allocative distribution powers. This system fostered the continuous dependency of local educators in budgetary and curriculum matters on the local representatives of the party and, in turn, on the higher chain of command that led to the top of the party hierarchy. By the end of the Brezhnev era (1966–82), planners in the Soviet Union were aware that their schools were in trouble. Seemingly intractable social and pedagogical issues were exacerbated by chronic under-funding. As a proportion of national income, investments in education lagged and schools declined. Rural schools lacked all amenities; overcrowded and crumbling urban schools met in two and sometimes three shifts daily; science laboratories were antiquated; underpaid and overworked teachers left in large numbers. Structural rigidities made it difficult to adapt schools to the chang-

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ing needs of the economy, and the area’s primitive communications infrastructure created daunting obstacles to participation in the information revolution by Soviet schools. Throughout the Soviet Union, women were relegated to secondary positions in all branches of the economy and administration, in spite of academic performance equalling that of men. It was no accident, either, that the feminization of the teaching profession was paralleled by a steady decline in the prestige of the profession.9

Democracy in the school after 1985 In 1986, a year after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, a vibrant reform movement emerged in education, with roots in Estonia, Georgia, and Russia. So-called Eureka initiative groups of parents and teachers, supported by the country’s leading educational newspaper, Teachers’ Gazette, as well as innovators in the Academy of Pedagogical Science, promoted a ‘pedagogy of cooperation’. For a brief period education was a topic of genuine public interest, and in the rhetoric of reformers the belief grew that new schools could transform society. Through learner- and activity-based instruction children would grow into critically thinking, self-aware, and democratically inclined citizens, who would replace the ‘cogs’ and ‘drones’ of the totalitarian system.10 Between 1988 and 1990 the reformist platform of decentralization, differentiation, democratization, and enhancement of the humanities in a humanized school won official endorsement. Radical reformer Edward Dneprov was catapulted into national office as Russian Minister of Education in 1990, just as Boris Yeltsin began to use the Russian Federation as a power base to undermine the federal (Soviet) system headed by Gorbachev.11 With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Dneprov found himself in charge of the newly independent Russian Federation’s schools in a highly centralized state, and Boris Yeltsin’s Decree No. 1 proclaimed education a top priority. Yet Dneprov confronted a dilemma: as an historian of the nineteenth-century liberal reform movement in Russian education, he had imbibed its platform of local self government as the solution to Russia’s woes, and believed profoundly in decentralization as the key to unleashing public initiative, but he also saw that the only way to overcome the stifling inertia of a monolithic bureaucracy was to use his ‘fists’ as minister to achieve a ‘breakthrough’ and make reform irreversible. To his dismay, he learned that only a minority of teachers and parents actively supported the reformist agenda. Worse yet, he presided over school reforms as Russia spiralled into a profound economic collapse. As in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, energetic, progressive reformers now found empty coffers. And Decree No. 1 proved to be empty verbiage, often cited in later years as an egregious example of the pious rhetoric of a government unable to back up its proclamations (what Americans call an ‘unfunded mandate’). In a situation of growing disarray and disillusionment, Dneprov’s reformers 7

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pursued a three-stage agenda of reform: conceptualization, legislation, and implementation. They believed that the conceptualization stage had been completed by 1990; their chief mission now was to promote a foundational law on education, which was promulgated to great fanfare in 1992.12 Reformers did not expect every article of the law to be implemented immediately, but they hoped that in the long run it would serve as a cornerstone for a profound transformation of attitudes and practices in education. In this they were right; the 1992 law, though criticized and often honoured in the breach, served as an inspiration, a goal to be achieved as much as a statute to be observed. Dneprov promoted privatization, which won him many enemies. He also insisted on keeping the church out of state schools and fought against military training in the schools, which won him other enemies. He was replaced in 1992, but by then he had launched a major shake-up of the Russian school system, including curriculum, structure, and governance. When he left office, the Ministry of Education had significantly declined in power and influence. A policy of decentralization as well as a sharply reduced Kremlin budget for education contributed to a historic shift in control over schooling to Russia’s regions, as part of an even larger transformation of Russian politics, from a highly centralized to a federal system.

Changes in structure and governance In the Soviet-type school, legislation was a fig leaf hiding administrative chains of command through which directives were issued to run the system. Directors and inspectors were charged with ensuring compliance; professional unions were also controlled by the party–state, though they occasionally defended teachers. Forums to bring teachers and parents together often turned into shaming sessions for parents who were not bringing up their children properly. Budgets for individual schools were controlled in the smallest detail by the central authorities. Corruption and inefficiency, and perhaps the more decent side of human nature, made the running of these schools far less rigid and monolithic than is sometimes claimed. Still, this was what local reformers would call an ‘administrative–command’ system rather than a ‘lawgoverned’ system. ‘Structural rigidities’ were a reality as ugly as the term itself.13 Thus in Russia, attempts to turn to a law-governed system, to practice negotiation and adjudication, and to develop transparent procedures and budgets, have had to come to grips with the lingering command culture and its remaining personnel. Programmes have been set up with western aid to teach more flexible management approaches. Gradually, agreements are being reached between Moscow, the regions, and municipalities to share authority in decision making, and various collegial bodies have been established for resolving issues among the various authorities. At the local level, the school boards created in the early stages of reform 8

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have not proven their viability, but school principals undoubtedly enjoy more autonomy than before. As for alternative education, private schools, gymnasiums, and the like have clearly established a foothold in Russian education but still account for only 1–2 per cent of all schools. The 1992 law endorsed a limited privatization of education facilities and provided for setting up state-subsidized experimental schools. Reformers also flirted with the notion of vouchers. But in 1995 a Duma hostile to privatization forced revisions to the law prohibiting privatization of state school property. And there is widespread opposition among teachers to breaking up the state’s monopoly over schooling. The decision by the Duma in 2003 to partially restore the legal status of local schools as state rather than municipal entities by 2005 is the fulfilment of many educators’ dreams, and especially those of the Teachers’ Union.14

Curriculum reform After 1991 educators in Russia sought to ‘de-ideologize’ the curriculum by allowing a choice of textbooks and free discussion of long forbidden topics in history, eliminating ‘scientific communism’, ‘scientific atheism’, and introducing sociology, civics, global education, and even religion. Central authorities have allowed the regions and municipalities to choose what they will teach and how they will teach it, and many schools in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) now offer students a range of electives. In theory at least, a major ‘paradigm shift’ from teacher-based to learner-based approaches has occurred, and the promotion of academic freedom and choice has been a genuine achievement of the past decade.15 At the same time, when not crippled by economic constraints, the inertia of tradition, and outright resistance, reforms have, at best, proceeded unevenly in different regions and at different levels. Even where academic freedom has struck deep roots, it has often been with deleterious consequences. Economic constraints, palpable in all areas of schooling, have wreaked the most damage. Despite generous funding by the Open Society Institute, providing adequate numbers of new textbooks (often in several languages) has proven a daunting task, and in Russia many schools still use Soviet-era books. To make matters worse, in a sharp break from the Soviet era (in all but three of the country’s eighty-nine regions) since 1996 the state now requires parents and local school districts to pay for textbooks. Retraining teachers is an expensive and lengthy process that involves in-service release time and support. Learner-based and problemsolving instruction also call for smaller classes, but low salaries, often paid months in arrears, have caused widespread flight from the teaching profession. Many empty slots have been filled by retired teachers unable to live on their meagre pensions, but these pensioners tend to be conservative and wedded to the old ways of rote instruction. In these circumstances, it is remarkable that any innovation has taken hold, and it reflects dedication and 9

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sacrifice on the part of thousands of humble educators (see the chapter by Eklof and Seregny). One subject of great interest is the teaching of history. Narratives of conquest, expropriation, deportation, exploitation, and even genocide were long banished from school textbooks, and the creation of the Russian empire was often described in fairy-tale terms. But the Bashkirs and Tatars and dozens of other ethnicities in Russia, the banished populations of the Crimea and Caucasus and others now want their stories told in the schools, and they often prefer the creation of empire presented as an unqualified evil. History’s didactic function of building consensus around common myths (a ‘usable past’), which sometimes conflicts with ‘seeking the truth’, is at issue. In Russia, no less prominent a figure than Prime Minister Kas’ianov caused a stir in 2001 by lambasting history textbook authors for insufficient patriotism; in response, the Ministry of Education announced a ‘competition’, the results of which were made public in July 2003, for the best history textbooks to be recommended for use in Russian schools.16 Religious conflict is also part of the narrative – not only the suppression of religion as such but also the collaboration of a dominant church (often Orthodoxy) in the persecution of ‘sects’ (Protestantism) or non-Christian faiths, whether Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism. Yet confronting the topic of religion, as Shevyrev shows in his chapter, has often been treated as an integral part of national and spiritual rebirth in the aftermath of Communism. He points out that the most popular history textbook from the Soviet era is still in use;17 in its revised version the most salient change is the new, entirely positive role played by the Orthodox Church throughout Russian history. On the other hand, many educators still hope for a secular version of a ‘usable past’ and for the separation of church and state in Russia. An October 2002 decree of the Russian Ministry of Education recommending instruction in the rudiments of the Orthodox faith according to a curriculum drawn up by the Church ran into heavy opposition, even within the ministry itself, and it had to back pedal.18 As one commentator inquired, would such an innovation set a precedent allowing the authorities in Tatarstan to mandate courses in Islam for the local population, including the 40 per cent who are Russian (hence, potentially Orthodox)? Thus, curriculum reform and decentralization have created thorny issues in some communities. Civic education courses, energetically promoted by various international organizations, may play a significant role in resolving conflicts now evident in the teaching of history, language, and religion. But these subjects will be a source of contention for some time to come. And, as Vaillant points out, civic education itself will continue to encounter indifference, if not ridicule, if it does not provide tools for survival in a society riddled with patronage networks, corruption, coercion, and inequity. Other curriculum issues have been created by decentralization and pluralism. How, given the primitive state of licensing and certification, can quality 10

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be measured? How can the rights of students to receive a decent education and to transfer from school to school or region to region be protected? The Russian Ministry of Education has worked hard to develop a choice of syllabi for schools, in the hope that schools will avail themselves of one of these choices. In addition, the ministry has issued ‘minimal competencies’ and has propagated the notion of standardized testing (see below). A lot of creative thinking has gone into developing a three-tiered core curriculum with national, regional, and local school components. Progress has been made, but there is widespread suspicion that Moscow wants to use standards to reimpose central control. Nevertheless, dozens of regions have worked out agreements with Moscow on this issue.

Economic issues In a much-cited address to the Communist Party Central Committee in 1988, the Chair of the State Committee of Education, Gennadii Yagodin, lamented that 21 per cent of all Soviet schoolchildren attended schools in buildings without central heating, 30 per cent were in schools lacking indoor plumbing, and 40 per cent studied in schools with no access to sports facilities. Indeed, even before the economies in this region began their sharp decline, education was under-funded in per capita terms, and it made up a declining proportion of gross domestic product (GDP). For example, the Soviet Union spent 7 per cent of its GDP on education in the 1970s, but this declined to less than 4 per cent by the late 1980s. It then rose to 4.5 per cent in 1994, but sank again, to 3.2 per cent in 1999.19 It should be kept in mind, too, that this was a proportion of a shrinking pie, at least until 2000 (by 2002 per capita income had risen 27 per cent over the late Soviet era). All sectors of education have suffered, but preschool programmes have suffered most. As Stephen Kerr shows below, this is particularly unfortunate, since unemployment and impoverishment have severely strained family life, and the need for intervention programmes has only grown. The decline in health and nutrition programmes, as well as in support for children with special needs, is an especially bitter pill to swallow. In the Soviet era more than a quarter of all public expenditures on education went to preschool programmes, compared to 4 per cent in Japan, 6 per cent in the United States, and 5 per cent in the United Kingdom.20 During the Soviet era, family income and occupation affected children’s opportunities to gain admission to prestigious schools; bribes, personal connections, and private tutors hired to prepare students for entrance examinations were all widespread. Nevertheless, children from less fortunate families could take advantage of special schools for the gifted and of a well-developed network of free extramural enrichment programmes. Those who won admission to an accelerated school, professional and technical institute, or university paid no tuition fees and received free housing as well as small stipends for living expenses. But now, access to 11

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education has narrowed. Preschool education, nearly universal in the Soviet era, was drastically curtailed as the country’s manufacturing sector, the main source of financing for Soviet kindergartens, dropped precipitously. Tuition fees have been introduced in élite secondary schools, and in higher education (roughly one half of all students are ‘biudzhetniki’, i.e., funded by the state) even where schooling is nominally free, parents have been dragooned into paying large sums for ‘optional courses’, ‘special services’, or capital improvements. Despite efforts to introduce standardized exams, bribery persists in admissions to higher education, and private tutoring continues to privilege children of wealthier families, especially when ‘tutors’ also sit on admissions committees. In 1998, then Minister of Education Aleksandr Tikhonov openly admitted to the editor of Teachers’ Gazette that bribes prevail in competition for admission, and not only to the most prestigious institutions. Financial constraints have generally led to a decline in the quality and availability of special education programmes. Credit belongs to the many international organizations that have worked to educate policy-makers, train families of children with handicaps, and provide direct aid for such children. Equipment such as wheelchairs, virtually unavailable a decade ago, have now appeared, again partly thanks to international efforts. But despite such efforts, the decline in provision for orphanages, boarding schools, summer camps, and correctional education facilities, as well as for the extensive network of largely free after-school programmes has been massive and unidirectional. It is no exaggeration to say that the impact of this large-scale curtailment has been catastrophic precisely for the most needy sectors of the population.21 The market has also created obstacles for reformers devoted to humanizing the curriculum and helping children to become well-rounded adults with a pronounced civic ethos. Instead, parents and children want training that leads directly to lucrative jobs. In their eyes the liberal arts and humanities, except for foreign languages, are an unaffordable luxury. By contrast, programmes in law, economics, business administration, and computer technology have become growth industries. Yet the same market forces have made it very hard to retain teachers of foreign languages in the schools. Vocational education has suffered greatly in the past decade, since most of its programmes prepared students for jobs that are no longer available in the manufacturing sector. To survive, vocational schools must undergo expensive reforms. But how can programmes in banking, marketing, commerce, or computer training be established just as funding from the state and bankrupt enterprises is drying up? Remarkably, enrolments at vocational schools remained steady during the past decade of upheaval in Russia, but this was largely because the state feared the societal consequences of releasing thousands of largely unemployable young people onto the streets and continued to pay their stipends. In this period, then, vocational schools performed a largely social rather than economic service, and their future is now imperilled. Given the financial condition of most regions, an official decision taken late in 2003 to convert the status of most 12

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vocational/technical schools into local (and locally financed) institutions is hardly likely to enhance their chances for survival. Finally, other areas of education have been especially hard hit by marketization. Research has proven to be very expensive and very difficult to sustain. Russia’s central education bureaucracy has only a handful of statisticians collecting and analysing data, so the ministry must often make crucial decisions without adequate information. Sociological surveys are usually carried out only when supported by international organizations. The tradition of promoting research in specialized academies is withering away for lack of funding.

Higher educational institutions (vuzy) This volume does not deal with higher education, but universities share, as well as inherit, the problems confronting lower-level schools, and the postSoviet period has been especially turbulent for higher education.22 Of the more than six hundred state higher education institutions functioning in Russia today, under a dozen can properly be said to be research oriented, and the academies of science traditionally responsible for the production of knowledge are crumbling. Enrolments in higher education institutions were expected to plummet after 1991, as the value of a college degree declined. Instead, since 1996, enrolments have surged, but largely in new, marketoriented fields of study.23 Once the state covered all tuition fees, but now fewer than half of all students receive scholarships, and ‘tuition has become an essential part of public institutions’. At the university level living stipends have dwindled to the point that most high school graduates now apply only to institutions that allow them to continue to live at home. This has had the paradoxical effect of reducing applications to more prestigious institutions located in the expensive large cities and boosting enrolments in run-of-the-mill, provincial vuzy. Still tuition fees exceed annual average (family) income by almost 200 per cent.24 To meet this changed environment, the concept of student loans was introduced in the 1992 Law on Education, but no practical loan schemes have yet been proposed (much less funded) in Russia. A plethora of private universities now exist, but many are phantom institutions, existing in a parasitic relationship with state facilities;25 endowments, critical to longterm stability and autonomy, are virtually unknown. In Russia’s regions, local vuzy are often consolidating, since agricultural, pedagogical, and humanitiesoriented institutions see their survival in reorganizing as comprehensive universities. In terms of governance, the post-Soviet transition brought autonomy from the state to universities. Academic freedom has been achieved and in a handful of locations changes have created vibrant institutions of higher learning. But in most Russian universities demoralization prevails. Generous amounts of western aid have been funnelled into a select number of programmes 13

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(assuming a long-term trickle-down effect), and some rectors are paid thousands of dollars monthly. But most faculty, like teachers in schools, are paid a starvation wage and must teach a double or triple load (sometimes moonlighting at ‘private’ institutions using the very same classrooms).26 Merit-based competition for research money and peer reviews are virtually unknown, and accounting procedures are laughable; instead patronage and clientelism prevail as, despite nominal faculty governance, most institutions are ruled by the heavy hand of Soviet-style bosses and fixers. Professors show little interest in university affairs outside the classroom, and faculty governance bodies now exert little influence. Inside the classroom, a culture of rote instruction to bored students survives from the Soviet era. According to OECD/World Bank specialists, little change has taken place in the humanities curricula, though new programmes in business, marketing, and law are springing up like mushrooms. Facilities are in shocking disrepair, and university communities must often cope without heat, light, or running water. 27 Despite these problems, the state continues to struggle to refurbish higher education. Not only are the unified state exams, which fundamentally alter the admissions process, in place in forty-seven regions (to be increased to over sixty, or two-thirds of all areas of the country, in 2004), but Russia is now a signatory of the Bologna Convention.28 On 19 June 1999, the ministers of education of twenty-nine European countries met in Italy to sign the Bologna Declaration in which it was agreed to create a unified system of acquiring higher education and of mutual recognition of each other’s diplomas within ten years. This system would set up a method of establishing equivalency for classes taken in different higher educational institutions throughout Europe. In theory, students would be able to take courses, for example, at universities in Russia and Italy and have all the credits count toward their degrees. No fewer than three years of study should net a student enough credits for a bachelor’s degree; a further two or three years of study would lead toward a master’s degree. The final degree level would be the doctorate. One fundamental idea behind this plan is support for the increasing mobility of students and instructors so that they can respond more immediately and effectively to the labour market.29 In Russia the debate over joining the Bologna Process raised some discussion about what it would mean for higher education. As opposed to the two-tiered system envisioned above of bachelor and master degrees as the main components of higher education, the Russian system of higher education has recognized three levels: bachelor, specialist, and master, based on four, five, or six years of study, respectively, since the early 1990s.30 The introduction of the bachelor and master levels has not had much effect on university study; five years for higher education was and remains the typical length of study. In addition to bringing higher education degrees into conformity with European practices, Russian educators will have to make rapid progress in converting the course of study in secondary schools to a full twelve years, a component of the Modernization Programme (see below) encounter14

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ing serious obstacles. Thus in actuality, joining the Bologna Process will entail some changes in the Russian system of higher education.

Russian schools in the new millennium More than a decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, schools remain in an unsettled state. Change has occurred much more rapidly and profoundly in some areas than in others. Internationalization has left a mark, but much less so in, say Kazan, than in Moscow. Freedom and opportunity beckon, but equity has declined.31 Corruption, bribery, incompetence, and lip service to reform can all be found, but so can remarkable dedication and a capacity for innovation even in very difficult circumstances. A revival of national and imperial traditions proceeds, but a fascination with western approaches also persists; textbooks fomenting xenophobia and ethnic animosities can be found along with others promoting reconciliation and tolerance. Russia itself has been on a wobbly path. Even before the stock market crash of 1998, in many areas schools were forced to relinquish much of their pedagogical mission in favour of social welfare functions, so immense were the dimensions of impoverishment, family breakdown, and the spread of epidemic disease as well as drug use – ‘social surroundings that offer young people less a supportive environment than a virulent set of pathologies’. According to Stephen Kerr, the percentage of children unable to progress in school because of debilitating mental or physical conditions, estimated to be between 5 and 20 per cent in the United States, may be as high as 50 to 70 per cent in Russia today. Consequently, Kerr concludes, the school is still in a ‘downward spiral’ and ‘a distinctive culture of learning, developed under the Soviet regime and preserved in remarkably good shape until recently’ is seriously endangered.32 Moreover, drastic reductions in education budgets undercut many programmes. Precipitous decentralization led to chaos and undermined efforts to coordinate reform. And as if these problems were not enough, economic polarization has been reflected in tensions over school admissions and curriculum policy. In general, schools now seem to be exacerbating instead of mitigating society’s inequities. Some argue that the generational loss of human capital, in combination with the emigration of thousands of highly trained scientists will, in the long term, inflict a greater body blow to the postsocialist economy than even the virtual collapse of the manufacturing sector. The perestroika-era lament that the Russian genotype had ‘deteriorated’ was, of course, preposterous, but the generational deterioration of ‘human capital’ does loom as a real possibility. But not all signs are bad for Russian education. There is some evidence in surveys that in recent years Russian families have displayed a strong willingness to invest their own earnings in education, a willingness apparently far greater than comparative studies would predict, given the country’s per capita income. According to data from a 2000 survey, more than two-thirds 15

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of families believed that a good education was the most important benefit they could provide their children (more important than ‘business acumen’ which only 16 per cent chose first). One commentator inferred from these surveys that despite everything, Russia’s cultural capital was still intact, and that among the population a belief persisted in the intrinsic value of schooling.33 This renewed support for education is reflected also in heightened interest in recent years on the part of the periodical press in topics related to education. There is also evidence of a new commitment to achieve stability through increased financing and targeted improvements. In recent years, state investments in education have increased sharply. Ministry of Education officials boasted in 2003 that expenditures on schools in Russia now exceeded those on the military.34 The Duma and the state have demonstrated renewed interest in education by pursuing measures of amelioration and reform. Notably, this has been evident in the sustained effort to establish first a ‘Doctrine’ of education and then, late in 2001, the passage of a ‘Modernization Programme’, unifying and integrating several major policy initiatives and seemingly restoring the role of the central state as a major ‘player’ in school affairs. The proclaimed goals of the Modernization Programme35 are to enhance ‘quality, access, and effectiveness’ throughout the school system. The components are many, including the rechannelling of monies out of the ‘shadow’ economy into public (state) channels. Putin’s chief economic advisor, German Gref, has argued that fully one half of all money spent on education in Russia goes to bribes, tutoring, and other ‘private’ ends.36 If these sums could be recouped by the public sector in education, it would represent a significant enhancement in monies available for targeted state investment. The steady increase in the number of matriculants taking the unified standardized examination (soon to be over a million) will affect not only the fairness of the admissions process, but also approaches in the classroom. It appears that literally thousands of new texts, teachers’ manuals, and workbooks are being readied for use in schools so that pupils everywhere will be better prepared for these exams, with or without access to tutors.37 A related component of modernization is the system of State Normative Fiscal Obligations (GIFO), a new approach to financing higher education in which ‘money will chase students’, by linking the size of the state subsidy to vuzy for each enrolled student to grades on the standardized exams.38 Further, to bring the school curriculum into line with university entrance requirements (the existing gap has made it almost impossible to gain admission without special preparatory classes) the government has been moving forward with a revised curriculum based upon set standards for each course, an additional (twelfth) year of secondary education, and ‘profiling’ or accelerated courses in the last two years of study. After some initial glitches, the standardized exams are rapidly being implemented (see above); the transition to a twelve-year curriculum is underway in some areas; GIFO is still in preparation (and meeting resistance from the powerful 16

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Union of Rectors). Drawing up standards has been very controversial; the recommendations of two hundred experts headed by former minister Dneprov were heavily criticized by the President of the Russian Academy of Education at a conference in the summer of 2002, and in a review of developments at the close of the year, a top official reported that the educational world remained polarized on standards. Other components of modernization underway include a campaign to computerize all schools and major efforts to upgrade rural education.39 Thus, the ‘centre’ (the presidential office, the ministries, and the Duma) has recently re-emerged as a major player in Russian education and produced a comprehensive set of measures to reshape Russian education. Officials have repeatedly intoned that ‘nothing is yet set in stone’, that ‘fine tuning’ is still called for, and that several key components are still ‘experimental.’ But there is undoubtedly more momentum to these recent state initiatives than to any federal programme since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and we will see a new look to Russian education in the next decade. This look will definitely incorporate aspects of the Soviet tradition. As a reaction to the inequities, to perceived decline, and to the chaos following upon decentralization, many voices, including that of Putin, have been raised for preserving those elements of the Soviet-style system of education worth saving,40 as Russians, with more opportunity to observe or read about educational practices outside their country, have developed a new appreciation for their own traditions and achievements.

Notes 1 Among the most stimulating examinations of the collapse of the Soviet Union are Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000 (New York: Oxford, 2000) and Robert Service, Russia: Experiment with a People (London: Macmillan, 2002). For an excellent comparative study of the human impact of the transition, see A Decade of Transition (UNESCO: Innocenti Center: Regional Monitoring Report #8, 1991). For the most current data on poverty, see UNICEF, Innocenti Centre, Social Monitor 2003, pp. 5–6. 2 For the reforms in education, see Stephen Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000); Jeanne Sutherland, Schooling in the New Russia: Innovation and Change, 1984–1995 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999); and I.D. Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia (Krasnoiarsk, 1998). 3 See Webber, School, Reform, and Society, pp. 46–7. 4 For an introductory survey of sources on this topic, see James Muckle, Education in Russia Past and Present: An Introductory Study Guide and Select Bibliography (Nottingham: Bramcote, 1993). 5 V.I. Charnoluskii, Osnovnye voprosy organizatsii shkoly v Rossii (St Petersburg: Znanie, 1909). 6 Larry E. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917–1931 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991); V.L. Soskin, Obshchee obrazovanie v Sovetskoi Rossii: Pervoe desiatiletie (Novosibirsk, 1992). 7 This assessment has been largely confirmed by the 2002 OECD PISA investigation

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8 9

10

11 12 13 14

15

16

17

of attainment in reading, mathematics and science in 28 countries, including the Russian Federation; see http://www.pisa.oecd.org. This overloading of the curriculum stemmed, ironically, from the so-called Zankov reforms initiated in the 1960s, which sought to modernize instruction and enhance independent thinking. An excellent, concise examination of the problems facing the Soviet school at the close of the Brezhnev era is: John Dunstan, ‘Soviet Education: Some Issues of the Eighties’, in National Association of Secondary School Principals Bulletin 454 (1982), pp. 30–44. See also Susan Jacoby, Inside Soviet Schools (New York: Schocken, 1984); Mervyn Matthews, Education in the Soviet Union (London: Allen and Unwin, 1982); and the several excellent essays in J.J. Tomiak (ed.), Western Perspectives on Soviet Education in the 1980s (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1986). This was the terminology of the reformers themselves, who argued that Stalinism had warped the human personality or even, through mass repression, ‘distorted the genotype’, and created a new type of drone (the sovok) or cog (vintik). Such hyperbole was characteristic of the intelligentsia under Gorbachev and in the early post-Soviet era. Some American Cold War scholars subscribed to a similar notion; in this view, the Soviet totalitarian experience had created a unique ‘Homo Sovieticus’; but, as Priscilla Roosevelt observed after travelling to do research in Russia, she came to understand that ‘most Soviet citizens were just normal people trying to deal with an abnormal situation’. ‘Discovering Rural Russia: A Forty-Year Odyssey’, in Samuel H. Baron and Cathy A. Frierson (eds), Adventures in Russian Historical Research: Reminiscences of American Scholars from the Cold War to the Present (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), p. 37. See Ben Eklof, ‘Introduction’, in Ben Eklof and Edward Dneprov (eds), Democracy in the Russian School: The Reform Movement in Education Since 1984 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993). For the Law on Education see Jan De Groof (ed.), Comments on the Law on Education of the Russian Federation (Leuven, Belgium: Acco, 1993). The law appears on pp. 117–62. Webber, School, Reform and Society, pp. 51–78. As the prominent leader of the Teachers’ Union Vladimir Yakovlev lay dying of cancer in August 2003, the Minister of Education Filippov brought to his deathbed a copy of the new legislation, and Yakovlev’s spirits were enormously lifted, according to Uchitel’skaia gazeta of 12 August 2003, pp. 2, 4, 6–7, 12–13. For the new regulations see Obrazovatel’noe pravo (Supplement to Uchitel’skaia gazeta) 44 (30 October 2003). An excellent discussion of this can be found in Frumin (Froumin), Vvedenie v teoriiu, and in his chapter in this volume. See also Webber, School, Reform and Society, esp. chapters 3 and 5–6; OECD, Reviews of National Policies for Education: Russian Federation (Paris, 1998), pp. 87–113 and 131–46. On this, see Elena Kostiuk, ‘Pervaia polosa. Istoriia s istoriei’, Vremia MN, 31 August 2002, p. 1; Natal’ia Savitskaia, ‘Otkrytyi uchebnik’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 27 September 2002, p. 8. See also the chapter by Vera Kaplan in this volume. Alas, the question of what version of history should be presented seems to be of less interest to the younger generation than to their parents, educators, or historians. Catherine Merridale reports that while older people in Russia are still preoccupied with the meaning of their Stalinist past, the young are overwhelmingly indifferent to history; it seems to have no bearing on their lives. Catherine Merridale, ‘Redesigning History in Contemporary Russia’, Journal of Contemporary History 1 ( 2003), pp. 13–28. A.A. Preobrazhenskii and B.A. Rybakov, Istoriia Rossii: Uchebnik dlia 6–7 klassov obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii (Moscow: Russkoe slovo, 1997).

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18 On the controversy connected with an attempt to introduce the course entitled, Foundations of Russian Orthodox Culture, see the Memorandum of the Ministry of Education of 13 February 2003, N 01-51-013 entitled ‘O dopolnitel’nykh raz”iasneniiakh k pis’mu Minobrazovaniia Rossii ot 22 oktiabria 2002, # 14-5287in/16 “O primernom soderzhanii kursa – Osnovy pravoslavnoi kul’tury”’; http://www.edu.ru/legal/public/defult.asp?WCI=Document&no=1492246. 19 UNESCO, Innocenti Center, Social Monitor, 2003, p. 83 (http://www.unicef-icdc. org/publications/). 20 The best source on this topic is A Decade of Transition, chapters 1–2 and 4. See also OECD, Reviews of National Policies for Education, pp. 55–86. 21 For data on the 49,980 pre-school institutions in Russia, enrolling 4.2 million children, see Uchitel’skaia gazeta 47 (18 November 2003), pp. 1, 6–7. Of this number about 40,000 are now the property of municipalities. 22 Reviews of National Policies for Education: Tertiary Education and Research in the Russian Federation (Paris: OECD, 1999). 23 Eighty per cent of private universitites specialize in law or economics (Uchitel’skaia gazeta 33 (12 August 2003), p. 19). 24 See Olga Bain ‘The Costs of Higher Education to Students and Parents in Russia: Tuition Policy Issues’, International Higher Education 11 (Spring 1998), pp. 6–8. 25 As Dmitry Suspitin writes, ‘many “private” higher education institutions in Russia are heavily dependent on interlocking relationships with the government’. As he points out, the state is often involved in funding, supporting and giving access to physical plants and facilities. Over half of Russia’s 500 private institutions have actually been founded by ministries or state research academies: they are ‘typically housed within public institutions, sharing libraries, sports facilities, dormitories, research laboratories, and other assets’. Even those established by private businesses ‘give a misleading impression of independence from state-run organizations’ and are ‘in reality closely linked to governmental structures through networks of formal and informal connections’. ‘Russian Private Higher Education: Alliances with State-Run Organizations’, in International Higher Education 33 (Fall 2003), p. 16. 26 For a recent study of the professoriate in Russia, based upon systematic survey research, see Frants Sheregi, Sotsiologiia obrazovaniia: prikladnye issledovaniia (Moscow: Akademiia, 2001). Chapter 6 is devoted to conditions of research; chapter 7 to a composite profile of faculty. 27 For articles on ‘the abject state of scholars’ and ‘the degradation of higher education’, including crumbling infrastructure, unreplenished libraries, and pervasive corruption, see Bryon MacWillams in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 December 2001, ‘For Russia’s Universities, A Decade of More Freedom and Less Money’, and ‘Corruption, Conflict and Budget Cuts Afflict Academe in Former Soviet Republics’. 28 For changes underway in European universities in the past decade, see the article by Barbara Sporn, ‘Convergence or Divergence in International Higher Education Policy: Lessons from Europe’, ‘Ford Policy Forum 2003: Exploring the Economics of Higher Education’ (Forum for the Future of Higher Education, Cambridge, MA, 2003). 29 Moskovskii Komsomolets, 20 March 2003. 30 Informika, 4 April 2003; Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 4 June 2003; http://www.edu.ru/ index.php?page_id=5&topic_id=3&date=1049054400&sid=137. 31 In fairness, it should be pointed out that some reformers believe that equity must decline, at least initially, if the post-Soviet states are to rebound, and be competitive in global markets. According to this approach, school policies should be oriented toward grooming a new élite to run the country in a competent, ethical,

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32 33

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35 36 37 38

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and transparent way. On this, see Cathy Wanner, ‘Educational Practices and the Making of National Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine’, Anthropology of East Europe Review 2 (Autumn 1995). Stephen T. Kerr, ‘Demographic Change and the Fate of Russian Schools’, REECAS Newsletter (Jackson School, University of Washington), Summer 2001, pp. 10–14. A.L. Andreev, ‘Society and Education: A Sociocultural Profile of Russia’, Russian Education and Society 1 (November, 2003), pp. 5–22. The article was originally published in Pedagogika 6 (2002), pp. 20–9. A comparative survey of public vs. private outlays on education in former ‘east bloc’ countries can be found in UNICEF, Innocenti Center Social Monitor, Social Monitor 2003, p. 7. According to this study, ‘the extent of the willingness of parents in the CEE/CIS to seek good education for their children was one of the striking findings of the analysis’. The sceptic could argue that this tells more about the condition of the military than of improvements in education. In fact the budget approved by the Duma for 2004 provides for no further increases in teachers’ salaries over the 33 per cent augmentation delivered in 2003 (which, according to experts, allowing for the increases in the cost of living, brought salaries back to the 2001 level). Moreover, for 2004, funds aimed at universalizing network access (informatizatsiia) and enhancing computer literacy over five years, according to the Modernization Programme, were allocated at only one-fifth of the sums required for 2004. For more on the Modernization Programme, see the Khronika (Chronicle) of Russian and Eurasian Education 1 (Spring 2003); http://www.indiana.edu/~isre/ISRE Newsletter.htm. Sometimes these categories overlap: of 350,000 new matriculants at vuzy this year, 300,000 had taken ‘preparatory courses’ with professors at the university to which they later won admission. Results of the 2003 exams can be viewed at http://www.vestniknews.ru/news/ #v1068373655. As of 2005, the state will also shift to a new system of financing secondary schools, according to which state subsidies will also ‘chase pupils’; i.e., instead of each school receiving a set sum, it will receive between 8,000 and 30,000 rubles from the state, depending upon the region, for each enrolled pupil. Village schools in Russia have chronically been in distress; because of population decline many have ten pupils or fewer, and efforts to upgrade cost twice as much per capita as do improvements in municipal areas. Yet attempts to consolidate or close down village schools have met with fierce local resistance, since the schools remain the cultural hearth and key social welfare institutions in remote areas. Two early articles calling for a more positive assessment of the Soviet educational tradition than was current during the perestroika era are Sergei Kurganov, ‘Nas russkomu nauchit Vashington, ili chem Rossiia otlichaetsia ot Mozambika’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 41 (1991), and Valerii Soifer, ‘Who Offers a Better Education, the USA or Russia’, Izvestiia, 15 November 1995. Since then, émigré correspondents regularly write on schools in Europe and the United States for the readers of Russian periodicals.

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Part I EDUCAT IO NAL P O LI C Y

2 E DU CATIONAL CHANG E IN T I ME OF SOCIAL REVOLU TION The case of post-Communist Russia in comparative perspective Vyacheslav Karpov and Elena Lisovskaya

Introduction In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an ambitious educational reform was proclaimed in Russia. Its goal was to dismantle the authoritarian Soviet system while humanizing, democratizing and decentralizing schools. Yet, by the end of the century the direction and ideology of school reform had drastically changed. It currently appears to be promoting a restoration of some of the features of the Soviet system, including centralized control, curricular rigidity and political–ideological functions. How can the pendulum-like course of Russian educational reform during the last decade be explained? In this chapter, we suggest that there is nothing unique in such a zigzag of educational reform. It reflects what appears to be a common pattern of educational change which occurs in the context of social revolution. We can detect this motif by comparing the trajectories of educational change in various historical circumstances. We approach this comparative task sociologically; that is, by analysing trends in educational change as induced and constrained by shifts in its societal environment. This approach involves the following three interrelated conceptualizations. First, we conceptualize educational change as consisting of two major components: reforms (intended changes of educational institutions in a desirable direction) and mutations (spontaneous, micro-level adaptive reactions of educational institutions to their unstable environment). Because the societal environment of schooling is never completely stable, no reform can be carried out with complete adherence to its plan, and mutations always play a role in educational change. Their role may be expected to increase (and chances for a successfully implemented reform presumed to decrease accordingly) in cases of extreme social destabilization. We regard social revolutions which, by 23

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definition, involve cataclysmic social change as ‘experimental’ case studies for extreme destabilization. Second, for analytical purposes, we approach reforms as consisting of destructive and constructive components. Put simply, any reform presumes that some of the old ways have to be abolished, and that something new must replace them. Educational reforms attempted in the time of social revolution usually include destructive and constructive agendas on a grandiose scale, in which the old regime systems of schooling are to be replaced by new ones. Third, we see revolutions as relatively lengthy processes of social and institutional change that are marked by dramatic political events but which transcend the temporal boundaries of these events. Based on the ideas of Sorokin, Brinton, and other ‘natural historians’ of revolution,1 we see the fundamental destabilization of society (we call it the ‘radical stage’) and the restoration of a modified social order with enclaves of the old institutions (the ‘conservative stage’) as integral parts of the cyclical revolutionary process. Educational change that occurs in time of revolution can be seen as reflecting the cycle of its radical and conservative stages. These conceptualizations are applied to a comparative study of educational change in three revolutions. The three cases we consider here deal with three levels of the development of modern education systems: the French Revolution of 1789–1814, which led to the formation of a modern education system; the Communist revolution in Russia/the USSR of 1917–38, which transformed partly modernized institutions into a fully modern system; and the postCommunist Russian Revolution (1989 to the present), which involved a fully modern system. Furthermore, our three cases differ markedly in terms of the political, ideological and socio-economic content of the revolutionary processes concerned. Despite these differences, our study shows remarkably similar patterns of educational change. In the radical stage, destructive reform agendas were congruent with the general direction of social change and were implemented successfully. Moreover, given the societal instability generated by the revolutions’ radical stages, the destruction of the old systems typically went further than the revolutionaries themselves anticipated or desired, while constructive reforms were largely inhibited. Under these circumstances, many schools survived through mutations, i.e. spontaneous and largely unofficial micro-level adaptations to their environment, by mobilizing the social resources they had inherited from the old regimes. Mutations deeply transformed the schools and resulted in tendencies of change that had little to do with the initial plans for reform. Societal change at the conservative stage (restoration of a modified social order) is generally more congruent with and more suited to implementation of the constructive component of educational reform. Yet, we found that constructive reforms implemented at this stage also became ostensibly conservative (even reactionary). In the three cases we analysed, they aimed at partly restor24

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ing pre-revolutionary educational patterns. However, it is important to note that, in all three cases, these conservative reforms were conditioned and constrained by the outcomes of mutations that occurred at the revolutions’ radical stages. In conclusion, we summarize the similarities of the three cases and reflect on the unique characteristics of the current Russian case and its possible consequences.

Educational change: reforms and mutations For analytical purposes, we define educational change as the totality of longterm, large-scale changes in institutions, practices and social groups pertinent to a given system of education.2 This concept includes both intended and unintended, planned and unforeseen, and desirable and undesirable transformations of education. Educational change may result from intentional efforts to change schools as well as from spontaneous structural shifts in the school social environment. Based on the nature of the impetus for educational change (intentional and organized effort as opposed to spontaneous adjustment to the social environment), one can further distinguish between the following two mechanisms of educational change. The first mechanism is educational reform. This notion deals with ‘planned efforts to change schools in order to correct perceived social and educational problems’.3 Reforms would be unthinkable in a completely unstable and unpredictable societal environment. The very idea of reform as planned change in a desirable direction presumes at least some degree of stability and predictability in the social environment of schooling. Put simply, reformers cannot plan without assuming a relatively steady supply of students and teachers with certain predictable social characteristics or without counting on the availability of at least some material resources (e.g., funds, buildings and books) and some degree of stability in political support and legal frameworks for their efforts. In reality, however, the assumption of stability is usually inaccurate to some degree. The social environment of schooling is in a state of constant flux, causing spontaneous adaptive reactions in the schools. Therefore, side by side with educational reforms, another mechanism of change can be distinguished, henceforth referred to as ‘mutation’.4 We use this metaphor borrowed from natural science in order to emphasize the following distinctive features of educational mutations. First, unlike planned and purposeful reforms, mutations are spontaneous adaptive reactions to the changing social environment of schooling. Second, unlike officially proclaimed and regulated reforms, mutations tend to happen unofficially and are largely unregulated. Third, unlike reforms that usually target entire educational systems or their major functional or regional subdivisions, mutations occur at the micro level (in the schools affected by conditions changing in a certain direction). Fourth, where reforms presume a centralized allocation or reallocation of external resources, mutations are 25

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‘genetically’ predetermined by the nature and amount of resources (e.g., material and human resources, status resources and social networks) that are ‘inherited’ by each school from its past and mobilized to adapt to its new environment. To sum up: mutations are the spontaneous, unregulated and unofficial adaptive micro-level reactions of schools to the changes in their social environment through the mobilization of the resources they ‘genetically’ inherited from the past. The relationship between educational reforms and mutations may be complex and may vary across national and historical settings. Reforms create a normative (legal and ideological) environment, to which schools adapt through mutations. Therefore, they can facilitate or inhibit mutations. For instance, reforms aimed at increasing the autonomy and decreasing the bureaucratic accountability of schools may be expected to facilitate unofficial and unregulated adaptations. By contrast, a centralizing reform may be expected to impede unofficial micro-level initiatives. On the other hand, mutations can change the very object of the reform (the school system) in ways that are unofficial, unregulated and unaccounted for, thereby complicating the reform’s efforts. Mutations may also facilitate reforms that simply legislate changes that have already taken place in an unofficial and unregulated way. Thus, reforms and mutations can influence, facilitate or impede each other depending on the direction of the changes that are planned and those that happen spontaneously. A second aspect of the relationship between reforms and mutations deals with the proportion of educational change they account for in a particular social and historical setting. As stated above, reforms presume a certain degree of stability in the social environment of schooling, while mutations are reactions to its instability. Therefore, the more stable a societal environment, the greater the amount of educational change that planned and organized reform efforts achieve. On the other hand, the more unstable and unpredictable the societal environment, the greater the amount of educational change brought about through mutations (even if a reform takes place simultaneously). Social revolution is, in essence, an extreme case of socio-economic and political instability. Since this chapter applies the concept of revolution to the ongoing social transformation of Russia (that is, compared to the French Revolution of 1789–1814 and the Russian Revolution of the early twentieth century), this concept requires clarification.

Revolutions and revolutionary cycles Russia’s current ‘transition’ and the ‘true’ revolutions of the past While the term ‘revolution’ is routinely applied to France at the end of the eighteenth century and Russia in the early twentieth century, it is seldom used as an analytical concept in studies of transitions from Communism. We suggest that the conceptual apparatus developed in studies of revolution is quite

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applicable to Russia’s recent social change. Moreover, it reveals some important aspects of educational change in post-Communist settings. Revolutions are commonly viewed as relatively rapid and broad social transformations that involve takeovers of political power. Yet some theories define revolutions more narrowly, as necessarily involving mass mobilization from below, large-scale violence, discontinuity of development and totality of change.5 As S.N. Eisenstadt has pointed out, such narrow definitions are based on the archetypal image of ‘the true revolution’ (built upon the classical French and Russian models).6 However, comparative sociological studies depict a variety of revolutionary patterns.7 Not all revolutions involve mass mobilization from below; some radical transformations of society develop ‘from above’.8 The forms and scope of revolutionary violence vary.9 Relatively peaceful revolutions (such as those in eastern Europe since 1989) can result in more radical social changes than those following violent upheaval.10 Thus, while the process of change in Russia since the 1980s does not fully correspond to the image of a ‘true revolution’, we find it appropriate to apply the concept of social revolution to the ongoing transformation of Russian society. We consider this change to be a social revolution initiated from above that has involved relatively low levels of mass mobilization and violence and yet generated profound institutional and social structural change. Similar interpretations have recently appeared both in the west11 and in Russia.12 The duration of revolutions Revolutions, says Theda Skocpol, are distinct from other transformative processes by the coincidence of social and structural change with class upheaval and political struggles.13 This coincidence makes it difficult to determine the duration of revolutions. Political conflicts and takeovers are typically marked by some easily identifiable dramatic events with more or less clear temporal boundaries. These landmark events give revolutions recognizable but often misleading names such as ‘the French Revolution of 1789’, or ‘the Russian Revolution of 1917’. These name tags fail to reveal the complexity and duration of social and institutional changes that precede and follow, and that are bound by cause and effect to the landmark events.14 Chronologies based on social and institutional changes rather than landmark events usually describe revolutions as lengthy and phased processes, with beginning and end dates that are difficult to determine precisely. Thus, François Furet describes the French Revolution as a coincidence of the lengthy process of consolidating central administrative power (which began under the Old Regime and culminated under Napoleon) and radical political change that gave this absolutist trend a new, democratic legitimacy.15 Characteristically, one of Furet’s chronologies of the French Revolution goes from 1770 to 1814.16 Similarly, Sheila Fitzpatrick’s study of the Russian Revolution includes developments from 1917 to 1937–38.17 27

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Revolutionary cycles Some scholars have suggested that revolutions usually follow a specific sequence of stages. In their view, revolution is an essentially two-phased process, the first phase being growing destabilization and the second being gradual restoration of ‘normality’, order and stability.18 Brinton’s metaphor of revolutionary ‘fever’, as a an illness followed by a period of convalescence,19 aptly captures the essence of this approach.20 While Brinton, Edwards and Pettee’s periodizations are largely based on the dramatic events of revolutionary political struggles, Sorokin places much stronger emphasis on the social and institutional changes that accompany and are caused by these struggles. Looking at the changes that occur in a variety of social structures, functions and institutions, Sorokin describes revolutions as two stages ‘indissolubly connected with one another’.21 The first, ‘radical’ stage involves large-scale destabilization and spread of innovation and experimentation. It radically departs from the pre-revolutionary legacies. ‘Change’ is the word of the day. The second, ‘reactionary’ stage involves stabilization and a partial restoration of pre-revolutionary norms and patterns of social life. ‘Order’ becomes the word of the day at this stage. ‘“Reaction” is not a phenomenon beyond the limits of revolution but an unavoidable part of the revolutionary process itself, its second half.’22 These two-stage transformations result in combinations of old and new normative structures. The above discussion has shown that the concept of revolution applies to the process in late twentieth-century Russia as logically as it does to the classical cases of the ‘true’ French and Russian revolutions. (For simplicity of presentation and in order to distinguish between the two Russian cases, we refer to the early twentieth-century Russian revolution as the ‘Communist revolution’ and to the recent changes as the ‘post-Communist revolution’.) Thus, a comparison of the educational changes that occurred in the course of these three revolutions is conceptually justifiable.

Educational change during the French Revolution, 1789–1814 Our periodization of the French Revolution follows Furet’s view of the Napoleonic era as a direct continuation of the social transformations launched in 1789.23 Correspondingly, we see the pre-Napoleonic period of the revolution as its radical stage that culminated in Jacobin rule and subsided during the Thermidorian Republic. The eighteenth day of the month of Brumaire, 1799, marks the beginning of the conservative stage that ends with the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy.24

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The radical stage By 1789 the level of development of the French system of education was remarkable for its time. Enrolment in elementary schools was relatively high and 562 collèges (secondary schools) boasted 74,747 students, 40,000 of whom had scholarships.25 That record, says Robert Vignery, ‘compares favourably with the situation in French education as late as 1881’.26 Controlled and supervised by various orders of the Catholic Church, schools were financed through church subsidies, tuition fees, private endowments and special local taxes. The educational agenda of the revolution was rooted in the prerevolutionary critique of the Old Regime schools and alternative proposals for their development, from Rousseau to Turgot. This critique, in different versions, expressed discontent with religious domination of education. It advocated freedom and individual rights, instruction in scientific and practical knowledge, and emphasized the need for instruction in civic and secular morality for social harmony and solidarity. These notions presumed replacing or constraining religious control of education by assigning greater responsibility to the state.27 The radical stage of the revolution transformed these ideas into a series of reform plans and legislative initiatives. These plans evolved and changed from Mirabeau to Daunou, reflecting political struggles against the forces of the Old Regime and within the revolutionary camp itself. Yet, despite these variations, the revolutionary agenda for education can be presented as consisting of two major invariants, one ‘destructive’ and the other ‘constructive’. The former deals with emancipating schools from the old system of (largely ecclesiastical) social control, as well as overall dismantling of the old system; the latter with creating a new national system of state-controlled schooling that would promote instruction deemed consistent with the goals and values of the new society expected to emerge from the revolution.28 However, given the economic hardship, social disorganization and violent conflicts (both domestic and international) of the revolution’s radical stage, these two components of the educational agenda had clearly unequal chances for successful implementation during the 1790s. The agenda’s first component (emancipation through destruction) was congruent with the general direction of societal change during that decade and therefore could be implemented with a great degree of success. However, the agenda’s second (constructive) component was incompatible with the general processes of societal destabilization that shook the old social structures while creating only a few enclaves and the seeds of a new social order. The building of the new education system enunciated at the onset of the French Revolution was practically impossible (at least on a large scale) in the turbulent societal environment of its radical stage. As a result, schools were emancipated from both the control and the support of the old system, but were neither directed nor supported by a new one.

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This meant misery for many of the schools and their teachers. H.C. Barnard writes of many communities that had no state schools, a lack of suitable textbooks, impoverishment of teachers (which led to a shortage of instructors and desperate appeals to ‘French patriots of both sexes’ to fill the vacancies) and negligence of local officials.29 Discontent with the perceived destructive effects of the revolution on education was voiced by the revolutionaries themselves. In 1795, Daunou praised elements of education of the Old Regime which, in his words, had brought honour to the nation, and decried the total disorganization of public instruction and neglect of the schools, blaming the previous reformers (including Talleyrand, Condorcet and Robespierre) for unrealistic, mistaken, or blatantly stupid and harmful ideas.30 Not surprisingly, the 1790s are often seen as a period that had rid France of its old system of schooling without giving much in exchange. Barnard cites negative evaluations of that period by the nineteenth-century French commentators Théry and Allain and concedes that its results are summed up by the words ‘destruction’ and ‘projects’.31 Yet, as Bailey pointed out, this view focuses entirely on the reform efforts of the central government and disregards actual educational change of the 1790s.32 Meanwhile, as our preliminary conceptualization suggests, in the unstable societal environment of the radical state of revolution, much educational change can be expected to occur through mass mutations rather than centralized reform efforts. To say that the old system of schools was undermined does not mean that the schools themselves disappeared, or that new schools that often had little to do with what the reformers in Paris wanted, did not emerge. Indeed, as Vignery says, although the Old Regime system ceased to exist, ‘some schools on all levels survived the onslaughts of the Revolution’.33 How did they manage to survive? Bailey’s historical study of the French collèges shows clearly that they survived the revolution’s radical stage by adapting to their changing environment and mobilizing the resources they had inherited from the Old Regime. Without material or administrative support from the revolutionary government in Paris, the collèges had to rely heavily on the support of the local authorities and communities. Under these circumstances, some of these schools proved better equipped for survival because of their inherited Old Regime status. Larger and wealthier schools were more likely to remain open. Remarkably, the Jesuit, Oratorian and Benedictine schools had better survival rates than the secular ones, which is the opposite of what one would expect, based on the anti-ecclesiastical orientation of the central government. In addition, survival rates varied by region (with some regions affected more than others by the armed conflicts).34 Not only did some of the old schools survive, but new schools were established that in no way corresponded to the general direction of the reform proclaimed by the central government. Barnard describes ‘a considerable 30

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development of independent schools, run in many cases by ex-clerics whose attitude towards religious teaching and republican “morality” was more in accordance with what parents desired’.35 In 1798, the government attempted to establish strict control over these schools, without much success. By 1799, the ‘little’ (private) schools by far outnumbered the state-run ones in some regions.36 Using the concepts that we introduced above, one can consider the proliferation of these independent schools as a mutation of the old educational patterns (private, ecclesiastically controlled schooling) in a changed societal environment. Given the scale of these mutations, Bailey’s conclusion that ‘a great opportunity existed during the French revolution for the creation of a decentralized (or, at least not highly centralized) “system” of secondary and primary, schools’ seems quite reasonable.37 However, the subsequent educational reforms of the conservative stage prevented such a development. The conservative stage Plans to develop a national, centralized and state-controlled school system were formulated long before the Revolution, yet the reforms of the 1790s did little to implement them. More successful in this regard were the educational reforms of the Revolution’s conservative stage. Under Napoleon, the foundations were laid for developing such a system. Napoleon aimed ‘to create a system of education by which people would be trained to be loyal and obedient to the government which he imposed upon them, and through which scientific and military leaders could be developed for his empire’.38 Under the laws of 1802–08, Napoleon created a centralized administrative hierarchy that placed primary, secondary (including state-run lycées and private collèges), and higher educational institutions under a remarkable system of control and supervision by the Imperial University. It was headed by a Grand Master appointed by and responsible to the emperor. The bottom-up flow of information and top-down control was provided by an army of inspectors supervising ‘academies’ (territorial units). The newly created educational system also required a cadre of trained teachers, for whom the Ecole Normale Supérieure was founded in 1808. Thus, the major achievements of Napoleon’s educational policy were the creation of administrative machinery, the establishment of a state-run secondary school system and the first steps towards a teacher training scheme. It should be noted that higher (secondary and up) levels of education were of primary concern to Napoleon, while elementary education was left to the local communes and to ecclesiastical control. Ernest Barker attributes this to Napoleon’s preoccupation with the production of new national military, professional and administrative élites rather than with mass literacy.39 Rankand-file soldiers could be trained in the traditional Catholic schools. Significantly, Catholic schools did not need to be re-established from scratch. 31

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As shown above, they proliferated as a result of mutations of the Old Regime educational norms during the radical stage. The Concordat of 1801 simply legitimized these mutations. To summarize, the Napoleonic reforms advanced the educational cause of creating the national system of education. While the radical stage was successful in the implementation of its destructive project, the conservative stage was far more successful in constructive reforms. However, the latter were also conservative in the sense that they partially restored pre-revolutionary educational institutions, many of which survived the radical stage through mutation.

Educational change during the Communist revolution in Russia/the USSR, 1917–38 Our periodization of the Russian Communist revolution largely follows Sheila Fitzpatrick, who distinguishes between the first stage of increasing revolutionary zeal (1917 to early 1930s) and the second stage (early 1930s–38) of societal stabilization.40 Fitzpatrick sees two upheavals during the first stage: the Civil War (1917–21) and Stalin’s revolution from above (1929 to the early 1930s) with the interlude of the relative stability of the New Economic Policy (NEP). We interpret the events and developments between 1917 and 1929–30 as the radical stage, and the following period (up to 1937–38) as the conservative stage. From this point of view, the relative stability of the NEP reflects the uneven effects of the radical stage on different social institutions and groups. While agriculture, the peasantry and small businesses were given a short break from repressive control between 1921 and 1929, this was not the case for the political system, ideology, cultural institutions and the intelligentsia. These institutions and groups found themselves under the relentless and increasingly ruthless control of the revolutionary party. Once these institutions had been sufficiently subjugated, an equally ferocious attack was unleashed on the previously exempt sectors (e.g., collectivization of agriculture and forced industrialization of the economy). The radical stage Russian education in the early twentieth century was developing dynamically. Remarkable growth was achieved during the Stolypin reforms (1906–11) and during the years then Count Ignat’iev was Minister of Education (1915–17). In accordance with the 1908 law, local self-governments (zemstva) were made responsible for compulsory education in response to growing educational demand from below.41 State funds directed to meet this need increased consistently and, by 1913, amounted to 62.9 million rubles. In just four years, between 1911 and 1915, the number of primary schools rose from 100,295 to 123,754 and the number of students from 6,180,510 to 7,778,453. In 1915, half 32

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of all children aged 8–11 were receiving primary education. The literacy rate among the population grew to 21.1 per cent.42 The pre-revolutionary reform plans were decidedly modern. They included the development of a national system of compulsory and comprehensive primary and secondary schools emphasizing modern curricula and training the work force for advanced technology and industry. The revolution disrupted the implementation of this agenda. Yet, at the same time it appropriated many of its elements. Thus, the reformist ideology of Anatolii Lunacharskii43 and his associates, although couched in Marxist phraseology, was based on the pre-revolutionary educational principles of comprehensive, free, unified and vocational schooling. As in the French case, the revolutionary educational agenda can be seen as consisting of two components. The first presumed liberation of education from authoritarian and religious control and the oppressive pedagogy of the old regime. The second, constructive, component was the development of a new educational system. It was supposed to unite all levels of compulsory schooling in order to provide universal and equal educational opportunity, and implement the principles of progressive educational theory and methods.44 Also, as in the French case, these two components had unequal chances of being implemented during the revolution’s radical stage. The task of constructing a new system was unrealistic during the Civil War and problematic during NEP. Despite some indisputable achievements and innovations, the main task of The People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) of organizing a new school system ‘was the area of its most conspicuous failure during the Civil War’.45 Although Narkompros’s official share of the state budget was established at 2.9–3.0 per cent in 1920–22, in reality it hardly received anything; in fact, ‘a central subsidy of the local education system could be said to have effectively ceased’ in 1921.46 At the same time, a working local taxation system did not exist. In 1926, teachers were paid less than half of their pre-war salaries.47 Even after considerable growth of budget revenues by 1927–28, expenditures per student were 22 per cent below the level of 1913.48 Many schools and universities closed. By the end of the radical stage, the Bolsheviks were still very far from achieving their goal of a centrally controlled and compulsory school system. Thus, only 50–60 per cent of primary school age children attended schools at the end of 1920s, which was not much of an improvement compared to pre-revolutionary years.49 The literacy campaigns of NEP were largely unsuccessful.50 As our conceptual framework suggests, the absence of centralized funding and administration at the radical stage opens the door to educational mutations. While free education did not materialize in the absence of state funding, the practice of charging fees was spreading despite the attempts of Narkompros to suppress it. By 1923, it had become so common that Narkompros had no choice but to legalize it. Local initiatives of teachers and parents led to the 33

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re-emergence of private schools during the Civil War.51 The relative economic well being of the NEP years (especially in the rural areas) increased opportunities for local support of schools. Even as late as 1932–33, school funding was almost entirely local in origin.52 The attempts to create an entirely new type of education were inhibited by spontaneous processes inside the schools. The reaction of many teachers to the new educational policies ranged from confusion to resistance. The latter varied from teacher strikes53 to adherence to traditional (pre-revolutionary) pedagogy. For example, in spite of the revolutionary idea of abandoning textbooks and grades, some teachers continued to use old textbooks and unofficially record grades.54 ‘In primary and secondary schools throughout the Republic, teachers continued to teach and students continued to learn by means of the familiar cycle of dictation, memorization, and drill.’55 By 1926 professors in higher education had reinstated competitive admissions, which was a clear challenge to the egalitarian Bolshevik policy. Bukharin commented that the higher school ‘had not been won over by the Bolsheviks one whit’.56 Generally, ‘the local level Narkompros officials, administrators, and teachers refused to implement the new curriculum or failed after an initial attempt to do so’.57 Following the critical mid-1920s assessments of the deplorable state of schooling (not dissimilar to the aforementioned Thermidorean critique of the early French reforms), Narkompros could do little but adjust its policies to the spontaneously emerging and re-emerging practices on the ground; in other words, its policies were ‘running after practice’.58 Thus, while emancipation of the school from the old system had succeeded by the end of the radical stage, this had consequences that contradicted revolutionary intentions. Left to sink or swim, the schools that survived were mutating into institutions that depended more on local initiative than on central support. Theoretically, this created some preconditions for a system of schooling far more decentralized than anything that emerged in the Soviet Union in later years. Yet, the road to such a system was blocked with the end of the NEP, the radicalism of the Cultural Revolution, and the reforms of the conservative stage. At the same time, mutations recreated traditional prerevolutionary educational norms and practices that sharply contradicted the intentions of the radical reformers and yet were subsequently legitimized and utilized by the reforms at the conservative stage. The conservative stage By the end of the 1920s, Stalin and his apparatus had fully consolidated political and ideological control. Liquidation of NEP, collectivization and the economic returns on the First Five Year Plan had given them sufficient resources to implement large-scale, centralized educational reform consistent with their totalitarian ideas. Allocations for education from the union budget increased 5.1 times from 1928/29 to 1932, and 7 times from 1932 to 1938.59 34

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Mandatory schooling became a reality; attendance doubled from 1928 to 1931 and increased by almost half from 1933 to 1938.60 The main tendency of Stalin’s era was towards complete, direct and indisputable subordination of the school system to the party–state. The Central Committee of the Communist Party exerted direct control over education through its decrees and the establishment of its Schools Department. The 1930s put an end to the elements of experimentation, localism and decentralization that developed through the mutations of the 1920s. During this period, schooling increasingly reverted to pre-revolutionary patterns. Reintroducing a more traditional curriculum was one of the focal points of the new educational policies of Andrei Bubnov, who replaced Lunacharskii in 1929. Thus, teaching by subject was reinstated by 1932 and replaced the former ‘complex method’. New methodological instructions followed. To raise students’ general knowledge and achievement, they were removed from ‘productive practice work’ at industrial enterprises.61 History, geography and Russian language grammar reappeared in the curriculum. Traditional textbooks were returned to classrooms. New history textbooks had to be written (often by the ‘bourgeois’ historians who had survived), under Stalin’s personal supervision and in accordance with the classical tsarist concept of history teaching.62 The classical, gymnasium-style curriculum was reinstated in secondary school. Remarkably, traditionalism returned to kindergartens and nurseries; ‘play’ (toys, music, fairy tales, children’s theatre) once again became the central element of pre-school programmes.63 The progressivism of the early reformers was replaced by the authoritarian classroom, enforcement of discipline, restoration of grades and regular examinations. Selective admissions to higher education were supported by the reinstatement of the eighth to tenth grades of high school, which further undermined the egalitarian principles of the early reforms. Significantly, the return of educational traditionalism was already underway in the 1920s. In that period it re-emerged through the process we describe as mutation, and reflected the struggle of schools to survive in the chaotic environment of the radical stage. In the 1930s, traditional norms recreated through the mutations of the previous decade became a legitimate part of the educational establishment. Yet, if traditionalism was a form of opposition to radical experimentation during the 1920s, it was utilized by the political and ideological apparatuses of the new regime under Stalin. One of its functions was to suppress any spontaneous occurrences of alternative practices and initiatives. However, Leninist political systems were ‘interested in the selective reintegration of tradition only after the political relevance of tradition has been decisively altered’.64 Thus, during the revolution’s conservative stage, the goal of creating a unified and centralized school system was achieved. However, this system also turned out to be far more conservative and traditionalist than the early reformers had wanted. Stalin’s reforms ended educational mutations that were 35

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inconsistent with the party line (e.g., local initiatives and autonomy), while taking full advantage of the outcomes of others (e.g., traditionalism).

The post-Communist Russian revolution As with other social revolutions, it is not easy to establish the precise date of the beginning of the current post-Communist revolution in Russia. One could begin its chronology with the early years of Gorbachev’s perestroika (1985–87). In our view, however, perestroika prepared the ground for revolutionary developments but was no more than a set of moderate reforms aimed at enhancing the performance of the Soviet system while keeping the party–state in control. The radical stage of the revolution began around 1988–89 with the breakdown of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe. It escalated with the removal of the Communist Party from power and the disintegration of the Soviet Union following the unsuccessful coup d’état of 1991. The revolution’s radical wave slowed down after it had faced mass discontent with and resistance to its consequences (including the violently suppressed uprising of October 1993 and the subsequent rise of the opposition parties to power in the Parliament). It ended with the economic and political crisis of August 1998. The subsequent, conservative stage of the revolution has been in progress since then and has been marked by the accession of Putin to power, first as Russia’s prime minister, then (after Yeltsin’s resignation in December 1999) its acting president, and finally, as the democratically elected president. The radical stage The French and the Russian Communist revolutions had the development of modern school systems65 conspicuously on their agenda. The postCommunist Russian case is markedly different. From the old Soviet Union, Russia inherited a system of schooling that was decidedly modern,66 if not ultra-modern. Not only did it have all of the characteristics of modern school systems, but some of these characteristics had been pushed to extremes. Primary and secondary schooling were universal and compulsory (which, of course, does not imply that it was equal for everyone). Education was completely free at all levels including the tertiary one (tuition fees were briefly and inconsistently introduced under Stalin, but then abandoned completely). Administrative control of the state was total, thorough and omnipresent, and penetrated all levels and forms of educational activity. Separation from religion was taken to its extreme form. Schools were required to indoctrinate students with a militantly atheistic political ideology, and any positive reference to religion in the classroom could result in severe repression. Schools employed professionally trained teachers whose preparation was delegated to numerous pedagogical institutes (teachers’ colleges) created in virtually all 36

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major regional centres. The curricular emphases were clearly modern. Contemporary languages were taught everywhere, while the classical ones were available only in specialized institutions (e.g., philosophy departments of major universities). A ‘scientific world outlook’ (nauchnoe mirovozzrenie, of which ‘dialectical and historical materialism’ was alleged to be the most refined expression) was considered the most important product of education, while non-scientific forms of knowledge (e.g., religion) were scorned. To summarize, the Soviet educational system had practically eliminated elements of schooling that had pre-modern origins (e.g., private and religious schooling, or classical curricula) and which still exist as noticeable enclaves in many contemporary educational systems of advanced industrial and post-industrial societies. In this sense, the Soviet system was fully modern or, as asserted above, ‘ultra-modern’. By the end of the Communist era (1985–90), the authoritarian bureaucratic system of party–state control of education was increasingly viewed as unacceptable by educators, political commentators and the people. The so-called administrative command system was seen as a major impediment to academic freedom, pedagogical innovation and the development of democratic education. The reform agenda of the early 1990s reflected widespread discontent in the educational community and society as a whole with the state of Soviet education, as well as broad-based support for the values of political democratization. The key slogans of the proposed education reforms proclaimed by Edward Dneprov67 and later reflected in the 1992 Law on Education included: • • • • • •

decentralization and regionalization democratization de-ideologization differentiation/diversification humanization, and humanitarization.68

Significantly, these early aspirations for reform did not include any radical dismantling of the state-run school system. Few critics of party–state control of education argued for decreased governmental spending on education. On the contrary, comparisons with the educational expenditures of advanced western societies were often used to attack the government for not spending enough (that is, as much as the United States, Germany or Sweden). Thus, the 1992 Law on Education required that education be financed to the tune of no less than 10 per cent of the federal budget.69 The critique also did not propose lowering the educational level for all or even some groups of the population. Rather, the search was for better and more education for everybody. Symptomatically, independent Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, who, in his early years in office was considerably influenced by critical intellectuals among his 37

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initial team of advisors, issued ‘Decree No.1: On Priority Measures to Promote Education’ which emphasized ‘an extraordinary budget’ for education.70 As for the French Revolution and the first Russian Revolution, we distinguish between two components of the reform agenda. The first (emancipatory) component dealt with the elimination of the old system of bureaucratic and ideological control (note the goals of de-centralization and de-ideologization). The second (constructive) component consisted of two elements: (a) preservation of valuable components of the school system that Russia had inherited from the USSR and (b) radically improving that system through democratization, humanization and humanitarization. Although innovation was supposed to include the establishment, or re-establishment, of private, religious, selectiveadmission and tuition-charging institutions, they were seen as a means to diversify educational choices rather than as alternatives to free universal schooling. These reform plans evolved during the revolution’s radical stage. As a result of an extreme counter-reaction to everything associated with the Soviet system, decentralization, democratization and de-ideologization were increasingly interpreted as de-statization (razgosudarstvlenie) – the removal of the state from the educational scene.71 This was reflected in legislative initiatives to privatize educational establishments and to force schools into becoming, at least partly, economically self-sufficient.72 As in the previous two cases, the chances for the destructive and constructive reform agendas during a revolution’s radical stage are unequal, and the success of constructive reform was even less likely in the post-Communist circumstances. Post-Communist transformation was not initially intended by its leaders to consolidate and expand the power of the state. On the contrary, they sought to permanently limit the state’s power through economic privatization and political decentralization. The retreat of the state at the radical stage, however, occurred on a scale that was hardly anticipated by the revolution’s leaders and ideologues. The driving forces of this revolution from above included the second and third echelons of the Soviet nomenklatura who were willing to and capable of using, enhancing and legitimizing their privilege by establishing their own version of capitalism and democracy. This included what became known as ‘predatory’, or nomenklatura privatization, accompanied by the looting of state resources and unprecedented corruption. ‘Privatization’ of state and political power was carried out both at the centre and in the regions by competing clans of bureaucrats and their business allies. As a result, by the end of the 1990s, Russia found itself in a state of sharp economic and industrial decline, characterized by near paralysis of the central state, legal indeterminacy, and deterioration of the severely under-funded scientific establishment. This situation was complicated by the extremely slow development of a civil society that could not constrain or provide alternatives to these destructive processes. In these circumstances, improving or even preserving education at its pre38

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revolutionary level (which we described as the constructive component of the reform agenda) was unthinkable. By 2000, budgetary financing of education in real terms dropped to under 40 per cent of its 1991 level.73 From 1991 to 1992, spending per student in compulsory education dropped by 29 per cent.74 Between 1991 and 1996, public spending on education and training per student fell at a rate of up to 10 per cent per year in real terms.75 Between 1990 and 1996, pre-school enrolment rates fell by 17 per cent (mainly because preschool education became unaffordable to a large segment of the impoverished population). Compulsory enrolment rates fell in the primary schools by 2.4 per cent, in the lower secondary school by 3 per cent, and in the upper secondary school by 6.2 per cent.76 In ten years, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s the drop-out rate of ninth graders increased three times, while that of eighth graders increased five times, and of seventh graders eight times.77 Less than half of those who were first-graders in the early 1990s matriculated with complete secondary education.78 Local funds, plagued by their own fiscal disasters (even in the relatively well-to-do regions), could not compensate for the low levels of funding provided by the federal budget.79 Far more successful was the reform’s emancipatory component (the removal of bureaucratic and ideological controls), which directly resulted in many educational achievements of this period. Decentralization and deideologization opened unprecedented opportunities for a variety of local educational initiatives and pedagogical innovations promoted by teachers and administrators. New types of state-run schools such as the gymnasiums and lyceums were established, and a wide variety of private (non-state) schools reemerged. The first private schools were in place in the late 1980s, and by 1993 there were 10,856 private pre-schools, and 368 primary and secondary private schools. By 1994, 157 private higher educational institutions with 110,551 enrolments were opened.80 In both private and state-run schools, pedagogical and curricular approaches became more varied. They reflected diverse constituencies (e.g., ethnic and religious), vocational orientations (e.g., medical, agricultural, military), and pedagogical perspectives.81 The latter were either borrowed from the west, such as the Dalton Plan, the Jena Plan, and the Montessori and Waldorf schools,82 or based on domestic experience.83 Curricular choices expanded greatly from additional foreign languages and religious studies to yachting, horseback riding, fencing and ballroom dancing. New textbooks were published, representing a much broader range of disciplines including sociology, philosophy, economics, local history, civic education and religion.84 Yet, they were printed in small numbers, and the new courses were typically only available in élite schools.85 Most of the important accomplishments in the sphere of de-ideologization dealt with the humanities and the social sciences.86 By the mid-1990s, the old Communist dogmas had been largely expunged from the programmes. Although not without contradictions and inconsistencies which often led to the formation of new ideologies, the new and revised history and social 39

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studies textbooks mostly demonstrated a considerable departure from the old Marxist–Leninist interpretative schemas. The goal of humanitarization assumed placing the humanities at the centre of educational programmes, abandoning authoritarian teaching styles and recognizing special student needs. There were successes and failures in these areas by 1990–93.87 Integrated science courses, reduced workloads in mathematics and sciences, and elements of mainstreaming were introduced. At the same time, standards remained input-based and the Law on Special Education was stuck in the Parliament. Thus, during the radical stage, the emancipatory component of the reform agenda (the elimination of the old system of bureaucratic and ideological controls) was successfully implemented and led to limited successes in some of the reform’s constructive efforts. Significantly, only a fraction of the educational system actually enjoyed these successes. A full and across-the-board implementation of constructive reforms was impossible under the circumstances of the overall collapse of the system of adequate funding and effective administration of education. Indeed, as a result of the revolutionary destabilization of state and society, the schools were decentralized and liberated from the state far beyond what was expected or desired by the early reformers. While it was true that teachers were now free to teach as they pleased, they also lived for months without their salaries. Schools were free to implement whatever programmes and innovations they wanted, but they were forced to seek the means for their survival without expecting much from the federal or local budgets. For a vast majority of the schools, survival and adjustment to this new environment rather than pedagogical innovation became top priorities. This situation was bound to result in massive institutional mutations (micro-level spontaneous adjustments). The spread of these mutations was facilitated by the ideology of radical reform aimed at greater autonomy and reduced bureaucratic accountability. A key element of this mutation process was the latent change in the status of the school vis à vis the state. With state funds covering only a fraction of their expenses and with the governmental bureaucracy increasingly incapacitated by its own budgetary crisis, the state-run (gosudarstvennye) schools typically became institutions only partly and loosely associated with the state. In many cases, the difference between the state-run and the newly created nonstate (private) schools became only nominal and a matter of convenience.88 Facing the absence or shortage of public financing, schools sought alternative, private sources of funding both officially and, more often, unofficially (e.g., charging tuition costs and fees even for basic educational services and engaging in commercial activities, such as renting space, running businesses, etc.). In the absence of a clear and consistent legal framework, schools developed informal rules and norms for their operation. In the absence of formal political support (because Russia’s main political actors were remarkably 40

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indifferent to matters of education until the mid-1990s), the schools relied on informal networks inherited from Communism and/or developed at the early stages of post-Communism. Finally, in the absence of a strong civil society, the schools sought backing from a small number of special interest groups capable of sponsoring them (e.g., local governmental and business élites and foreign-based ethnic and religious organizations). The schools’ engagement in this ‘twilight zone’ of semi-legal or blatantly illegal fund-raising has been perhaps the leading mechanism of the mutations that greatly altered the status of the formally state-run institutions. The 1996–97 revisions to the 1992 Law on Education and the subsequent directives encouraged fund-raising based on additional educational services and voluntary contributions.89 However, the real practices in the schools went much farther. Fees were charged for even basic educational services, and contributions to school funds were by no means voluntary. According to a 1997–98 study by the Open Society Institute conducted in Krasnoiarsk, parents’ average annual per student expenditures on schooling were the equivalent of 140 US dollars, which was more than an average monthly salary. Low income families spent nearly 20 per cent of their family incomes on the ‘free’ schooling of their children.90 Illegal fund-raising in Moscow reached horrendous proportions. Thus, thousands of dollars of ‘voluntary’ contributions could be required for admission to a prestigious state-run school in the capital.91 In December 1996, the Moscow Committee on Education had to issue Decree No. 521: On the Prevention of Illegal Collection of Money from Parents of Students.92 By charging fees, many schools became de facto selective and admitted only ‘good students’, typically from ‘good’ (i.e., well-off and influential) families. Schools were no longer interested in ordinary or ‘non-competitive’ students and educational services. ‘Competitive’ students could only be attracted by schools that offered exclusive curricula taught by capable teachers, who, in turn, could be attracted by high salaries paid from additional funds. Competitive admissions were legitimized by developing special technologies or programmes or by changing the school’s status (e.g., becoming a laboratory school, ‘intensive study school’ or gimnaziia). ‘Material incentives gave rise to massive numbers of initiatives “from below”, resulting in a welter of random and unsystematic “innovations” that lacked adequate social or scientific substantiation.’93 Paradoxically, many of these innovations resulted in the persistence of pedagogical and curricular conservatism of the Soviet type. Those that promised better and more rigorous preparation of students for higher education had better chances of attracting ‘competitive’ students and their parents’ money. Thus, ‘good’ schools typically offered more than one foreign language, and maths, the sciences, literature and history were all taught in very traditional ways. Symptomatically, in our study in St Petersburg, we found that most private schools (where, theoretically, one could expect to find the best 41

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opportunities for non-traditional pedagogy) adhered to these conservative orientations, and that only a minority departed from them.94 Hence, institutional mutations were conducive to the persistence of conservative pedagogical orientations. Significantly, the leading forces of school change were not Ministry of Education officials or staff of other national organizations, but those who controlled schools at the micro level. These included school principals and other managers and their (largely informal) contacts in the local bureaucracies and in business circles. The weakness or indifference of other potentially powerful players (e.g., the federal government, political parties, churches and the scientific community) made these micro-level actors and their survival strategies crucially important in shaping the direction of educational change. Although every school and every school manager had to struggle for survival, their inherited resources (‘genetic codes’), as well as local environmental conditions, varied greatly. Consider, for example, a former Soviet specialized school, i.e., a school with a special emphasis on a particular subject, such as a foreign language or mathematics, in a relatively well-to-do area of Moscow or St Petersburg, with a principal closely connected to the local ex-nomenklatura now in charge of local business and politics. Such a school was likely to become a gymnasium, enrolling students from high-income families and receiving funding from western partners. It clearly had excellent chances not only for survival but also for prosperity. On the other hand, a regular municipal school somewhere in the poverty-stricken Vologda region had to rely largely upon scarce budgetary allocations and was doomed to face deplorable conditions. These differences in inherited resources and local conditions resulted in sharp inequalities among the schools. Schools for the rich, schools for the poor, and free schooling that a working family could not afford became a post-Soviet feature. The growing inequalities were reinforced by the ongoing socio-economic differentiation of Russian society.95 Thus, the post-Communist revolution’s radical stage succeeded in liberating schools from bureaucratic and ideological control to a greater extent than the reformers had desired. It resulted in considerable de facto de-statization of education and triggered institutional mutations. Through mutations, many schools were able to survive, and some prospered. Thus, to an extent mutations prevented a complete collapse of modern education, which was theoretically plausible given the economic and political chaos of the 1990s. At the same time, these mutations led to increased educational inequalities, and, side by side with genuine innovations and diversification, they often promoted conservative curricular and pedagogical models. The conservative stage The destructive effects of rapid social change on the education system had already made their impact in the early 1990s. In 1992, Boris Gershunskii, one 42

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of the founders of the Russian Academy of Education, published an open letter to President Yeltsin drawing his attention to the catastrophic state of education.96 In 1994, attempts by radical economic reformers to further privatize education faced, for the first time, serious opposition from politicians (including Democrats in the Duma) and educators. The pro-Communist critics of the Yeltsin government referred to the sad state of schooling as evidence of its failure.97 In 1997–98 some attempts were made to launch a new round of educational reform, reaffirming the power of the centre and emphasizing economic needs.98 The economic crisis of August 1998 put all reform efforts on hold. In 1998–99, a wave of massive teacher strikes swept the country. On 1 September 1998, the beginning of the academic year was postponed in 17 regions out of 89 because of these strikes.99 The Teachers Union became an increasingly politicized and oppositional force. Following the crisis of 1998, the revolution entered its conservative stage. Vladimir Putin and his team of liberal economists and security officers energetically took up the economic reforms that had been losing steam by the end of the 1990s. At the same time, their policies sought to restore the power of the centralized state that had been undermined during the previous decade. These policies included attempts to regain control of the regions, maintain the territorial integrity of Russia by military force, strengthen the military–industrial complex and limit the independent media through financial manipulation and selective application of the rule of law. This state retaliation generated a new ideological discourse, a peculiar combination of western liberalism, moderate nationalism and Soviet-style traditionalism. For example, as the new leaders pushed for more economic reforms, they restored the red flag of the armed forces and reintroduced the Soviet anthem with partially changed lyrics. Putin’s policies of restoring order resonated well with popular sentiment, demonstrated by high approval ratings unparalleled for any post-Soviet leader. Not surprisingly, by the end of the 1990s, the discourse on education generally shifted from stressing the need for further radical changes to emphasizing what were seen as the valuable legacies of the Soviet system. Vladimir Yakovlev, president of the Teachers Union, proposed that the schools be ‘de-municipalized’ and that the state re-assume responsibility for their development and economic well-being.100 The new leadership’s approach to education in the context of these political shifts was expressed by Putin with remarkable sincerity: Basically, as you know, I think that some elements of our past life, our Soviet life, do deserve to be remembered with kind words. Education is one of them. Education, medicine and science – they were all things the former Soviet Union could be proud of, and rightly so. There is an explanation for this. Today, in countries that have a planned economy, you can see that they are quite successful in these fields. One can understand why. The state is able to concentrate 43

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enormous resources in those areas that it regards as priorities. As regards education, I would say the following: we are going to try, at least I am going to try, to preserve what was best in the previous education system. And I repeat, it was a good system. But, of course, life goes on and new requirements emerge, and education should fit in with the times and meet these new and the latest requirements. It should be focused on the future. Of course education today – and this is acknowledged practically the world over – together with science is in essence a materialized instrument [sic] of development. That is how we are going to treat it.101 Four aspects of this statement are worth noting. First, it expresses a deep nostalgia for traditional Soviet education. Second, it is equally nostalgic regarding the planned economy that gives the state resources for improving education. Third, it refers to the need for education to meet some unspecified new requirements. Finally, it clearly expresses the view of education as an instrument of economic development. These four aspects fairly accurately reflect the actual direction of the new leadership’s attempts to influence the course of educational change. The first two (nostalgia for the Soviet system and state control of education) reflect recent shifts towards the re-centralization of control, which are sure to gain support among conservative elements in the Ministry of Education and large segments of the education community and society. The last two (responsiveness to the needs of the time and economic utility) are in line with the pragmatic and technocratic orientations of Putin’s administration, which includes a number of liberal economists (such as Gref, Illarionov and Kudrin). Thus, the intended direction of educational change is towards reestablishing state control together with economic rationality. We refer to this approach as technocratic conservatism. It reflects the political ideology of the Putin regime and combines the (often competing) views previously expressed in documents of the Ministry of Education, the government and the Duma (such as the National Doctrine of Education), as well as in the Gref Programme of economic reforms in education.102 Recent developments show that this technocratic–conservative approach has come to dominate educational policy making. Moreover, its conservative component seems to be more pronounced than the technocratic one. The policy makers no longer want to hear the word ‘reform’; they prefer the term ‘modernization’ of education.103 What ‘modernization’ entails becomes clear from the media coverage of the Gossovet (State Council) meeting of 29 August 2001.104 Its major goal is the creation of a nationwide ‘unified educational space’ that requires strengthening the role of the state and its responsibility for the school. This is to be achieved through drastic increases in federal budget allocations for education (64 per cent more in 2002 than in 2001); an 84 per cent increase in teachers’ salaries; de-municipalization, i.e., 44

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the transfer of responsibility for schools to the governments of Russia’s eighty-nine regions; introduction of national educational standards; creation of a limited set of federally approved textbooks (federal’nyi paket uchebnikov); provision of state guarantees for access to free education; and an experimental application of the Unified State Exam (a combination of secondary school graduation and college admission examinations).105 While this programme is an impressive attempt to restore the Soviet-type state-controlled education system, it has some components of technocratic innovation. These include: the use of private resources; the use of per student financing to generate inter-school competition; changing educational institutions’ status to that of ‘organizations’ eligible to have their own governing bodies and foundations (popechitel’skie sovety); and tax breaks and economic incentives for investments in education.106 Will the technocratic–conservative project succeed? As our historical case studies suggested, the success of educational reform is a function of its congruence with the general direction of revolutionary development; the conservative stage of revolutions can be more successful in implementing large-scale constructive projects than the radical one. From this point of view, the new programme of technocratic conservatism has a chance of succeeding. It addresses public opinion’s support for restoration of an orderly society and orderly education. It represents a compromise between conservative sectional interests and technocratic reform economists within the state bureaucracy. In addition, these plans can benefit from recent economic stabilization and growth (largely due to the 1998 devaluation of the ruble, favourable oil prices and further economic liberalization). Nevertheless, the success of this technocratic–conservative project will by no means be easy or complete in the near future; there are powerful impediments to its implementation. First, the conservative component (restoration of centralized control) is extremely expensive. Even if the optimistic scenarios for Russia’s economic growth materialize, the federal and regional governments will hardly have sufficient revenues within the next decade to sharply increase educational spending. Moreover, some commentators predict the financial collapse of the system due to the absence of effective mechanisms for fund transfers (funds simply do not reach their destination) and the catastrophic state of the school infrastructure.107 Since funds will be insufficient for full-scale financial centralization of education, its ‘re-Sovietization’ will be more stylistic than substantive. The first signs of stylistic changes already exist: promises to restore basic military training (NVP), organization of the Young Pioneers and patriotic education. Some of these changes may be quite harmful because they may be directed against pedagogical innovations and curricular diversity. Russian educators have already raised concerns about these reactionary trends.108 45

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Second, implementation of the technocratic–conservative project will face resistance from new educational structures that emerged during the last decade. These are of two kinds. The first includes the new phenomena that came into existence as a result of the partial successes of the educational reforms of the 1990s, such as private schools, diversification of the curriculum, independent textbook publishing, and a penchant for academic freedom and autonomy that many educators have developed over the years. The new structures of the second kind are the outcome of institutional mutations during the radical stage. These include a whole new set of unofficial, yet commonly known, norms and principles regulating the daily operation of the educational marketplace. These norms have become the foundation for the survival and well being of many schools, educators and local bureaucrats, and are appreciated by solvent consumers. Therefore, they are likely to be vigorously defended by those who benefit from them. Since institutional mutations have spread unevenly throughout the education system (reflecting variations in the schools’ resources and socio-economic environments), the technocratic–conservative reform can be expected to have differentiated effects. Schools that through mutation have successfully adjusted to and prospered in the new environments are likely to be more immune to interventions of the centre. Needless to say, these schools primarily serve students from affluent and well-connected families. On the other hand, schools that have failed to adjust to their new environment and operate with little or no funds will be more susceptible to such interventions. These, by and large, will be the ‘ordinary’ schools. As a result, the technocratic–conservative reform is likely to further contribute to the consolidation of a dual system of schooling that had already emerged under the Soviet regime and experienced a boom after its collapse. From this point of view, President Putin’s commitment to preserve the achievements of the Soviet system acquires a somewhat ironic significance.

Conclusion Our comparison of three revolutions shows that there is little that is unusual in the trajectory of Russia’s recent educational reform. As in the two other cases, the post-Communist Russian revolution dealt a deadly blow to the old system of educational control in its early stages. Moreover, the destruction of the old system went much further than the revolutionaries expected or desired. The social instability, political conflicts and economic hardships of the revolution’s radical stage deprived schools of essential resources and put their very existence in jeopardy. On the other hand, these very circumstances prevented successful implementation of a coherent constructive reform. Neither Russia’s current revolution nor the two other revolutions discussed here developed a viable new system of socio-economic support for and legal–administrative control of the schools during their radical stages. 46

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As a result of radical transformations, schools were freed from the old system, yet there was no new system they could rely on for support; they were left to sink or swim. Thus, it is not surprising that so many institutions in the huge system of mass education that Russia had inherited from Communism were on the brink of extinction. In fact, it is surprising that so many schools continued to exist. Our study has shown that many schools survived the turmoil of the revolutions’ radical stages through spontaneous and largely unofficial micro-level adaptations to their unstable environment – mainly mobilizing the resources they had inherited from the old regimes. This is most notable during the postCommunist revolution’s radical stage when, in contrast to the previous two cases, decentralization and school autonomy were prioritized. Official and unofficial tuition and fee charges, commercial activities, reliance on unofficial norms of admission and support and informal networking with influential people and groups reached such proportions that the state-run schools typically became institutions only partly and loosely associated with the nearly paralysed state. Alongside pedagogical innovations, curricular and pedagogical conservatism was often strengthened through mutations of the schools, which survived and prospered by offering rigorous preparation for competitive college admissions to children of the rich and influential. As in the other two cases, mutations deeply transformed post-Communist schools. They metamorphosed towards a system that could not seriously be considered state-controlled. At the same time, a paradoxical feature of the mutation process is its ability to sustain some old educational norms and patterns (e.g., the ecclesiastical connection in the French case and pedagogical traditionalism in the two Russian cases). Significantly, we found that the outcome of mutation influenced the nature of educational reforms launched during the revolutions’ conservative stages. Conservative reorientations regarding educational reforms reflect the élites’ realization of the catastrophic effects of revolutionary turmoil on the school. They were already detected in the radical stages of the three revolutions (by 1794 in France, by the mid-1920s in the USSR, and by 1994 in postCommunist Russia). Nevertheless, discontent with radical reforms only translates into relatively coherent plans of action at the revolution’s conservative stage, and these plans of action bring about a growing consolidation of social order and greater material resources. As in the other two cases, reforms of the post-Communist revolution’s conservative stage appear to be restoring a modified version of the old educational order. At the same time, they may be successful in implementing some of the core goals proclaimed at the dawn of revolution. The early plans of post-Communist reforms were aimed at liberating, decentralizing, humanizing and diversifying the existing system of mass education which was by no means ear-marked for destruction. Rather, the best achievements of the school that Russia inherited from the USSR were supposed to be preserved. 47

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The radical stage reforms had considerable success in terms of decentralization and diversification, but much less so with preservation. From this point of view, the explicit emphasis of the Putin regime on preserving and restoring the achievements of the old system can be seen as a continuation of the revolutionary project. The direction of social change at a revolution’s conservative stage (restoration of a modified social order) is generally more congruent with and more favourable for implementation of the constructive component of educational reform. Yet we found that these constructive reforms also turned out to be noticeably conservative (even reactionary, to an extent). In our three case studies, constructive reforms openly aimed at partly restoring pre-revolutionary educational patterns. The technocratic–conservative approach to modernizing post-Communist Russian schools is likely to result in partial re-introduction of Soviet-style centralization. From our theoretical perspective, it is important that in today’s Russia, as in the other two cases, these conservative reforms be conditioned by the outcomes of the mutations that occurred at the revolution’s radical stage. The Putin regime faces the existence of many successful, prosperous and wellconnected educational institutions that emerged through uncontrolled mutations and are likely to resist re-imposed administrative control. Thus, our comparative study shows that the dramatic zigzag of educational reform that has taken place in Russia since the late 1980s appears to reflect a general pattern of educational change in the context of the revolutionary cycle. Yet, the post-Communist Russian case has unique characteristics that distinguish it from the two ‘great’ revolutions of the past. First, its point of departure was a fully modern education system which, during half a century of its existence, had formed its own traditions and (for better or for worse) a strong institutional inertia. Its norms have been perhaps too deeply and firmly established in both the school and society to be fundamentally changed in a decade of even the most radical reforms. This probably accounts for the extraordinarily high survival rate (compared to the previous two revolutions) of the post-Communist schools. Second, the post-Communist reforms did not intend to expand and strengthen centralized control of education by the state. On the contrary, they were supposed to weaken the state’s role in education, decentralize the schools and make them more autonomous and self-reliant. This reform ideology, as we suggested, creates greater opportunities for spontaneous, unregulated educational change. From this point of view, post-Communist reform can be seen as legitimizing and almost welcoming institutional mutations. Last, but not least, through economic liberalization and elements of democratic decentralization, the post-Communist revolution has considerably reduced the power of the state in general. Therefore, even if the current statist revanche succeeds, Soviet-style state control of the school is unlikely to be restored to its pre-revolutionary level.

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Notes 1 Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1965); Lyford P. Edwards, The Natural History of Revolution (New York: Russell and Russell, 1965); George Sawyer Pettee, The Process of Revolution (New York: Howard Fertig, 1971); Pitirim A. Sorokin, The Sociology of Revolution (New York: Howard Fertig, 1967). 2 We see educational change as an aspect of social change. Sociological theories define social change as long-term and large-scale societal transformation. See Richard Appelbaum, Theories of Social Change (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981). Accordingly, our working definition of educational change also emphasizes long-term and large-scale transformations in systems of education. 3 David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering toward Utopia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). 4 Cerych used the term ‘mutation’ to describe the sudden emergence of new educational structures in the context of post-Communist educational transition. We interpret this metaphor differently. Ladislav Cerych, ‘Educational Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe: Processes and Outcomes’, European Journal of Education 1 (1997), pp. 75–96. 5 See Carl J. Friedrich, Revolution (New York: Atherton, 1966); John Dunn, Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1972); Perez Zagorin, Rebels and Rulers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 6 S.N. Eisenstadt, Revolution and Transformation of Societies. A Comparative Study of Civilizations (New York: The Free Press, 1978). 7 Ibid., pp. 215–72. 8 Ellen Kay Trimberger, Revolution from Above. Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru (New Brunswick, NJ, 1978), pp. 2–3; Mark N. Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 5–6. 9 Chalmers A. Johnson, Revolutionary Change (Stanford, CA: 1982), p. 12; Mostafa Rejai, The Comparative Study of Revolutionary Strategy (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1977), pp. 9–11. 10 Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, p. 3 11 David M. Kotz and Fred Weir, Revolution from Above (New York: Routledge, 1997); Gordon M. Hahn, Russia’s Revolution from Above, 1985–2000: Reform, Transition, and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2002). 12 Vladimir Mau and Irina Starodubrovskaia, Velikie revoliutsii: Ot Kromvelia do Putina (Moscow: Vagrius, 2001). 13 Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 4–5. 14 See for example Cobban’s description of continuity and change in French society between 1770 and 1870. Alfred Cobban, ‘Plus ça Change? or The Myth of the Bourgeois Revolution’, in David L. Dowd (ed.), Critical Issues in History. The Age of Revolution, 1770–1870 (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1967), pp. 573–4. 15 François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 78. 16 François Furet, The French Revolution 1770–1814 (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). 17 Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

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18 See note 1. 19 Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution, pp. 205–6. 20 The natural history of revolutions approach has several serious limitations that, according to Kimmel, include: (1) an overemphasis on the role of intellectuals whose changed allegiances destabilize society during revolutions’ earliest stages; (2) an overemphasis on the French case as a template for all revolutionary events; (3) rigid determinism; and (4) difficulties in matching the general sequencing schema with specific historic events of particular cases. It should be said, however, that the work of the proponents of the natural history approach shows awareness of these limitations. Michael S. Kimmel, Revolution. A Sociological Interpretation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990). 21 Sorokin, The Sociology of Revolution, p. 7. 22 Ibid., p. 7. This view is shared by Brinton, who saw the phenomenon of reaction and restoration as ‘almost inevitably a part of the process of revolution’. Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution, p. 236. 23 Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution; Furet, The French Revolution 1770–1814. 24 As mentioned above, the temporal boundaries between the revolutionary stages can be defined only conventionally. The Thermidorian Republic was already marked by growing conservative orientation, declining influence of the ideas of revolution, and the rise of Napoleon to power. Furet, The French Revolution 1770–1814, pp. 206–7. 25 Robert J. Vignery, The French Revolution and the Schools (Madison, WI: Department of History, University of Wisconsin, 1966). 26 Ibid., p. 9. 27 Early plans to create a national system of state-controlled education emerged already by 1763. H.C. Barnard, Education and the French Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 32–3. 28 Ibid., pp. 212–13; Joseph N. Moody, French Education Since Napoleon (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1978), p. 9. 29 Barnard, Education and the French Revolution, pp. 179–81. 30 See Charles R. Bailey, The Old Regime Collèges, 1789–1795. Local Initiatives in Recasting French Secondary Education (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), pp. 247–8. 31 Barnard, Education and the French Revolution, pp. 210–12. 32 Bailey, The Old Regime Collèges. 33 Vignery, The French Revolution and the Schools, pp. 2, 20. 34 Bailey, The Old Regime Collèges, pp. 134–42. 35 Barnard, Education and the French Revolution, p. 181. 36 Ibid., p. 182. 37 Bailey, The Old Regime Collèges, pp. 259–60. 38 Frederick Eby and Charles Flinn Arrowood, The Development of Modern Education (New York: Prentice Hall, 1936), p. 698. 39 Ernest Barker, The Development of Public Services in Western Europe, 1660–1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 81. 40 Fitzpatrick uses Brinton’s approach to the ‘anatomy of revolution’ and his terminology of ‘fever’ and ‘convalescence’ in regard to the stages of revolutionary development. Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution. 41 Ben Eklof, ‘The Myth of the Zemstvo School: The Sources of the Expansion of Rural Education in Imperial Russia; 1864–1914’, History of Education Quarterly 4 (Winter 1984), pp. 561–84. 42 Data from Oscar Anweiler, ‘Russian Schools’, in Erwin Oberländer (ed.), Russia Enters the Twentieth Century (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), pp. 285–37. These developments are overlooked when the Communist Revolution is viewed as a decisive breakthrough in the modernization of Russian society and education.

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43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63

See, for example, Gail W. Lapidus, ‘Educational Strategies and Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Soviet Development’, in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 86. Lunacharskii was the head (commissar) of the People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) from 1917 to 1929. These assumed a number of innovations, such as renunciation of coercive and overt teaching of ideological doctrines, both religious and political; avoidance of teaching by subject and introduction of a ‘complex method’ of curriculum building; and the replacement of academic training by experience and activity-based learning that would acquaint students with varied types of labour and prepare them for life as opposed to narrow specialization in a vocation (‘polytechnical school’). See Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917–1921 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. xv–xvii; Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 5–10, 18–22. Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment, p. xiv. Ibid., pp. 260–71. Larry E. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917–1931 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 48. Calculated based on data in Jaan Pennar, Ivan I. Bakalo and George Z.F. Bereday, Modernization and Diversity in Soviet Education (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), p. 76. Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, p. 170. Ben Eklof, ‘Russian Literacy Campaigns, 1861–1939’, in Robert Arnove and H.J. Graff (eds), National Literacy Campaigns. Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Plenum Publications, 1987), pp. 123–45. Anatolii Tsiriul’nikov, ‘Sinii–sinii, prezelenyi krasnyi shar. Shkol’nye reformy epokhi revoliutsii i grazhdanskoi voiny’, Novyi zhurnal 186 (1992), p. 322. Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, p. 170. Tsiriul’nikov, ‘Sinii–sinii, prezelenyi krasnyi shar’; Michael David-Fox, Revolution of the Mind. Higher Learning among the Bolsheviks, 1918–1929 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 53. Vladimir D. Samarin, ‘The Soviet School, 1936–1942’, in George L. Kline and George S. Counts (eds), Soviet Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), p. 27. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse, p. 37. David-Fox, Revolution of the Mind. Higher Learning among the Bolsheviks, pp. 79–80. Larry E. Holmes, ‘Modernization and Diversity in Soviet Education’, paper presented at the Working Conference on Post-Soviet Education, Bloomington, Indiana, 16–18 June 2000, p. 3, and his chapter in this volume. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse, p. 69. Pennar, Bakalo and Bereday, Modernization and Diversity in Soviet Education, p. 79. Holmes, ‘Modernization and Diversity in Soviet Education’, p. 10. Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, p. 223. Ibid., pp. 232–3; Klas-Goran Karlsson, ‘History Teaching in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union: Classicism and Its Alternatives’, in Ben Eklof (ed.), School and Society in Tsarist and Soviet Russia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1993), pp. 216–17. Nina M. Sorochenko, ‘Pre-School Education in the USSR’, in George L. Kline

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64 65

66

67 68

69

70 71 72

73 74 75

and George S. Counts (eds), Soviet Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), p. 11. Ken Jowitt, Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 115. The concepts of modern schools and modern school systems are rarely defined in the literature. Smelser comes close to an ideal–type definition of modern schools by describing them as free, universal, compulsory, community-based, and nonsectarian public institutions (Neil Smelser, Sociology, 5th edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995), p. 284). Yet this definition excludes, without justification, private, religious, ethnically selective, and tuition charging institutions that have been important elements of modern education in many societies. Alternatively, modern educational institutions can be defined in terms of their prevalent characteristics and tendencies. Thus, by ‘modern’ we will refer to a national school system which (1) provides universal (or inclusive) compulsory primary and secondary education; (2) is largely free; (3) operates (including its private sector) under the legal and administrative control of the state; (4) is largely separated from church in terms of instruction and/or management; (5) typically employs professional teachers trained in specially designed institutions; and (6) has curricula that predominantly emphasize modern languages, modern history and geography, and modern sciences (as opposed to classical or ancient languages, ancient history, and non-scientific types of knowledge). For a detailed description of the system of education in Russia by 1990, see Dora Shturman, The Soviet Secondary School (London/New York: Routledge, 1988); E.D. Dneprov, V.S. Lazarev and V.S. Sobkin, ‘The State of Education in Russia Today’, in Ben Eklof and Edward Dneprov (eds), Democracy in the Russian School (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 148–220. Edward Dneprov was Minister of Education for the Russian Federation, 1990–2. See Edward Dneprov, ‘A Concept of General (Secondary) Education’, in Eklof and Dneprov, Democracy in the Russian School, pp. 77–103. The 1992 Law on Education, Articles 2; 14; 28–40; 50–2; see also Eklof and Dneprov, Democracy in the Russian School, pp. 236–59; Stephen L. Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 32–3. Nikolai D. Nikandrov, ‘Education in Modern Russia: Is it Modern?’, in Kaz Mazurek, Margret A. Winzer and Czeslaw Majorek (eds), Education in a Global Society: A Comparative Perspective (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2000), p. 218. Boris Yeltsin, ‘Decree No. 1 of the President of the Russian Federation: On Priority Measures to Promote Education’, in Eklof and Dneprov, Democracy in the Russian School, pp. 139–41. Nikolai D. Nikandrov, ‘Russian Education after Perestroika: The Search for New Values’, International Review of Education 1/2 (1995), pp. 47–57; Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia, pp. 35–7, 189–91. Remarkably, some western economists who were generally supportive of radical market reforms cautioned that moving the education system too quickly toward self-financing would be economically and socially counter-productive. See Simon Fan and Michael Spagat, ‘Human Capital and Long-Run Growth in Russia: A Cautionary Perspective’, Brown University Department of Economics working paper 94-15 (May 1994), p. 32. Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 30 May 2000, p. 6. Stephen P. Heyneman, ‘Education and Social Stability in Russia: An Essay’, Compare 1 (1997), p. 6. The World Bank, ‘Russia. Regional Education Study’, Report no. 18666-RU,

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76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

84

85 86

87 88 89

Managing Unit: Human Development Sector Unit: Europe and Central Asia Region (26 July 1999), p. 3. Calculated from the data of The World Bank, ‘Russia. Regional Education Study’, pp. 42–3. Cherednichenko, ‘School Reform in the 1990s’. David L. Konstantinovskii, ‘Put’ vozrastnoi kogorty cherez shkolu’, 2001, http://atlas.informika.ru/problem/problem1.htm. Heyneman, ‘Education and Social Stability in Russia’, p. 13. The World Bank, ‘Russia. Regional Education Study’, pp. 43, 45–6. A.V. Darinskii, ‘Non-state-run general secondary education in St Petersburg’, Russian Education and Society 5 (May 1998). Elena Lisovskaya, ‘International Influences on Private Education in Russia: The Case of St Petersburg, 1991–1998’, International Journal of Educational Reform 3 (July 1999), pp. 206–18. Stephen T. Kerr, ‘Experimentation and the Fate of Reform: Russian Education in Comparative Perspective, 1985–2000’, paper presented at the Working Conference in Post-Soviet Education, Bloomington, Indiana, 16–18 June 2000, p. 15, and see his chapter in this volume. Elena Lisovskaya, ‘Analyzing New Russian Textbooks: Governmental Programs and Private Initiatives’, International Journal of Educational Reform 4 (October 1997), pp. 428–33; Maria Bucur, and Ben Eklof, ‘Russia and Eastern Europe’, in Robert F. Arnove and Carlos A. Torres (eds), Comparative Education. The Dialectic of the Global and the Local (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), pp. 371–92. Lisovskaya, ‘International Influences on Private Education in Russia’. William B. Husband, ‘History Education and Historiography in Soviet and PostSoviet Russia’, in Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 119–39; Janet G. Vaillant, ‘Reform in History and Social Studies Education in Russian Secondary Schools’, in Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia, pp. 141–68; Elena Lisovskaya, ‘The Dogmatism of Ideology: Content Analysis of Communist and Postcommunist Russian Textbooks’, in Noel F. McGinn and Erwin H. Epstein (eds), Comparative Perspectives on the Role of Education in Democratization (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1999), pp. 367–95; Elena Lisovskaya, and Vyacheslav Karpov, ‘New Ideologies in Postcommunist Russian Textbooks’, Comparative Education Review 4 (November 1999), pp. 522– 43; David Mendeloff, ‘Explaining the Persistence of Nationalist Mythmaking in Post-Soviet Russian History Education: The Annexation of the Baltic States and the “Myth of 1939–40”’, in Vera Kaplan, Pinchas Agmon and Liubov Ermolaeva (eds), The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia: Trends and Perspectives (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University/The Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1999), pp. 185–228; V.V. Noskov, ‘Problemy istorii mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii v shkol’nykh uchebnikakh po novoi istorii’, in Kaplan, Agmon and Ermolaeva (eds), The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia, pp. 151–70. Elena Lenskaya, ‘A Decade of Reforms of Education in Russia: Conflicting Messages’, paper presented at the Working Conference on Post-Soviet Education, Bloomington, Indiana, 16–18 June 2000. Elena Lisovskaya and Vyacheslav Karpov, ‘The Perplexed World of Russian Private Schools: Findings from Field Research’, Comparative Education 1 (February 2001), pp. 43–64. See the directive, ‘On Non-Budget Funding of Educational Institutions’ signed by Minister of Education V.M. Filippov, in Galina Bashkina, ‘Vne biudzheta, no po zakonu . . .’, Upravlenie shkoloi, supplement to Pervoe Sentiabria 1 (November 1999), http://www.1september.ru/ru/upr/99/upr01.htm.

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90 T. Liutra, ‘Platnoe obrazovanie: vozmozhnosti i perspektivy’, Upravlenie shkoloi, supplement to Pervoe Sentiabria 9 (November 1999), http://www.1september. ru/ru/upr/99/upr09.htm. 91 M. Ryzhakov, ‘Zaigralis’’, Literaturnaia gazeta, 24 April 1997, http://www.relis. ru:8/MEDIA/news/lg/texts/0097/17/0401.html. 92 Iiulia Mifaeva, ‘Besplatnoe obrazovanie dorozhaet’, Upravlenie shkoloi, supplement to Pervoe Sentiabria 16 (November 1997), http://archive.1september. ru/upr/1997/no16.htm. 93 Cherednichenko, ‘School Reform in the 1990s’. 94 Lisovskaya and Karpov, ‘The Perplexed World of Russian Private Schools’. 95 For an analysis of educational stratification in Russia, see Theodore P. Gerber, ‘Educational Stratification in Contemporary Russia: Stability and Change in the Face of Economic and Institutional Crisis’, Sociology of Education 73 (October 2000), pp. 219–46. 96 Boris S. Gershunsky, Russia in Darkness . . . on Education and the Future: An Open Letter to President Yeltcin [sic] (San Francisco, CA: Caddo Gap Press, 1993). 97 For example, see A.A. Korobeinikov, ‘Glavnoe delo natsii’, Rossiiskoe obrazovanie: problemy reformirovaniia: Analiticheskii vestnik 1 (68) (Moscow: Sovet Federatsii Federal’nogo Sobraniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1998), pp. 59–72. 98 Stephen T. Kerr, ‘The New Russian Education Reform: Back to the Future’, ISRE Newsletter on East European, Eurasian and Russian Education 1 (Spring 1998), pp. 2, 19–21. 99 Vera Rich, ‘ “Day of Learning” Cancelled’, Times Higher Education Supplement 1348 (4 September 1998), p. 11. 100 Vladimir Iakovlev, ‘“Trud bez oplaty” nedopustim!’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 45 (1999), wysiwyg://pls.54/http://www.ug.ru:8101/99.45/t12.htm; Vladimir Iakovlev, ‘Bermudskii treugol’nik v rossiiskom obrazovanii’, Upravlenie shkoloi, supplement to Pervoe Sentiabria (November 1999); http://www.1september.ru/ru/upr/ 99/upr21-1.htm. 101 Vladimir Putin, interview given to the Internet editions Gazeta.Ru, Strana.Ru and BBC on-line service, 6 March 2001. 102 See for example the Kontseptsiia modernizatsii rossiiskogo obrazovaniia na period do 2010 goda, confirmed by the Government of the Russian Federation on 29 December 2001 and published as a pamphlet (Moscow: Academia, 2002) and Proekt Kodeksa Rossiiskoi Federatsii ob obrazovanii (2003), Uchitel’skaia gazeta 13 (2003) (http://www.ug.ru/03.13/po12.htm). The programme proposed by German Gref and entitled ‘Ob osnovnykh napravleniiakh sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiia Rossiiskoi Federatsii na dolgosrochnuiu perspektivu (na period do 2010 goda)’ was presented at the meeting of the Government of the Russian Federation on 22 March 2001. The content of his programme was presented in press release #359 (Part 1), 22 March 2001 (http://www.government.gov.ru/2001 /03/22/985237504.html). See also a discussion of ‘National Doctrine of Education’ and the ‘Gref Programme’ in Elena Lenskaya, ‘A Decade of Reforms’, note 87. 103 Vladimir Shpak, ‘Za party nado sazhat’’, Vremia novostei, 30 August 2001. 104 The report ‘Russian Educational Policy at the Current Stage’ (‘Obrazovatel’naia politika Rossii na sovremennom etape’) was presented at this meeting by Sergei Katanandov (Head of the Karelian regional government). Putin was in attendance as were some of Russia’s most influential political and intellectual leaders. 105 This idea has both conservative and technocratic aspects. The former deal with its implications for greater centralization in education. The latter are related to the new system of admission to and financing of higher education. 106 Natalia Ivanova-Gladil’shchikova, ‘Sergei Katanandov: “My khotim poluchit’

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podderzhku Gossoveta”’, Izvestiia, 28 August 2001 (izvestia.ru); Shpak, ‘Za party nado sazhat’’, Olga Solomonova, ‘Bol’she deneg shkole’, Trud-7, 30 August 2001; Vladimir Zernov, ‘Doroga k mirovomu liderstvu lezhit cherez obrazovanie’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 30 August 2001. 107 Natalia Ivanova-Gladil’shchikova, ‘Shkola na marshe. stabilizatsiia ili otkat’, Izvestiia, 22 January 2001, p. 10; Aleksandr Sadchikov, ‘Irina Khakamada: Cherez shkolu den’gi ne otmyvaiut’, Izvestiia, 9 January 2000, p. 3. 108 Aleksandr Adamskii, ‘Slu-shai!’ Upravlenie shkoloi, supplement to Pervoe Sentiabria 44 (2000), http://archive.1september.ru/upr/2000/no44.htm; IvanovaGladil’shchikova, ‘Shkola na marshe. stabilizatsiia ili otkat’, p. 10.

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3 S CHOOL AND SC HOOLING UNDER STALIN, 1 9 3 1 – 1 9 5 3 Larry E. Holmes

From 1931 to Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the Communist Party and Soviet state sought to build a politicized and uniform system of elementary and secondary schools. In the words of its historians, the Stalinist regime desired an educational system created in the image of its authoritarian politische Realkultur and designed to produce dedicated workers and loyal disciples.1 Two Russian scholars, Feliks Fradkin and M.G. Plokhova, expressed most forcefully of all the Party–state’s objectives and, it seemed to them, corresponding achievements: the Stalinist state required a mechanical submission of society to its will. Stalinist schools, the state in miniature, demanded the same from their pupils. Any former concern for the inner world of the child’s personality gave way to a preoccupation with technique and regimen as a means for achieving unquestioning obedience. Suppression, fear, and numbing routine characterized state and school.2 To be sure, an imposing array of institutions and individuals, Stalin most prominent among them, wielded an impressive degree of power over an educational establishment designed to enhance the centre’s authority and produce the desirable product. The initial sections in this chapter chronicle the exercise of that power and the considerable achievements that followed. However, schools and schooling under Stalin frequently failed to measure up to official billing. The latter sections demonstrate how the curriculum, classroom instruction, and administration of the USSR’s primary and secondary schools departed, at times dramatically, from Moscow’s rhetoric and blueprints.

The experimentalist 1920s The Bolshevik regime began its tenure in late 1917 with anything but a vision of a perfectly organized educational system controlled in every detail by the centre. Its Commissariat of Education (Narkompros), led by Anatolii Vasil’evich Lunacharskii, sought instead a decentralized, free, and experimentalist educational system.3 At its core stood a Unified Labour School that offered nine years of polytechnical instruction, largely devoid of homework, 56

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examinations, grading marks, and formality between teacher and pupil. Moreover, Narkompros encouraged the use of activity methods (class discussion, painting, modelling, singing) and an acquaintance with the basic processes and tools of agriculture and industry in the classroom, garden, and workroom for primary grades, metalworking and woodworking workshops for the secondary school, and practicums in a factory for the most senior of pupils. It also demanded the replacement of subjects with so-called complex themes, a system of instruction that integrated into a single whole reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, literature, chemistry, and other subjects heretofore allegedly isolated from each other. Narkompros’s reach exceeded its grasp. At the local level Narkompros officials, school administrators, and teachers refused to implement the new curriculum or failed after an initial attempt to do so. Officials responsible for the nation’s economic development demanded less experimentation and more systematic instruction in the hard sciences and mathematics. After initially refusing to compromise its principles, Narkompros began to accommodate its critics with the adoption of curricula from 1926 to 1928 that retained the complex method in name but encouraged systematic presentation of a predetermined body of knowledge by subject. Narkompros’s effort at compromise had only begun when it fell foul of developments transcending education. The rhetoric, militancy, and obsession with immediate economic results associated with forced collectivization and industrialization encouraged a narrowly utilitarian and heavily politicized view of all areas of life including education. In September 1929, Andrei Sergeevich Bubnov replaced Lunacharskii as commissar of education. A political appointee transferred from the Party’s propaganda apparatus, Bubnov called upon schools to immerse themselves in a class war for the transformation of the Soviet economy and society. Narkompros accordingly required its schools to adopt a system of instruction, the project method, far more radical than anything heretofore considered. Teachers were to orient all instruction towards the completion of a project associated with the First Five Year Plan or cultural revolution. However, such plans to engulf schools in teaching the illiterate to read or overcoming the evils of alcoholism were more fiction than fact. Teachers continued to think of the classroom as a place for systematic instruction and many state and Party officials likewise preferred the transmission of specific academic skills and knowledge.

The turn towards the Stalinist school These officials and the many teachers who agreed with them got their way in the summer of 1931. Beginning in June, the Central Committee’s apparatus, in particular, the Orgburo (Organization Bureau) and Politburo guided by Lazar’ Moiseevich Kaganovich, Stalin’s chief spokesperson for education at 57

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the time, demanded of Bubnov and Narkompros improved instruction in academic subjects and an end to the ‘hocus-pocus’, as Kaganovich described it, of the project method. In August, in what it called a ‘turning point [povorot] in schooling’ the Politburo required a single curriculum, free of ‘thoughtless scheming with methods’ and one that featured familiar academic subjects. More resolutions followed over the next four years from the Central Committee, frequently issued in conjunction with the Soviet Union’s Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), restoring a traditional school system which presented a predetermined body of knowledge according to subjects, obligatory textbooks, fixed lesson plans for specific classes, marks for each pupil in each subject, homework, and annual promotion examinations. The place assigned to instruction in labour, once a cardinal element in the progressive curriculum of the 1920s, gave way with each year to more customary fare until the Central Committee’s abolition of the subject altogether in early 1937. The very language illustrated well the purposes and determination of those individuals who wrote and issued the decrees. Reminiscent of the style and vocabulary that marked Stalin’s own writing, they ‘demanded’ or ‘sternly demanded’ of pupils, parents, teachers, and school administrators ‘tenacity, discipline, organization, consistency, precision, efficiency, concreteness, proper comportment, and a mastery of the fundamentals’. A preoccupation with detail and order ruled the day. By the end of 1935, none other than the Central Committee and Sovnarkom had adopted a list of permissible textbooks and determined that schools should begin the academic year on 1 September, commence each day precisely at 8:30 am, and end each lesson after forty-five minutes. They had also limited the break between classes to a prescribed amount of time that depended on the grade, restricted the number of classes per day by grade, dictated the types of marks (grades) to be used, set the size of notebooks and quality of paper they contained, and determined the type of pencils, pens, ink, and chalk suitable for classroom use.4 In order to establish a still more uniform system, the Central Committee and USSR Sovnarkom required in 1938 that all non-Russian schools in the USSR offer the study of Russian from the second or third grade.5 Narkompros filled in the few missing details for a highly centralized system designed to constantly monitor pupils’ performance and conduct. Accordingly, Narkompros set the amount of homework that could be assigned to each grade and required a class journal to track daily attendance, classroom performance, homework, and conduct. It also ordered the keeping of a daybook (dnevnik) in which pupils recorded their daily assignments and extracurricular and civic activities and in which teachers assigned daily grades for written and oral responses in class. Each week the homeroom teacher and parents examined and signed the daybook. Narkompros also demanded periodic examinations including year-end promotion tests; informed pupils of the correct posture to assume when seated at their desks; and instructed teachers in the details of preparing and conducting a lesson.6 58

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Nothing was left to chance. After much discussion and adoption by some schools of rules of pupil conduct, the Russian Republic’s Sovnarkom issued twenty ‘Rules for Pupils’ in April 1943. They demanded respect for teachers, school authorities, and all elders; made virtues of punctuality, neatness, and good hygiene; and condemned swearing, smoking, and gambling. The Soviet schoolchild thereby was to ‘become an educated and cultured citizen [of] maximum use to the Soviet motherland’.7 Eight years later Narkompros redoubled its efforts to ensure discipline by demanding that a triad of family, Party youth organizations, and school support a ‘strict regimen of all school life [and] an undeviating observance by each pupil of the “Rules for Pupils”’. Beginning with the fifth grade, teachers now kept a ‘Journal of Pupils’ Conduct’ with two or three pages provided for comments on the behaviour of each pupil.8

The school as an agent of modernization The Stalinist school was hardly alone in seeking such a highly centralized and uniform system that made virtues of order, discipline, and authority. It followed examples well established in Russia prior to 1917 and in the west in embracing a cookbook curriculum with recipes specifying in great detail the ingredients, methods of preparation, and product; the eggcrate classroom with desks bolted down in perfect rows; rigid rules of order; and a strict hierarchy of rank set by age-group classes and marks.9 In this respect, the Stalinist school emerged as another agent of modernization in the larger context of American and European educational history. Moreover, like the Soviet state under Stalin, western governments and societies had assumed the plasticity of human beings and the power of state institutions to shape them. Well before Stalin, western Europe and the United States had led the way with schools designed to provide useful cognitive skills; an appreciation for obedience, self-restraint, punctuality, and perseverance; a respect for social hierarchy; and a sense of community and nation.10 In this school, whether in the USSR or elsewhere, the teacher became an enthusiastic ‘health care educator, librarian, social worker, family guide, and civic model’.11 Any attempt to shirk such duties was immoral and unpatriotic, a betrayal of self, child, society, and nation.

Soviet totalitarianism Yet Stalin’s Soviet Union devised its own idiosyncratic notion of modernization and the proper means to achieve it. Such a purportedly powerful instrument of progress as the school could hardly be left in the hands of the professionals and bureaucrats at Narkompros. With a vengeance unparalleled in history, a single organ, the Communist Party’s Central Committee, dictated the very minutiae of educational policy. It also controlled the implementation of that policy through its apparat for schools, the Culture and Propaganda 59

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Department (Kul’tprop), to 1935 and the Schools Department thereafter, that rendered Narkompros increasingly powerless. In mid-1931, Narkompros and Kul’tprop presented major reports on the state of education to the Orgburo. Bubnov delivered a positive account, but Kul’tprop rendered a far more critical assessment demanding more attention to a traditional course of study.12 Kul’tprop got its way. In April 1933, it strenuously objected that Narkompros had introduced promotion examinations without clearing the matter first with Kul’tprop. After a protracted struggle with Bubnov and Narkompros, Kul’tprop again got its way.13 That same year, the Orgburo chastised Bubnov for making agreements regarding the compilation of new textbooks without Kul’tprop’s prior approval.14 Upon Kul’tprop’s insistence the Orgburo condemned Narkompros’s initiative to include study of the Party’s Seventeenth Party Congress (26 January to 10 February 1934) in the curriculum on the grounds that the issues and decisions of the congress were too complex for young minds; at best, their study would amount to memorization of prescribed formulas.15 That December, the Orgburo again condemned Narkompros, this time for attempting to extend the lesson’s length from forty-five to fifty minutes without the Central Committee’s prior sanction.16 In the spring of 1936, the Orgburo annulled Narkompros’s issuance of temporary promotion certificates for pupils completing a grade and an honours certificate for anyone performing exceptionally well in year-end examinations because of the commissariat’s failure to receive the School Department’s prior approval.17 On 17 June Pravda chimed in, condemning the ‘irresponsible and good-for-nothing leaders’ (bezdel’niki) at Narkompros for bypassing the Party’s apparat.18 Friction between the Party’s highest organ and Narkompros continued as the latter either opposed or delayed implementation of the Central Committee’s order in 1936 to close most special schools and classes for children with learning problems and disabilities, the removal of labour from the curriculum in 1937, and an end to the network of model schools in the same year.19 As will be discussed below, Narkompros would endure a worse fate during the terror of 1937 and 1938. After 1938, educational authorities in the union republics, Narkompros of the Russian Republic, and even the Central Committee’s Schools Department sought permission for expanded study of the Russian language in non-Russian schools and even for the use of Russian as the medium of instruction there. The Central Committee rejected all such attempts.20

Real commitment and achievements The importance of the school’s mission and the Party’s control over educational policy and its implementation made it likely that the Central Committee would move dramatically to adopt an ambitious educational agenda and invest heavily in moving it rapidly forward. Many teachers understood this 60

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point well and favoured the Party’s monopoly in the belief that greater material and financial support for themselves and their schools would follow. When in 1935 the Central Committee created its Schools Department, teachers at one of Moscow’s schools interpreted the move to mean that ‘a quick and exhaustive solution would be found for all urgent and burning issues facing our school’.21 Such hopes were natural and not entirely misplaced. An effort to impose universal obligatory education had begun in the 1920s but had run aground for lack of funds and of parents who resisted sending their children to school beyond the second or third grade. The Stalinist state combined more ambitious goals with a determination to make them reality. On 25 July 1930, the Central Committee demanded obligatory enrolment in elementary school of all children from the ages of eight to ten and of all young people from eleven to fifteen who had not completed the four-year elementary course. It also required seven years of schooling of all young people in urban areas.22 Four years later, on 13 March 1934, the Russian Republic’s Sovnarkom required that adolescents sign up successively over the next three years in the three grades (five through seven) of the junior division of the secondary school.23 To make good on these demands, from 1932 to 1937 the state budget’s allotment for schools increased by four times and per capita expenditure rose from 10 to 38.01 rubles a year – impressive figures even when allowing for some inflation in the price of items purchased by schools during this period.24 After 1937, expenditure on schools was much less impressive and actually declined as a percentage of the total Soviet budget from a high of 6.1 per cent in 1937 to 5.1 per cent in 1940 and to 4.5 per cent in 1953, the year of Stalin’s death.25 Determined efforts led to significant gains in school attendance. From 1928 to 1931 enrolment nearly doubled. From 1933 to 1938 it increased by almost half. Thereafter school enrolment remained at between 31 and 33 million until a significant increase in the 1960s.26 While the growth in the number of schools by more than one third hardly kept pace with the burgeoning enrolment from 1928 to 1938, the number of teachers almost did so by tripling.27 Young females in particular benefited from and contributed to the expanding school system. In 1927, they comprised slightly less than 40 per cent of school enrolment due largely to low attendance in rural areas especially beyond the elementary grades. By 1938, their percentage had risen dramatically to almost 48 per cent, even in grades five through seven in the countryside. By the time of Stalin’s death, females comprised almost half of the total enrolment regardless of grade or area.28 This ‘great break’ in education wiped out illiteracy among youth, a problem heretofore of grave concern. Much to the dismay of Bolsheviks and others, the partial census of December 1926 revealed that only 47 per cent of young people aged eight through eleven in the European portion of the Russian Republic possessed the rudiments of reading and writing; only 64.5 per cent of adolescents from the age of twelve through fifteen did so. These depressing 61

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figures meant that for every adult purportedly made literate in a highly publicized campaign, a young person took his or her place among the ranks of the illiterate.29 By 1939, however, the Soviet Union and its schools had eliminated this revolving door. That year the literacy rate for all young people aged nine years or older exceeded 95 per cent.30 Following World War II, the Soviet regime renewed its commitment to compulsory education. Although more than 80,000 schools had been destroyed during the war, their total number in the first postwar year nearly matched the figure in the year immediately preceding Germany’s invasion of Soviet territory in June 1941. While total attendance was down by about 25 per cent, it had reached the prewar level by 1950.31

Politics are trump The Stalinist regime sought to achieve its goals through the content as well as the extent of its schooling. A later generation of Americans dismayed by the glint of Sputnik in the night sky would have been amazed to learn that mathematics and the sciences combined took up only one-third of the total curriculum under Stalin (with mathematics at 20 per cent, the sciences at 15 per cent). To a remarkable degree the Stalinist school emphasized the disciplines – the humanities and the social sciences – most prone to politicization. From the early 1930s to the mid-1950s, the hours devoted to Russian language and to literature comprised about 30 per cent of the total curriculum. From its introduction in the mid-1930s, history alone held pride of place at 10 per cent of the total. The history syllabus for the elementary school in the 1930s presented tsarist Russia as a ‘prison of peoples’ and the gendarme of Europe while at the same time emphasizing the heroic nature of the history of ‘our fatherland’; inflated Stalin’s importance to rival that of Lenin as an organizer of the 1917 revolution and Red Army; and underscored the importance in Russia’s past of national discipline and the benefits after 1917 of the Soviet welfare state.32 Russian literature demonstrated how from ancient times writers had defended the Russian land against outside invaders.33 Following adoption of the Stalin constitution in 1936, two hours a week were set aside in the seventh grade for its study and that of related topics designed to emphasize the just nature and superiority of the Soviet system. Wolfgang Leonhard, son of a German Communist who emigrated to the Soviet Union and who from 1935 to 1939 attended school in Moscow, recalled how in early 1937 this course focused on condemning the defendants in the show trial featuring Grigorii Leonidovich Piatakov, former ambassador to France, head of the State Bank, and then Deputy Commissar of Heavy Industry.34 An even more tendentious presentation of history and geography followed the conclusion of World War II. A syllabus for the elementary grades issued in 1950 required that lessons in history and geography underscore the 62

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superiority of the Soviet system and the friendship and unity of Soviet peoples, with special stress on the leading role of the Russian nation.35 Moreover, it blatantly moved Stalin to a place of prominence during the 1917 revolution and Civil War by substituting him for Lenin and Trotsky as the chief organizer of the October revolution and leader of the Red Army.36 The biology curriculum underwent a similarly politicized evolution during Stalin’s reign. A section on genetics in a biology course in 1935 betrayed the rising influence in higher political circles of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin (1855–1935) who believed in the possibility of rapidly changing the fundamental features of a species (altering the genotype) by human manipulation of the environment.37 Syllabi for biology in the secondary grades in 1944 demonstrated how human beings could command the very nature of plants and animals by employing the ideas of Michurin and Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, an agronomist who in denying genetics proclaimed that characteristics induced by changes in the environment could be transmitted to offspring.38 Following the Central Committee’s condemnation of genetics in mid-1948, school curricula for elementary and secondary grades praised more vigorously both Michurin and Lysenko.39 Sixth and ninth graders learned of Lysenko’s technique of vernalization, a labour-intensive procedure of dubious economic value whereby the seeds of winter wheat were chilled and then planted in the spring to avoid the possible calamities of winter weather and presumably to hasten development and produce greater yields.40 Diplomatic tension in the west and military clashes with Japan in the east resulted in the introduction in 1939 of military training in grades five through ten.41 During World War II, curricula for history and geography added more patriotic themes and the study of warfare, the sciences expanded sections on military technology, and students spent more time in military training in physical education classes and summer camps. Ostensibly to improve discipline and certainly to promote military exercises among boys, the state introduced separate education by gender in the Soviet Union’s largest cities in 1943. From then until the return of coeducation in 1954, about 13 per cent of the Soviet youth were educated in single sex schools.42

Follow orders! Such orders above were expected to become reality below. Narkompros insisted that teachers march in lockstep with the detailed curricula, syllabi, and instructions issued to them. If pupils performed poorly, learned the wrong things about the past, or floundered under the burden of excessive homework, Narkompros blamed not the system but rather teachers for a failure to do as they were told.43 The First Educational Conference of the Russian Republic’s Schoolteachers, held on 27–31 December 1939, for example, reaffirmed the official view that neither textbooks nor syllabi contributed to poor academic performance. Rather, delegates obediently assigned blame to teachers who 63

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failed to prepare their lessons, presented the material poorly, and lacked interest in their work.44 Efforts at professionalization of the teaching corps in the late 1930s consolidated further Moscow’s control over it. The rapid expansion of schools and cadre of teachers during the early 1930s had meant a reliance on many young, inexperienced, and untrained instructors, often incapable of following orders let alone providing effective instruction by any definition. In April 1936, Moscow set educational requirements for elementary and secondary teachers; the former were to have completed the junior division of the regular schools and about four additional years of pedagogical training, the latter to have graduated from the senior division and a pedagogical institute or university. It pegged new pay scales to experience and training and launched a re-certification campaign to coerce the nation’s instructors to meet the new standard and, implicitly, to follow orders.45 From 1936 to the end of 1938, more than half a million teachers appeared before the certification commissions; about 1,725,000 had done so by January 1941. Especially during the initial period, examiners questioned teachers about their political views and about possible suspect social backgrounds as the child of a merchant, nobleman, priest, kulak, or tsarist military officer. In late 1937, with the terror well under way, a large number of teachers were dismissed for political reasons.46 Even in less tense times, many teachers felt shackled and fearful to break loose. Among the many refugees questioned in 1950 and 1951 by the Harvard Interview Project on the Soviet Social System, teachers referred to a constant monitoring of their work by inspectors, school directors, fellow teachers, and even senior pupils prepared to report any political slip to the secret police.47 Out of fear, they obediently made all the appropriate comments each year when the Soviet Union celebrated the October revolution, spoke out against religion, and made mathematics into an exercise for calculating improved grain collections thanks to Stalin’s leadership.48 Leonhard recalled the ‘constant fear’ of his teachers in 1937.49 Although she taught in a remote rural school in the Ukraine and felt relatively free of control, Dora Titkina nevertheless felt it necessary to carefully monitor her response to the rising tide of official antisemitism during Stalin’s last years.50 In particular, she had to keep to herself doubts about the Doctors’ Plot – nine doctors, seven of them Jewish, at the Kremlin’s special clinic charged in January 1953 with treason and murder of top Party leaders.

Stalin’s school Much to their delight, the Soviet regime and Stalin himself found the perfectly ordered and politicized institution, Moscow’s Model School No. 25, located in the capital’s centre. From 1931 to 1937, it epitomized everything that the Soviet school should be. The Soviet dictator chose this school in 1933 for his 64

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youngest son, Vasilii, and daughter, Svetlana, because of its reputation for order and discipline.51 There they studied alongside the children of such other major Soviet figures as Molotov, Bubnov, Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev, the aviation engineer, and Otto Iulevich Shmidt, Narkompros official in the 1920s and fabled Arctic explorer of the 1930s. Ample funds, able teachers, and a glut of publicity made School No. 25 an institution that symbolized and legitimized Stalinist education, Stalinism, and the USSR. The school deserved its reputation. Its personnel and champions worked diligently to project an image of perfect order, regularity, and discipline. Nina Iosafovna Groza, the director, and Aleksandr Semenovich Tolstov, her chief deputy, duplicated the penchant for micromanagement of Soviet leaders, most notably of Stalin, by systematically making the rounds to examine classrooms, daybooks, notebooks, posters, and even the cafeteria’s menu to ensure that everything was in order and that not a word, even on the menu, was misspelled. Well before Narkompros and or higher authorities required such items, School No. 25 insisted on a daybook monitoring the daily performance of each pupil, strict ‘Rules of Order’, and a pupil identification card. The content and methods of instruction at School No. 25 purportedly guaranteed adherence to the syllabi issued to it. Fourth graders retold a story reproducing it in all of its details; fifth graders read a history text in turn; pupils in the sixth grade answered a teacher’s precise questions by reading aloud the equally precise answer from the textbook; an eighth grade history teacher lectured by reading the textbook. Pupils learned of a horrible past now transformed into an idealized present and future by the power of Soviet planning and machine technology. Backward peasant Russia was becoming an industrial colossus. Pupils projected these lessons into their watercolours and drawings in which the dark and foreboding ‘old’ gave way to the enlightened and beckoning ‘new’.52

Reality And yet School No. 25’s image, so carefully crafted and a powerful tool in the school’s success, concealed as much as it revealed about the educational system it represented. Whatever its intentions, the Soviet government could not provide schools with sufficient human and material resources, failed to deliver on its implied promise of a unified school system for all youth, lacked total control over the behaviour of pupils and teachers in and out of the classroom, and sacrificed politics for an emphasis on more familiar academic fare. Living with failure The nation’s instructional cadre knew of the system’s material shortcomings all too well. If not at School No. 25, then certainly elsewhere teachers loudly and repeatedly complained of a shortage of pens, pencils, space, desks, fuel in 65

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winter, and of the items most essential to a highly centralized system – syllabi, textbooks, and teaching manuals. Schools and their enrolment grew in number during the 1930s faster than the Soviet state could provide them with the barest of necessities. Pupils in a school in the Kuibyshev (Samara) region took notes in the margins of old books; pupils elsewhere took turns writing with the one or two pens at their disposal. Another school possessed more than an adequate physical plant but organized students into two shifts because of a shortage of desks. Other institutions had more than enough desks but kept them in the yard for lack of space inside. Some schools had no textbooks, others one for each ten to fifteen pupils. Many schools without electricity lacked kerosene, or having kerosene had no lamps.53 Even schools in Moscow’s favoured October district, where School No. 25 was located, faced chronic shortages of space, equipment, notebooks, and pencils. Many purportedly better funded model schools could provide only one textbook for every ten to fifteen pupils.54 A report from a model school in Saratov region contained a photograph of six teachers in a classroom bundled up in their overcoats and huddled together.55 Following the destruction of World War II, many schools, especially in previously occupied territory, remained for years dark and cold places where in winter the ink in the inkwells thickened beyond the point of use.56 In non-Russian areas, shortages of teaching personnel and of appropriate textbooks meant that the 1938 decree requiring instruction in the Russian language was honoured in the breach. In some instances, however, even when resources did not warrant it, local authorities, school officials, and parents, fully aware of the importance of Russian to educational and social advancement, pressed successfully for more and earlier instruction in Russian than the decree allowed.57 Many pupils failed to live up to expectations. During the 1930s, 6 to 8 per cent dropped out during each school year, another 8 to 9 per cent failed yearend promotion examinations and were required to repeat the grade, and still another 8 to 9 per cent failed the examination but were allowed to retake it in the fall. About half of this latter number never appeared and an unknown percentage of those who did come failed the examination again.58 Throughout the 1930s, pupils repeating a grade comprised 11 to 12 per cent of total enrolment.59 Their large number in some classes presented such a problem that teachers and school administrators illegally placed these over-aged and underachieving pupils in special classes.60 Although about half of the youths who dropped out returned to school within a year or more, they, too, because of their age and experience posed the same problem for teachers.61 In the year of Stalin’s death, almost 15 per cent of the total enrolment in the Russian Republic consisted of grade repeaters.62 Whatever the difficulties, at least these youths were in school. Official statistics notwithstanding, many young people dropped out never to return or never enrolled in the first place for lack of interest, absence of proper clothing, 66

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or inadequate transport from village to school. During the 1936/37 academic year, for example, at least 5 per cent of those aged eight to eleven in the Kuibyshev, Stalingrad, and Iaroslavl’ regions were not attending school.63 In 1939 the Sovnarkom of the Russian Republic admitted that many children of all ages and especially those from eleven to fifteen were not enrolled.64 That year, only about two-thirds of Soviet youths aged twelve to fourteen attended a regular school, and of those aged fifteen to seventeen, only 15 per cent were doing so.65 Other adolescents either enrolled in a vocational school or had dropped out altogether. In the mid-1950s, only about one-third of the Soviet Union’s young people of fifteen to seventeen years of age were attending a regular school.66 A bifurcated system Many pupils not attending regular schools continued, however, to get an education in an expanding network of vocational institutions. The significance of these schools belied official rhetoric of a unified system providing a general education for all Soviet youth. During the 1920s, Narkompros had reluctantly surrendered the dream of nine years of general education for all children but it stubbornly adhered to the notion of providing at least seven. The Stalinist state of the 1930s promised that and more. As we have seen, the much vaunted campaign for compulsory elementary and secondary education in the early 1930s sought to provide all children from the ages of eight to fifteen with four years of elementary education and three additional years in the junior division (grades five through seven) of the secondary school. After converting grades eight and nine (and then grade ten added in 1929) into vocational schools (technicums), in 1932 the state recreated the grades as the senior division of the regular schools adding the eighth in the fall of 1932, the ninth in 1933, and the tenth in 1934. In so doing, it seemed to promise for many, if not most, adolescents a full ten years of general education. This explicit promise of seven years and the implied commitment to ten remained more fancy than fact. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union featured a variety of institutions for vocational instruction that, in fact, admitted youths with less than seven (let alone ten) years of schooling. One of them, the Factory Apprenticeship School (fabrichno-zavodskaia uchenichestvo), provided a full course in the early 1930s of less than one year with training in skills associated with a particular factory or large enterprise. With the First Five Year Plan, their numbers exploded, peaking at almost 4,000 with an enrolment of just under one million in 1932/33. Thereafter, their numbers fell to a low of 1,500 institutions with about 250,000 students in 1938/39. Despite their declining numbers, almost two million Soviet youths completed one or another of the apprenticeship courses during the 1930s.67 The popularity of vocational schools increased dramatically in 1940 when, 67

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one month after the beginning of the school year, the USSR’s Sovnarkom set fees for students enrolled in the senior division of regular schools, technicums, and higher educational institutions. Pupils in grades eight through ten in Moscow, Leningrad, and capitals of the union republics were to pay 200 rubles a year; those in other areas 150 rubles.68 On the very same day, the Presidium of the USSR’s Supreme Soviet replaced apprenticeship schools with a Labour Reserves System of vocational schools based on a curriculum extending over a period from six months to several years in such areas as mining, agriculture, construction, and transport. Offering a free education with no charge for room and board, these new schools were intended for pupils whose parents could not afford tuition for the secondary schools’ senior division. To further ensure substantial enrolment, the government assigned quotas to municipal soviets, collective farms, and orphanages (children’s homes).69 This powerful combination of inducements and coercion produced immediate results. In the first year of its existence, the Labour Reserves System trained 602,000 students in 1,549 institutions. After World War II, its importance escalated, reaching a high point in 1948 of 4,197 schools with slightly over one million pupils. From that year through the early 1950s this system graduated more than half a million students annually.70 Whatever the initial intent or promise, these vocational schools aggressively recruited students with less than seven years of general schooling. In the 1930s, only one-third of those attending Factory Apprenticeship Schools had completed the seventh grade.71 Seventy per cent of youths entering such schools associated with heavy industry lacked seven years of education.72 As late as 1939, only 40 per cent of the incoming class in all apprenticeship schools had finished the seventh grade. So many students lacked anything beyond the rudiments of literacy and numeracy that in 1935 the Soviet government reluctantly expanded the curriculum beyond one year in order to include more instruction in general education. The story line remained the same in the 1940s, when the Labour Reserves System actively recruited children from the ages of twelve to fourteen who had not yet had the opportunity to complete and, in some cases, enter the junior division of the secondary school. Some of them had not even finished the elementary grades.73 Like some of the Factory Apprenticeship Schools, the Labour Reserves System attempted to provide general education for pupils so woefully lacking it. After World War II a small number of special Schools for Working and Rural Youth offered the basics on a part-time basis to working youth or pupils in the Labour Reserves System. However, all such efforts failed. Apprenticeship schools, the Labour Reserves System, and special schools for working and rural youth were egregiously short of academic materials and able instructors. Neither the government, nor Narkompros, nor sponsoring enterprises compiled curricula to meet the special needs of these institutions and their young charges. Students themselves found it impossible to combine work and vocational training with the study of academic subjects. 68

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In addition to Factory Apprenticeship Schools and the Labour Reserves System, the Stalinist network of vocational instruction included another institution for adolescents, the technicum. These schools provided semiprofessional training over a period of several years in such fields as transport, education, metallurgy, electronics, and meteorology. During the 1930s, their numbers gradually increased so that in the single 1939/40 academic year, 3,773 of them enrolled about one million students and graduated almost a quarter of a million.74 After the war, the number of technicums remained at approximately this prewar figure but the number of students expanded to reach almost 1.5 million in the year of Stalin’s death. Almost 300,000 youths graduated that year alone.75 To be sure, technicums rarely admitted anyone with anything less than seven years of schooling and thus did not threaten to deprive the junior division of its age-cohort clientele. However, throughout the Stalinist period less than one-third of youths admitted into technicums had finished the tenth grade. Of the incoming class in 1954, only 28 per cent had done so.76 The numerical significance and recruiting patterns of technicums, Factory Apprenticeship Schools, and the Labour Reserves System created one part of a bifurcated system with distinct academic and vocational tracks. As we have seen, these divergent paths began for many Soviet young people at the age of twelve or thirteen, well before they completed the junior division of the secondary school and in some cases before finishing the elementary grades. In terms of the number of its pupils and graduates, the vocational track dwarfed its academic counterpart. From 1935 to 1939, 559,000 youths had graduated from the senior division (the tenth grade) of regular schools. During the same period, Factory Apprenticeship Schools graduated twice the number and technicums one-third more. At the peak of its importance, in 1947/48, the Labour Reserves System boasted an enrolment which was a full 20 per cent of that in the junior division of the secondary school. While that percentage declined rapidly thereafter, the combined enrolment of the Labour Reserves System and technicums consistently exceeded 50 per cent of that in the senior division of the secondary school.77 Moreover, because of their abbreviated course of study, technicums and the Labour Reserves System graduated far more students than the senior division of regular schools: in 1947, more than six times the number and in 1953 still almost l.5 times more.78 Because of its apparent utility to state and youth, such a bifurcated system was hardly unique to the Soviet Union. In an economy short of labour, the vocational track quickly produced individuals with narrowly defined but necessary skills in the short term, at least. Many Soviet adolescents felt fortunate to have the opportunity opened to them by Factory Apprenticeship Schools and the Labour Reserves System for a free education, a job to follow, and probable advancement beyond that. In some regions, the number of youths seeking admission into the Labour Reserves System exceeded available places.79 However, like the earlier Factory Apprenticeship Schools and like its 69

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counterpart elsewhere in Europe, the reserves system amounted to an educational dead end. The short duration of the course and the inability or unwillingness of graduates to proceed with their education helped to account for the large number of school-age youths not enrolled in any educational institution. In 1939, only about 20 per cent of young people aged fifteen to nineteen attended an educational institution of any type (school, vocational school, higher educational institution).80 In 1955, only slightly more than 40 per cent of those aged fifteen to seventeen were doing so.81 The high number of adolescents in a vocational institution or not in school at all made enrolment in the regular school’s senior division with its academic and preparatory curriculum a luxury. If not by official definition, then certainly in practice, grades eight through ten became an élitist institution unto themselves catering largely to an urban and privileged clientele. In 1938, for example, urban areas accounted for only 25 per cent of the total enrolment in grades one through four and 37 per cent in grades five through seven but for 60 per cent in the senior division. These figures remained largely the same in the year of Stalin’s death.82 Graduation was an even greater honour, for the division refused to guarantee safe passage to all those who entered it. At the close of the 1937/38 academic year, schools failed 27 per cent of their eighth graders and 22 per cent of those in the ninth grade. Only 11 per cent, however, of those in the tenth grade did not graduate.83 Much the same divergence prevailed in the Russian Republic during the 1953/54 academic year when a rather large number, 16 per cent, of the eighth graders were repeating the grade, but only 11 per cent of pupils in the ninth and about 2 per cent in the tenth were doing so.84 Completion of the senior division meant almost automatic admission to an institution of higher education. During the 1930s, a rapidly expanding network of universities and higher technical institutes admitted more students each year than the secondary schools could provide. In 1953, higher educational institutions were still admitting a total equivalent to 75 per cent of the number completing the tenth grade.85 Graduates with an excellent mark in academic subjects and nothing less than a good in all others (singing, drawing, physical education) could gain admission without taking entrance examinations. It was no idle boast, therefore, when School No. 25 proclaimed that almost all of its graduates had proceeded to a higher educational institution. In 1935, the children’s writer Lev Kassil’ compared this famous school to a conveyor belt moving its product on to the next station.86 He could have said the same for School No. 25’s less famous brethren. And it was a privileged product indeed. Although figures are not available regarding the social standing of parents of these pupils, 42 per cent of university students in 1938 were the children of professional, administrative, or white-collar parents.87

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Make a joyful noise Students in the senior division had reason to cherish their experience. They enjoyed a favoured status more so than they were aware or wanted to admit. They were not alone, however, in finding their schooldays a worthwhile and enjoyable experience. Kids will be kids regardless of place, time, and circumstances. The image of the tough, regimented, and thoroughly politicized Stalinist school, praised by friends and scorned by foes, belied a far different reality in the classroom and in the playground. At Stalin’s School No. 25 spontaneity frequently overwhelmed routine and regimen. Contrary to the school’s official image, students danced the foxtrot and the tango and jazz ‘took the school by storm’. Quite a scandal erupted when the cafeteria offered doughnuts misspelled.88 During class children thumped each other on the head, threw paper wads and talked. Some of the boys who sat side by side played chess, whispering their moves while reproducing in their minds the ever-changing positions of the chessmen. Some boys managed to do so when sitting apart by devising a complicated set of eye, head, and hand signals.89 Other boys wrote notes to each other during a chemistry class, one of which, ‘Our classroom smells like sweat’, was intercepted by their teacher, Kseniia Ivanovna Aksenova. Fearing that the note had sexual connotations and preferring that male authority figures deal with such a transgression, Aksenova turned it over to two of the school’s male teachers who confronted the two offending but innocent boys.90 The most prominent if not worst offender of the rules was none other than Stalin’s son Vasilii. He failed to complete his homework, ‘forgot’ to bring pen and notebooks to school, wound up a mechanical mouse and let it go during class, showed more interest in soccer than in his studies, and supplied fellow smokers in the men’s toilet with his father’s favourite brand.91 Students chose the colours and style with which they presented their essays, drawings, and watercolours, even those on political topics. David Iakovlevich Gurevich, pupil in the ninth grade ‘A’ class, hardly kept a model daybook from September 1935 to late March 1936, nor did any of his teachers, including the class monitor, Elizaveta Mikhailovna Chepurnova (a mathematics teacher), object. His penmanship defied the classic script demanded by the school. Gurevich paid scant attention to keeping a record of his extracurricular reading and his teachers ignored the section where they might comment on his civic activity and behaviour. Neither Chepurnova nor a parent signed the daybook each week as required.92 Another student, Aleksandr Nekrich, later expelled from the USSR as an adult historian for his critical appraisal of Stalin’s behaviour prior to the Nazi invasion in 1941, wrote an essay about an individual plagued by self-doubt and overcome by sexual vision.93 When in 1934 the school’s director, Groza, invited eighth and ninth graders to anonymously submit questions they responded with tough inquiries on politics and sexuality. She never revealed what they

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asked about political matters, but she referred on several occasions to questions about intercourse and masturbation. The school called in a doctor and other unnamed specialists to consult with pupils.94 School No. 25’s pupils enjoyed unusual privileges. Yet their behaviour, even in the face of intense national and international scrutiny, hardly deviated from that of their peers elsewhere. Throughout the Stalinist period, Soviet schoolchildren continued to bedevil their superiors by pulling minor and serious pranks, the calling of the fire brigade among the latter.95 As recalled by Henry-Ralph Lewenstein, a pupil at Moscow’s Karl Liebknecht School during the 1930s, pupils spoke to each other and passed notes during class.96 Years later behaviour had not improved. Speaking before an educational conference in August 1955, Ivan Andreevich Kairov, the Russian Republic’s Minister of Education and President of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, complained that students consistently broke the rules prohibiting running, jumping, and scuffling.97 The limits of politics More than just disorder separated the reality of schooling from the official image. Schools offered a curriculum far less politicized than Moscow’s rhetoric implied. To be sure, in the late 1930s study of the new Stalin constitution offered up heavily politicized fare. However, this course, limited to a two-hour segment each week in the seventh grade, played only a bit part in the overall curriculum.98 The Central Committee’s apparat for education and Narkompros preferred a focus on the acquisition of a traditional body of knowledge and cognitive skills. In the elementary grades, the three Rs, not politics, were fundamental. Syllabi emphasized correct grammar, spelling, and pronunciation.99 As previously mentioned, in April 1934, the Central Committee condemned attempts to include an examination of the decisions of the Seventeenth Party Congress, and for good measure, Marxist–Leninist theory in the primary school.100 Later that year, a persistent Narkompros required the study of Party history in the tenth grade for two hours a week.101 It was shortlived. In August of the following year, Narkompros withdrew the subject from the curriculum.102 In 1936 the Central Committee, and in 1939 the USSR Sovnarkom, condemned attempts by individual schools to offer instruction in the subject.103 No doubt, as these declarations made clear, Moscow believed the nation’s instructors and pupils incapable of studying properly such a delicate matter. But the Central Committee and Narkompros made it clear that Party history itself was not essential to the schools’ primary mission. The Central Committee, Narkompros, and the League of Militant Atheists only intermittently pressured schools to wage war against religion. When the anti-religious campaign reached its zenith from 1928 to 1931, Narkompros’s syllabi and teachers missed their assignment. Few schools subscribed to the League’s journal, Antireligioznik, or organized anti-religious circles or evenings. 72

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From 1931 to 1937, in full view of a Party that controlled educational policy and its implementation, Narkompros established vacation periods that included Christmas and occasionally Easter; mentioned religious belief only in passing in syllabi for courses in biology and chemistry; and criticized teachers who used lessons in natural science to attack Easter. Narkompros rebuked one of its own, Evgenii Iosifovich Perovskii, a former schoolteacher and now member of several of the commissariat’s research institutes, for a manuscript, ‘Antireligious Work in the Elementary School’, that suggested night excursions to cemeteries in order to undermine superstitious fears. Narkompros refused to publish the item, dismissing its recommendation as a waste of time and chastising its author for ‘crude excesses’.104 In May 1937, the Party changed course by demanding that Narkompros make anti-religion part of the school curriculum. A revitalized League of Militant Atheists, whose ranks swelled from several hundred thousand in 1935 to three million by 1941, pressured Narkompros over and over again to obey. Narkompros promised to do so, while in fact its syllabi provided little more than anti-religious moments. Narkompros’s own in-house critic, Perovskii, smarting no doubt from his earlier rejection, understood all too well the level of resistance. Writing in the League’s Antireligioznik in 1938, he complained that Narkompros failed to prepare material assaulting religion and blocked the publication of such items prepared by others. Its schools avoided attacking religious belief in the classroom and in extracurricular activities.105 Perovskii’s harsh words had little effect. From the late 1930s to the end of the Stalinist period the growing importance of Russian nationalism lent greater respectability to the Russian Orthodox Church and militated against attacks on it and on Christianity in the classroom and in Soviet society. Have it your way The official image of obedient, even obsequious, teachers cowed by a predatory Party–state also belied reality. Tom Ewing has shown that during the 1930s teachers and the Soviet state existed in a symbiotic relationship.106 The state’s educational programme corresponded to teachers’ professional ethos. The nation’s instructors welcomed campaigns for universal compulsory education and greeted enthusiastically a teacher-centred and traditional curriculum. Teachers made the state’s authority their own. Pressure to follow the orders of superiors meant an acknowledgement of their own importance and a realization that they, too, as the state’s emissaries, could demand obedience. On 4 July 1936, the Central Committee increased pressure on teachers by its abolition of pedology. Originating in the west and emphasizing the importance of inheritance and the social environment, the discipline had gained popularity in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Its adherents hoped to create optimal conditions for a humane and effective education, seeking in particular to identify as 73

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early as possible gifted children and those with learning problems to provide specialized programmes for them. Through its emphasis on heredity and the social environment, pedology shifted responsibility for weak academic performance and poor behaviour away from schools and teachers. The Central Committee now declared that teachers (and parents) were almost exclusively responsible for the education and upbringing of Soviet youth. Yet at the same time the Central Committee elevated teachers above the ‘experts’. In the Central Committee’s own words, its attack on pedology ‘restored completely the right of pedagogy and pedagogues’.107 Tougher educational standards for teachers and salaries pegged to training and experience meant more responsibilities but also more respect for the teaching profession. The recertification campaign begun in 1936 had similar positive consequences for teachers. Commissions often asked political questions, ferreted out teachers’ ignorance of Party history and current affairs, and discovered their ‘refusal to include political materials in lessons’.108 As noted above, in 1937 commissions rejected a large number of teachers on political grounds. However, Narkompros refused to equate the certification process with a purge and most of the teachers initially denied their papers, won full or conditional certification upon appeal. From 1937 to 1939, of the 603,000 teachers undergoing recertification, in the end only 3 per cent were removed from their posts.109 While Moscow pressured teachers to upgrade their qualifications, work harder, and follow orders, the central press lionized them as authority figures, who could help build a bountiful and just society (and world). Older and more experienced teachers in particular were praised for their knowledge and pedagogical skills. School No. 25’s veteran staff enjoyed a vast amount of favourable national publicity and won many individual awards as the best teachers in the Russian Republic. The school’s administrators also benefited from considerable praise and bonuses.110 For Ewing, such publicity and monetary awards signalled a ‘certain acceptance by central authorities of teachers’ ways of making sense of their work and their world’.111 Veterans with the most confidence and know-how could go beyond the syllabi, orders from on high notwithstanding, ‘because they knew that students would not challenge their authority to set the boundaries of classroom knowledge’.112 So it was at School No. 25.113 There teachers’ preferences matched Moscow’s demands for discipline and instruction in cognitive skills. When they took their work seriously, they did as they were told and what they themselves chose to do, pleased to reap the financial rewards and glory that state and society bestowed on them and on their school. Many of them ventured forth to present their subject in relatively novel ways regardless of official syllabi. An elementary grade teacher used Victor Hugo’s story of Gavroche, a young Parisian vagabond who died in service of a rebellion in 1832, to provide subjects for drawings of their choice. The assignment allowed too much freedom to suit the tastes of one Narkompros critic who concluded that pupils’ artwork was completed ‘without a plan’. A first grade teacher used 74

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Anton Chekhov’s short story, ‘Vanka’, about a young apprentice abused by his employer, to inspire her students to engage in a spirited exchange about what they liked and disliked about it. Other teachers altered or went beyond the prescribed syllabus to make their lessons comprehensible and interesting. The school’s literature teachers did so to such an extent that many years later, former students recalled their instruction with special fondness. Some of the school’s history teachers proceeded in a similar fashion with analagous results. George Counts, the American educator who visited the school for almost two weeks at the end of 1936, observed an eighth grade history instructor who combined an ‘excellent lecture’ with ‘vigorous class discussion’ on the Holy Alliance. After a lesson on Stalin and the First Five Year Plan, ninth graders ‘gathered around their teacher in considerable numbers obviously interested in this subject’. In 1934, School No. 25’s second grade teacher, Ol’ga Fedorovna Leonova, flirted with the heretical by asking her pupils, Stalin’s Svetlana among them, to set aside lessons on ‘our factories’ and ‘our collective farms’ to spend more time on reading. Her independence, however, had its limits – she none the less adhered to guidelines by reading a story about the campaign against kulaks. Two years later, now teaching Svetlana’s fourth grade, Leonova set aside a draft textbook on Peter the Great that Narkompros had asked her to use on an experimental basis because pupils found it boring.114 Respondents in the Harvard Interview Project had similar stories to tell. A former pupil remembered an older teacher who slipped her a book by a forbidden author.115 A teacher recalled that in her effort to inculcate among her students a spirit of freedom, she assigned Symbolist poets not in the curriculum. When pupils responded accordingly she burned their compositions before anyone else could read them.116 ‘I liked my work’, she commented, ‘I enjoyed teaching’ and encountered, in fact, little interference from the Party.117 After mentioning that his director and inspectors could examine his work at any time for political or pedagogical errors, a teacher nevertheless commented that he was ‘the master of the class, a real teacher’.118 A director of a school remarked that Party authorities questioned him about his institution’s extracurricular activities but not about the formal course of study.119 Although Lewenstein complained of politicized instruction in history and social studies at his school, he also recalled that pupils loved their history teacher and secretary of the school’s Party organization, Rudolf Benz.120 Even the ritual of criticism and self-criticism proved useful for some teachers who found advice offered by older teachers at such sessions to be helpful.121

Myths: facts and fiction Recognition of the divergence of the official image from the reality of Soviet schooling undermines two legends rooted in the Stalinist epoch: the alleged influence on educational policy and practice of the educator Anton 75

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Semenovich Makarenko; and the purported significance of mythical proportions of the schoolboy Pavlik Morozov. Who was Anton Makarenko? In the 1920s Makarenko gained recognition within educational circles as director of the Gorky Colony for homeless and delinquent boys and then from 1927 to 1935 of the Dzerzhinskii Commune, the latter under the jurisdiction of the Soviet secret police. Fame followed with the appearance of his Road to Life: An Epic of Education, a three-volume work published in serialized form from 1933 to 1935, a first-person account of his experience at the Gorky Colony. In 1937, Makarenko achieved greater acclaim with his Book for Parents, a guide for raising children. In his publications, Makarenko emphasized the virtues of routine, regimen, punctuality, hygiene, and military conventions including saluting, bugle calls, drum rolls, banners, inspections, and the organization of pupils into detachments. Narkompros was not pleased with what it heard from the fringes of its system. During the 1920s, when the spirit of experimentalism dominated at the commissariat, its officials criticized Makarenko for an obsession with blind obedience and for a neglect of the interests of the individual child. Makarenko responded that the Olympians on high lacked a sense of reality and offered only impractical advice. Educators should seek techniques that worked, he insisted, rather than dabbling in Narkompros’s fanciful theories. The commissariat’s hostility did not end with adoption of a traditional curriculum more in keeping with Makarenko’s method, nor with Makarenko’s escalating fame following publication of Road to Life.122 In 1934, Timofei Denisovich Korneichik, a pre-revolutionary schoolteacher and now a Narkompros official, acknowledged that Makarenko wrote movingly but dismissed his style as ‘command pedagogy’ (komandirskaia pedagogika), a mechanical transfer of military methods to education.123 In mid-1935 Pravda and Izvestiia praised Makarenko for avoiding the experimentalism and ‘theoretical drivel’ (boltushka) at Narkompros.124 However, the articles lacked the force of any official line. Critics continued to chastise Makarenko for a reliance on military methods and regimen.125 For the most part, however, Narkompros and its publications ignored Makarenko, remaining, in the words of one of his most vocal admirers, V. Kolbanovskii, ‘mysteriously silent’.126 Schools, whatever the official image, proceeded without benefit of the tough regimen that made Makarenko famous. In 1937, Kolbanovskii suggested that a purge of Narkompros might elicit from it an improved response to Road to Life.127 As we will see below, the terror soon destroyed the people and life itself at the commissariat. Yet its attitude towards Makarenko hardly changed. The ‘mysterious silence’ continued. In January 1938, Makarenko delivered four lectures to Narkompros’s Moscow staff. They were not published.128 76

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Praise for Makarenko and his work remained largely an item for literary journals.129 At a meeting at Moscow’s House of Writers in July 1936, Makarenko mildly objected to such a treatment by labelling himself an educator, not a writer. His effort failed. Comments that followed from the assembled audience treated his Road to Life almost exclusively as a work of literature.130 One year later, Makarenko seemed resigned to his status as writer, not educator, when at a meeting of Moscow’s writers he indicated his pleasure at his acclaim as a writer.131 On 1 February 1939, the Soviet state awarded Makarenko the Order of the Red Banner of Labour for his service in the field of literature. When he died two months later, his casket was placed for viewing in the Hall of the Union of Writers. Eulogies appeared primarily in the literary press.132 Narkompros remained on the sidelines. In the spring of 1940, one year after Makarenko’s death, a well-orchestrated campaign began to project him as a worthy teacher. In March and April, Pravda featured three articles, one in the form of an unsigned editorial, praising Makarenko’s attention to control and discipline.133 At the same time, Kolbanovskii recommended Makarenko’s methods as the best means to counter alleged indiscipline in the schools and among youth generally.134 Narkompros’s newspaper, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, formally the press arm of the teachers’ union, launched a discussion of Makarenko’s work in its pages and at meetings throughout the USSR. The effort ended in August with a favourable assessment of Makarenko’s appreciation for practicality, discipline, and order.135 A few stubborn souls at Narkompros withheld their endorsement. Pavel Nikolaevich Shimbirev, a pre-revolutionary schoolteacher and now professor at Moscow’s Regional Pedagogical Institute, objected to an uncritical acceptance of Makarenko’s views and to any canonization of him.136 A Leningrad teacher wrote to Uchitel’skaia gazeta denying the suitability of an application of Makarenko’s methods to regular schools.137 A. Smirnov, also a professor at Moscow’s Regional Pedagogical Institute, compiled for Narkompros’s major journal, Sovetskaia pedagogika, an index of literature for teachers and parents without mention of Makarenko.138 The journal continued to ignore Makarenko well into 1941. Two years after Makarenko’s death and one year after Uchitel’skaia gazeta had launched its discussion, Pravda and literary journals renewed the campaign to make Makarenko a dominant feature of educational life.139 Now even Sovetskaia pedagogika devoted almost its entire March issue to praise of Makarenko’s love of children and demands for disciplined behaviour on the part of both pupils and instructors.140 With Narkompros’s sudden veneration of Makarenko, ‘the bastion’, in the words of the chronicler of these events, Götz Hillig, ‘had been conquered’.141 Solomon Markovich Rives, founder of a school–commune in Odessa, one of the architects of the progressive curricula of the 1920s, and now professor at Moscow’s Lenin State Pedagogical Institute, praised Makarenko’s ‘aesthetics of discipline’, and his reliance on 77

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bugle calls, uniforms, saluting, and military exercises.142 When more tributes followed that year in Uchitel’skaia gazeta and Sovetskaia pedagogika, Makarenko was, as Hillig has put it, ‘born for a second time’.143 Makarenko’s canonization followed. His image was evident in the ‘Rules for Pupils’, adopted in 1943, and in the inclusion of military topics and exercises in the school curriculum. By 1944, Narkompros housed a Makarenko Research Institute and a Laboratory for the Study of Makarenko’s Legacy. After the war, Makarenko became one of the Soviet icons carried into battle against the evils of western culture and cosmopolitanism. Educators who failed to pay homage to his greatness did so at their own peril.144 Yet Makarenko’s ‘second birth’ produced a distorted version of the original. Makarenko and what he stood for became another myth in Soviet education, inaccurate and misleading but nevertheless powerful and sometimes destructive. His militaristic approach notwithstanding, Makarenko in fact had encouraged his pupils to find their own way and to discover what worked best for them individually and collectively. This attitude, as much as his more famous methods, accounted for his remarkable success in turning delinquent children into responsible citizens.145 Makarenko’s appreciation for originality disturbed even his champions of the early and mid-1930s who wanted a more authoritative style. In their estimation, Makarenko tended to fall prey to an ‘idealization of spontaneity and drift’ (samotek), over relied on intuition, and underestimated the importance of systematic instruction by teachers.146 In 1938, Makarenko acknowledged that no one’s methods, including his own, should be taken as dogma and that what worked for him at the colony and commune might fail in regular schools. ‘I am against perpetual [paradeground] marching’, he wrote, ‘which certain young educators practise to excess’.147 He cautioned his audience in 1938 ‘not to take my words as a prescription’.148 Death interrupted his plans to become the director of one of Moscow’s schools notorious for its academic failures and lack of discipline. There Makarenko hoped to apply and modify, as needed, the methods that had made him famous.149 Whatever the facts of the matter, Makarenko’s canonization and the cult that followed made him into whatever the authorities needed and wanted him to be, his legacy forged and reforged in the image of the politics of the day. As we have seen, however, practice was another matter. Narkompros and its teaching cadre avoided Makarenko’s ‘aesthetics of discipline’. Where is Pavlik Morozov? Developments in the classroom also deviated sharply from public rhetoric over the importance of Pavlik Morozov, a child who had supposedly placed love of Party above filial devotion. In 1931, Pavlik, schoolboy and Pioneer, reported to authorities that his father, a kulak, had sold false documents to 78

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deported fellow kulaks that allowed them to return to their native villages. A subsequent trial found the father and several other relatives guilty and sentenced them to prison. A few months later, Pavlik and his younger brother were found murdered. Another trial sentenced Pavlik’s paternal grandfather and grandmother, a young cousin, and an uncle to death for the murder of the two boys. In October 1933 the writer Maxim Gorky eulogized the young hero in the pages of Pravda for recognizing that a person could be a relative by blood but an enemy in spirit. Gorky called for a monument to be built in the boy’s honour.150 The following year, at the first Congress of Writers, Morozov ‘became the primary model for the image of a perfect hero’.151 Many monuments, pamphlets, and novels honouring the boy’s devotion to Party and country followed. The Young Pioneers named their Moscow Palace of Culture after him. Yuri Druzhnikov has recently shown that the story was more fiction than fact. Pavlik rarely attended school, could hardly read, and never joined the Pioneers. His father was not a kulak but rather the chairman of a rural soviet in a village in the northern Urals so remote that it had avoided collectivization. The child may have resented his father more for recently abandoning the boy’s mother for a younger woman than for any real or imagined political sin. Soviet and western literature has assumed that the campaign came to dominate the Soviet classroom as it supposedly did everywhere else. In actuality, Morozov was far less important in the schools than commonly thought. ‘I never read about Pavlik Morozov’, Elena Bonner, who as a young Muscovite in 1931 entered the second grade and later as an adult became wife of Andrei Sakharov, wrote in her memoirs. ‘I don’t know how I missed the books about him, but I haven’t seen one to this day’.152 The story received no more than a mention, if that, in Narkompros’s syllabi. Perhaps Pavlik was lionized for a time in meetings at school and at camps of the Party’s youth arms, the Pioneers and Young Communist League, but I have seen little evidence that even there he held a place of prominence. Like Makarenko’s reputation until well after his death, Morozov’s story originated and remained more of a literary than an educational phenomenon.153 And the moral of this tale soon lost its immediacy. Within a few years of Gorky’s article, official pronouncements (and Makarenko’s Book for Parents) celebrated the virtues of parental authority and respect for all elders.

Programmed for disaster A yawning gulf also separated rhetoric from reality in the administration of the Soviet school system. The very structure of Stalinist school governance created problems it was designed to prevent. As previously noted, the Central Committee and its apparat for schools exercised near-total control over the making and implementation of decisions affecting education. Narkompros 79

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was left to fill in the missing details. However, such highly centralized systems have historically been plagued by resistance and improvisation from below.154 The hyper-centralized nature of Soviet administration was no exception, leading, as Moshe Lewin has described it, to an ‘impossible Stalinism’ and ‘institutional paranoia’. The more Moscow experienced difficulties in governing, the more it centralized its power, but the greater the concentration of power, the more ineffective and impossible became its ability to govern. The proposed cure was the disease.155 The inevitability of failure The Central Committee’s excruciatingly detailed regulations governing such minor matters as the quality of notebook paper and type of pencils, required their systematic violation if pupils were to write anything at all. Moreover, Moscow encouraged in effect the breaking of its laws by countermanding its own orders or requiring an impossible implementation of opposites. State and Party organs insisted that schools apply the burdensome curriculum dictated to them and yet the same organs persistently complained that Narkompros and schools overwhelmed their pupils with those very courses and extracurricular activities required. That curriculum included frequent demands from the highest Party and state organs that teachers and pupils help bring in the annual harvest, destroy rodents during the spring sowing campaign, read newspapers to collective farm workers during lunch break, sell state bonds, get out the vote on election day, and arrange celebrations of revolutionary holidays.156 While the Kremlin demanded instruction in a prescribed body of information and discrete cognitive skills, it relentlessly condemned the very means teachers and pupils understandably chose to achieve that end: copious note taking, homework beyond the allowable hours per week, memorization, and drill.157 As denunciations of memorization intensified, the introduction in 1933 of promotion examinations with precise questions and the expectation of exact answers made its practice more likely.158 Chronic shortages of textbooks in a system requiring the command of a predetermined body of information and skills encouraged rote learning. The considerable wastage (dropouts, flunking, grade repetition) discussed above resulted in part from the design of an unforgivingly bifurcated system that drove young people out of the school and into the labour force. Moreover, a narrow definition of correctness in the classroom made possible grievous errors on the most delicate of topics. During the promotion examinations in the spring of 1934, one teacher forgot that all kulaks threatened the Soviet Union by asking: ‘What kind of kulak is dangerous?’159 Pupils applied a stereotypical view of the 1917 Revolution to the earlier French Revolution when workers and peasants purportedly allied against the landlords and the bourgeoisie. Unable to modify the official recipe for revolution, pupils ascribed the failure of other revolts to the absence of an alliance between 80

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workers and peasants.160 Honesty accounted for other incorrect responses. In 1932 a pupil declared that labourers aspired to become shock workers in order to gain access to consumer goods; the following year, another observed that peasants with private land lived better than their collectivized brethren.161 At School No. 25 when asked how Lenin treated the Populists, one student replied flippantly: ‘Politely’.162 In another way, however, the system worked to cover up or ignore pupils’ mistakes. In its evaluation of the worth of its teachers, Narkompros relied extensively on the percentage of pupils promoted from one grade to the next. This percentage mania, as it was called, led naturally to lowered standards. Many teachers encouraged their pupils to look at their notes and prompt their peers during written and oral examinations, answered the very questions they posed, or surreptitiously corrected students’ written errors.163 Nevertheless, Narkompros refused to revise its criteria for judging instructors even as it relentlessly condemned the inevitable consequences of its own percentage mania. The necessity for failure No less in the realm of education than in the fields of industry and agriculture, major failures played a highly publicized and indispensable role by highlighting the immensity of the Soviet Union’s promise of a transformed world. Ambitious goals required the discovery, even invention, of monumental errors. The infernal bad illuminated the heavenly good. Thus, in the midst of the Herculean effort to invest Russian and Soviet youth with literacy and culture, Party and state trumpeted evidence of failure in ritualistic fashion. Over and over again critics enthusiastically displayed by discovery, or exaggeration, or creation, errors of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The most prominent among them, Boris Mikhailovich Volin, head of the Central Committee’s Schools Department until December 1935, and then First Deputy Commissar of Education of the Russian Republic, made it his mission as Party and Narkompros spokesperson to seek out and emotionally damn pupils and teachers allegedly guilty of such cardinal sins. After visiting one particular school, Volin contemptuously bypassed procedures and with great fanfare fired a teacher for illiteracy.164 The cult of criticism The reporting of failure from below became one of the rituals in a cult of criticism. In a campaign that reached its zenith in the mid-1930s, the Communist Party and Soviet state invited Soviet citizens to submit complaints, pleas, and denunciations to such giants as Stalin, Molotov, the Central Committee, and Narkompros. The little people of education – pupils, parents, custodians, and teachers – responded with a deluge of letters and telegrams, almost all 81

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of them signed. They hammered away at monotonously familiar topics: tardy pay; inadequate physical facilities; shortages of fuel, paper, pencils, and textbooks; requisitioning of school equipment and buildings by local Party and secret police organs; children of school age not enrolled in school; pupils’ poor behaviour; a high rate of pupil absenteeism; and unresponsive local officials.165 By its encouragement of such correspondence, the Kremlin advanced its own interests. It created the illusion of unity between people and the highest echelons of government and received evidence to indict unresponsive and disobedient officials at the regional and local levels.166 As Moscow hoped, teachers blamed local and regional authorities for their problems. The centre seized upon such complaints to justify a further centralization of power.167 My own examination of the massive volume of letters, telegrams, and petitions sent to Moscow by teachers, parents, and pupils has led me to two bleak observations. I have been struck, first, by the overwhelmingly negative content of the information provided and, second, by the centre’s aggressive yet thoroughly dysfunctional response. Almost every grievance or request received excessive attention. Even petty complaints caused considerable commotion. To respond to letters sent to Stalin, his secret chancellery devised a special form requiring of Narkompros an investigation and a subsequent report.168 The Central Committee’s Secretariat used a similar form and procedures for the many items it received.169 The result was devastating. Narkompros’s response to each entreaty rarely led to a solution of a particular problem, let alone its root cause, while it tied up the bureaucracy from top to bottom with pettiness, paperwork, and recrimination. No less a person than the deputy head of Narkompros’s Administration for the Elementary and Secondary School responded to one complainant by informing a school that its small blackboard and shortage of texts violated Party decrees and state law.170 Other top officials had to respond to appeals from individual schools for equipment, textbooks, and paper and to teachers who had not been paid on time or who had been forcibly removed from their apartments.171 In 1935 a secondary school in Iznensk, Samara province, informed Narkompros of terrible conditions. Moisei Solomonovich Epshtein, Narkompros’s Deputy Commissar, instructed the Samara Regional Party Committee to order the local soviet executive committee and its educational department to address the problem.172 It is unlikely that the message got through. This and other such efforts tied up Narkompros in minutiae and underscored its powerlessness before the most prosaic of problems. Worse was to come. The sheer number of complaints and Narkompros’s inability to respond effectively to them created the impression at the centre of schools in total disarray, an exaggerated perception of a situation bad enough without such embellishment, and of a hopelessly dysfunctional educational administration. Finding itself in an impossible situation, Narkompros defended itself in 1937 by responding on cue with an orgy of self-criticism. At 82

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sessions of its leading personnel in mid-March, speaker after speaker, Bubnov prominent among them, acknowledged that the educational apparat contained spies, Japanese agents, Trotskyists, and Bukharinists. They blamed their own commissariat for all of education’s ills, real and imagined.173 The ritual of denunciations and self-criticism may have temporarily saved Narkompros. At least it gave its personnel a role to play that was officially valued. Nevertheless, Narkompros’s inability to advance the interests of its schools and teachers destroyed morale and, in an environment of charges, counter charges, and terror, induced personal and institutional paralysis. In order to prevent any potentially damaging, even fatal, mis-step, officials retreated as much as possible from their responsibilities. By mid-1937, Bubnov had distanced himself from his agency and people. Even when in his office, he often rejected requests to see him and refused to handle the commissariat’s business.174 He may also have withdrawn from work to avoid denouncing colleagues allegedly guilty of wrecking.175 On 11 July 1937, Andrei Pavlovich Shokhin, former Narkompros official and now head of the Group for Enlightenment and Health at the Central Committee’s Control Commission, submitted a memorandum to his superiors, including the head of the secret police and infamous technician of terror, Nikolai Ivanovich Ezhov, with a copy to Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov, one of the secretaries of the Central Committee.176 The heads and the chief deputies of all of Narkompros’s managing organs (upravleniia), with the exception of N.P. Vinogradskii, head of the Department for Elementary Schools, had been arrested or removed. Party and state organs had also dispensed with leading personnel of the commissariat’s departments (otdely) and sections (sektory). In some instances, no one had been appointed to take their place; in other cases, the replacements had quickly proven incompetent. Administrators who remained, Bubnov included, stayed at home or hid in their offices. Even the heretofore aggressive Volin had often claimed since April to be too ill to leave his apartment.177 Work ground to a halt. No one at Narkompros dared to undertake tasks so essential in a highly centralized system as the examination and certification of new syllabi and the confirmation of new directors and teachers in the senior division of the secondary school. Shokhin’s recommendation, however, promised to exacerbate an already terrible situation. He proposed Bubnov’s removal and the exile of half of Narkompros’s remaining personnel to institutions outside the capital. Shokhin’s proposals seemed benign in comparison to the horrors that followed. In August 1937, Narkompros’s Party unit reprimanded Volin for inadequate vigilance. Removed from the commissariat on 27 August, he landed safely enough as director of the Central Committee’s Institute for Correspondence Instruction.178 Bubnov was not as fortunate. On 12 October, the Politburo dismissed him for an ‘inability to cope with his job’, and in a classic reversal of responsibility, ‘for systematically disrupting educational work despite the colossal assistance of organs of Soviet power’.179 Five days later 83

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Bubnov was arrested. Secret charges brought against him included standard accusations of membership of a counter-revolutionary organization of rightists and of spying for German intelligence. They also recalled earlier friction between the Central Committee and Narkompros by condemning Bubnov for including a study of the resolutions of Party congresses in the school curriculum and for his support of pedology.180 One month after Bubnov’s dismissal, Shokhin understood better the process that he had encouraged, when the Politburo removed him from the Control Commission and purged him from the Party.181 Later that year, Shokhin and Vinogradskii disappeared and were presumably executed. Bubnov was shot on 1 August 1938. The terror in Narkompros’s apparatus below may have been more extensive. The Ordzhonikidze (Stavropol’) Regional Department of Education ceased to function.182 In October 1937, two of its officials, Chelyshev and Treshchev, wrote to Stalin of the havoc wrought. Victims included Miloslavskii, the head of the regional department of education, and Lysko, his deputy; Miloslavskii’s immediate replacement, Leonov; the regional department’s accountant and many other of its employees; and 75 per cent of the heads of district departments of education in the region. The result was catastrophic. Zhdanov, the third and surviving head that year of the regional department of education, allegedly ignored his duties for the pursuit of unspecified personal matters. Without an accountant, the department had to send a delegation to the state bank to procure funds. Complaints poured in from teachers, 400 of them in September alone, but they went unanswered for lack of personnel. Supplicants who came in person to the regional department, ‘sometimes for weeks are shuffled [tolkaiutsia] from office to office’.183 The business of governance had ceased. As a result of exceptional chaos and disorder reigning in the regional department of education [and] the absence of leadership . . . the regional department has lost its authority as a governing organ . . . For days we write and draft innumerable orders and regulations, which in the meantime for lack of a signature . . . lose their significance. We destroy them and begin writing [more] anew.184 Little or no improvement in Narkompros’s ability to deal with imagined and real difficulties followed the terror’s zenith in 1938. An avalanche of complaints from below continued to overwhelm it. Bubnov’s replacement, Petr Andreevich Tiurkin, responded to many of these items and required that his subordinates do likewise. The effort had patently dysfunctional consequences. A prominent member of Tiurkin’s new team, Mikhailov, commented shortly after his appointment as head of the Department for Secondary Schools that he had approached his new job with the hope that in cooperation with teachers he could make a difference. But during the two months of his tenure, ‘I 84

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have been busy only with complaints. Some complaints have been marinating for three years.’185 Regional departments of education had failed to communicate their intentions to him and at Narkompros itself ‘they don’t want to provide tea not to speak of a car’.186 Predictably higher authorities continued to hold Narkompros in contempt. In late 1938, the Russian Republic’s Supreme Soviet and Pravda hounded the commissariat for its incompetence before all the familiar problems facing schools. Pravda observed that the flood of complaints coming from below tended to get lost in Narkompros’s ‘bureaucratic jungles’.187 In early 1940, Tiurkin was removed, replaced by Vladimir Petrovich Potemkin. Potemkin came from the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs where he had served since 1922 and since 1937 as its first deputy commissar. Potemkin nevertheless had some experience that qualified him for his new position. From 1900 to 1917 he had taught in secondary schools. During the next two years he worked in Narkompros’s apparatus in Moscow and from 1921 to 1922 in educational administration in Odessa. Potemkin brought a different style of leadership to Narkompros, when, and not coincidentally, the Kremlin relaxed its embrace of criticism from below. Familiar problems confronting teachers and schools remained, but Narkompros broke with a process that had exaggerated the negative and had besieged it with a swarm of petty detail. The new style did not please everyone. At an All-Russian Conference of Educational Workers in January 1941, A.I. Lukin, head of Moscow’s Regional Department of Education, expressed a preference for the old and familiar: a preoccupation with the seamy side of school life and with Narkompros’s failure to cope with it. Potemkin was not amused. He charged Lukin with seeking a public confession of sins followed by round after round of condemnation in keeping with the military order ‘fire at will!’ (kroi pochem zria!). In the absence of such polemic, Lukin regarded Narkompros’s work as ‘vapid and boring. The dish is served, but there is, you see, no spicy sauce of mustard or pepper for the meat.’ Potemkin acknowledged the usual problems facing the schools but emphasized Narkompros’s ability to deal with them. He urged the conference to evaluate schools and Narkompros ‘in an atmosphere of enthusiasm, cheer, and joy. More so than anyone else, we educational workers feel that for us life is better, life is more joyful.’188 Potemkin’s successors followed his more ‘joyful’ approach to their job and the business of education. Yet even they in these new conditions dared not acknowledge all of their tangible achievements.

Success in spite of it all Administrators, teachers, and pupils had good reason to be proud of their accomplishments. More young people attended school during the Stalinist period than before. Despite shortages of materials and qualified personnel, schools taught the prescribed curriculum and especially the three Rs well, the 85

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considerable wastage an indication of effective instruction (in the face of percentage mania) as much as it was the product of poor teaching. Teachers remained dedicated to their jobs, their commitment in part the result of a correlation between their professional ethos and the Party–state’s educational agenda. Both the vocational and academic tracks provided students with the opportunity of social and economic advancement. The Stalinist ideology of human progress through planning and technology proved especially captivating for teachers and students alike because of the role it assigned their schools in forging human beings who could make it all come to pass. Narkompros readily boasted of these very real and impressive achievements. It could not, however, acknowledge the important degree to which teachers and pupils themselves embraced official values and the accompanying value system. To do so would have diminished the power of the almighty Party and state to dictate reality by denying agency to its teachers and students. And yet the degree to which many Soviet young people accepted and internalized the apparent and hidden curriculum emerged as one of the Stalinist school system’s greatest achievements. Students at School No. 25, for example, understood that their education opened up a path to well-paid and interesting jobs, as well as to status and power. Moreover, they believed their schooling was part of an exciting process in the creation of a better, more just and prosperous Soviet Union and world. They took pride in being part of the effort to replace, as one of them later recalled, the ‘samovar of the old’ with the ‘revolution of movement and progress’.189 For these children, no disjuncture existed between school and society, between what they wanted to learn and were taught, and between their private identity and what the school trained them to be in public. A convergence of attitudes about self, school, society, and state resulted, to be sure, from the discipline and politicized instruction at school. It also emanated from creative modifications by teachers and pupils of the officially approved content and methods of instruction and from a significant degree of spontaneity. School No. 25 achieved its great success because it blended a host of contradictions for its teachers and pupils: compliance and choice; drill and spontaneity; solemnity and laughter; manipulation and initiative; uniformity and variation. School No. 25 held a special place of prominence in the USSR, but it was not unique in making education into an effective instrument for both pupils and state. Individuals who emigrated to the west following World War II praised the educational system they had left behind. Although they complained of politicized instruction, ‘no aspect of Soviet society received more warm and spontaneous support than did the system of Soviet education’.190 Adult emigrants from the USSR who arrived in the United States between 1 January 1979 and 30 April 1982 similarly expressed a high level of satisfaction with Soviet schooling. Among this group, individuals who began and completed elementary and secondary education sometime between 1931 and 1950 felt more positively about their experience than subsequent generations. 86

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Almost half of this Stalinist cohort believed that their teachers treated them fairly; only one-fourth of those entering school after 1950 felt the same way. One-third of the older group recalled that they could speak freely with their teachers, while only one-fourth of the post-Stalinist generation felt that way.191 The son of a Russian mother and western correspondent, George Fischer, recalled fondly his life as a Soviet schoolboy from 1929 to 1939. He liked the emphasis on social awareness that gave him and his peers a sense of importance and purpose. ‘I had few if any doubts about the Soviet system’, he later remembered, ‘when I left Russia after ten years of schooling there.’192 Wolfgang Leonhard recalled that at his school he and fellow students were passionate about politics and enthusiastically read political literature, including works by Lenin and Stalin. His passion remained even when he discovered whole paragraphs inked out in books at the Library of Foreign Literature.193 Iurii Orlov, future physicist and dissident, wrote later that he ‘loved and adored his school’ and that he embraced Communism as the ‘bright future of all humanity’.194 After completing her memoirs, Elena Bonner mused that critics ‘would really let me have it for that happy childhood . . . They’d bring up everything including the poster in the school lobby: “Thank you Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood.”’195 The writer Raisa Orlova, who graduated in 1935, recalled later that ‘up until 1953, I believed in everything’.196 Not all students responded in this way. Dora Shturman, a schoolgirl from 1930 to 1940, recalled that pupils turned a cold shoulder towards those individuals who replaced teachers and administrators victimized by the terror.197 However, for many other students, the very beliefs and values they internalized at school overwhelmed the inevitable doubts. School No. 25’s Antonina Nikolaevna Iakovleva put out of mind the hungry people who crowded ‘like flies’ around the train carrying her and fellow pupils in the early 1930s through the famine-ridden Ukraine to their Crimean summer camp.198 Henry Ralph Lewenstein was unaware of the famine and ‘had no grounds for complaint’. He and fellow students retained their optimism and ‘regarded Stalin as [their] idol for whom they were prepared to sacrifice their lives’.199 Aleksandr Nekrich remembered how he uncritically supported the First Five Year Plan and upon completing the seventh grade wished to leave school ‘and become a commander . . . in decisive battles for the world revolution’.200 ‘We had been persuaded and we persuaded ourselves’, Orlova recalled, ‘that we had been protecting sacred principles’.201 Upon Bubnov’s arrest, his daughter, Elena, a student at School No. 25, and friends doubted the charges but not the system.202 For the young Bonner, the terror took on a surrealistic form far removed from her reality of a Soviet Union that remained the best country in the world.203 The arrest of his mother’s relatives hardly affected the young Lewenstein, who was more impressed by the new face of Moscow with its magnificent streets, buildings, and metro.204 Leonhard responded in much the same way to the arrest of his mother and the parents of many of his classmates. He and his friends dismissed the fate of individuals in their effort to 87

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‘maintain our ideals and belief in the Soviet Union’.205 Their school was a ‘second home’.206 Many pupils at School No. 25 likewise regarded it as their ‘second home’ or ‘second family’, an institution that ‘brought us up’. ‘School was our home’, Mariia Dmitrievna Surova, graduate of 1938 recalled in 1996, ‘we were free there’.207 Because they felt ‘at home’ and ‘free’, these students willingly embraced what they were taught as their own. However, this strong sense of autonomy would later lead many of these pupils, including all of those just mentioned, to resurrect old doubts about the past and to pose new critical questions about the present. In this important way, the Stalinist school succeeded all too well for the system of which it was a part and contributed to perestroika and the ensuing implosion of the Communist dictatorship and the USSR.

A look ahead The history of schools and schooling under Stalin provides a useful perspective on contemporary developments in Russian education. It may help us avoid the gloom and doom that pervades so many commentaries on the present scene. As in the past, administrators, teachers, and parents (and pupils) admire the cookbook curriculum, eggcrate classroom, rigid rules of order, and strict hierarchy of rank. Effective teaching and learning, as we have seen, can occur when such ‘traditional’ and ‘authoritarian’ methods are applied sensibly, leaving some space for spontaneity and creativity. Current difficulties in providing Russian young people with more than seven or eight years of general education replicate, if for different reasons, the Stalinist experience. It may be an unfortunate but not an unprecedented development that has neither crippled society nor the state. Then as now the school system experienced considerable wastage. In the most difficult circumstances, teachers, now as under Stalin, remain dedicated to their profession and pupils. Despite recent efforts towards a devolution of power to local administration and to teachers, advocates of centralized control remain large in number and powerful of voice. As in the Stalinist period, teachers are prominent among this group that looks to Moscow for financial support and promotion of teachers as authority figures. However, any current attempts at hypercentralization may well create, as in Stalinist times, their antidote in resistance and improvisation below in the bureaucracy and in the classroom. I think it a most positive development that no longer is Narkompros in its present form, the Ministry of Education, superfluous as it once was under Stalin. The Ministry’s officials and experts have a voice and are being heard in assessing the needs of schools. When viewed in broad historical context, therefore, developments in the present leave me guardedly optimistic about the future of Russian schools and the nation they serve.

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Acknowledgements A number of organizations made the research for this chapter possible. They are the Russian and East European Center at the University of Illinois, the National Endowment for the Humanities, which provided several travel to collections grants, and my home institution, the University of South Alabama. I am especially indebted to the American Council of Teachers of Russian and the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), which with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United States Information Agency funded several extended research trips. E. Thomas Ewing was kind enough to provide his insights on Soviet teachers under Stalin and to share with me his valuable notes from interviews conducted by the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System.

Notes 1 Oskar Anweiler, ‘Der Revoliutionnäre Umbruch im Schulwesen und in der Pädagogik Russlands’, in Bildung, Politik und Gesellschaft (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1978), p. 262. Counts emphasized political loyalty in George S. Counts, The Challenge of Soviet Education (New York: McGraw Hill, 1957), p. 48. Sheila Fitzpatrick emphasized the acquisition of skills of economic utility and the formation of a proletarian intelligentsia: Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921–1934 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). See also William W. Brickman, ‘The Historical Setting after the Revolution’, in George Z.F. Bereday, William W. Brickman, and Gerald H. Read (eds), The Changing Soviet School, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960), pp. 50–80; the conclusions reached by Alex Inkeles and Raymond Bauer based largely on their interviews of Soviet émigrés for the Harvard Interview Project in Alex Inkeles and Raymond A. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 129; Gail Warshofsky Lapidus, ‘Educational Strategies and Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Soviet Development’, in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), pp. 103–4. 2 F.A. Fradkin and M.G. Plokhova, ‘Problemy distsipliny v sovetskoi shkole’, Sovetskaia pedagogika [SP] 6 (1991), pp. 91–9. 3 The essay that follows on educational policy and practice in the 1920s is excerpted from the introduction of Larry E. Holmes, Stalin’s School: Moscow’s Model School No. 25, 1931–1937 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), pp. 8–10. For a thorough discussion of the subject, see Larry E. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917–1931 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). 4 See key resolutions on the curriculum, textbooks, teaching of history and geography, and school structure in Narodnoe obrazovanie v SSSR: Obshcheobrazova tel’naia shkola. Sbornik dokumentov, 1917–1973 gg. [henceforth NO] (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1974), pp. 156–72, 519–22; also Biulleten’ Narodnogo Komissariata Prosveshcheniia [henceforth Biulleten’ NKP], 65 (25 November 1932), p. 2. 5 Peter Blitstein, ‘Stalin’s Nations: Soviet Nationality Policy Between Planning and Primordialism’, dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1999, pp. 112–13. Schools with only the elementary grades (one through four) were to offer Russian

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6 7 8 9

10

11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18 19

from the second grade, all other schools from the third. In 1940 most non-Russian nationalities were required to adopt the Cyrillic script. See, for example, Biulleten’ NKP 65 (25 November 1932), pp. 7–10 and nos. 71, 25 December 1932, p. 15 and 22, 1935, pp. 9–10; Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [henceforth GARF], f. 2306, op. 70, d. 2006, ll. 37–37 ob. NO, p. 150. An English translation of the ‘Rules’ may be found in John Dunstan, Soviet Schooling in the Second World War (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 150–1. See the Narkompros order of 12 December 1951, in NO, pp. 188–9. In some respects, the Stalinist school was a sharp departure from the child-centred and experimentalist curriculum sponsored by Narkompros in the 1920s. However, the faith of the 1920s in the malleability and rationality of human beings and in human inventions, such as the school, remained at the core of a Stalinist ethos determined to transform humans and their world. For an argument that finds similar parallels between avant-garde art and its successor, socialist realism, see Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, trans. Charles Rougle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). See Laura S. Strumingher, What Were Little Girls and Boys Made of? Primary Education in Rural France, 1830–1880 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983); Linda L. Clark, Schooling the Daughters of Marianne: Textbooks and the Socialization of Girls in Modern French Primary Schools (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984); Mary Kay Vaughan, The State, Education, and Social Class in Mexico, 1880–1928 (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1982); Michael B. Katz, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America, expanded edition (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975); James L. Leloudis, Schooling the New South: Pedagogy, Self, and Society in North Carolina, 1880–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Sarah Ann Curtis, ‘Educating the Faithful: Catholic Primary Schooling and the Teaching Congregations in the Diocese of Lyon, 1830–1905’, dissertation, Indiana University, 1994. See a study of teaching in New York in the 1920s by Kate Rousmaniere, City Teachers: Teaching and School Reform in Historical Perspective (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), p. 74. See the contrasting reports in Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv sotsial’nopoliticheskoi istorii [henceforth RGASPI] (until March, 1999, Rossiiskii Tsentr Khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii [RTsKhIDNI]), f. 17, op. 114, d. 213, l. 30 and d. 243, ll. 16–43, 54–86. As reorganized, this archive now contains the materials of the former Archive of the Young Communist League, Tsentr khraneniia dokumentov molodezhnykh organizatsii (TsKhDMO). See an extended discussion of this matter in Holmes, Stalin’s School, pp. 68–71. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 354, l. 2. For Kul’tprop’s objections, see RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 665, ll. 38–40; for the Orgburo’s decision, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 56, l. 2. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 575, l. 6. The Orgburo decided that fifty-minute sessions would make the school day inappropriately long especially in schools operating in two or more shifts. It did allow the fifty-minute lesson in rural schools where dual shifts were the exception: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 688, l. 77. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 234, ll. 34–5. Pravda, 17 June 1936, p. 3. The closure of special schools and classrooms was associated with the Central Committee’s condemnation of pedology. On problems with Narkompros over pedology, see GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2232, l. 82; over labour, see Larry E. Holmes, ‘Magic into Hocus-Pocus: The Decline of Labor Education in Soviet

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20

21 22

23 24

25 26 27

28 29

30

Russia’s Schools, 1931–1937’, Russian Review 51 (October 1992), pp. 558–64; and over model schools, Holmes, Stalin’s School, pp. 137–9. Blitstein, ‘Stalin’s Nations’, pp. 126–37. Blitstein also makes it clear that the Central Committee’s decree of 1938 came at the expense of recommendations to the contrary from specialists at Narkompros and from the Commissar of Education, Tiurkin (pp. 112–13). Za Kommunisticheskoe prosveshchenie [henceforth ZKP], 28 May 1935, p. 1. The school was Moscow’s Model School No. 25. These measures were approved by the Central Executive Committee and USSR Sovnarkom on 14 August 1930: NO, p. 112. Special accelerated courses of one to two years’ duration were to be designed for the older age cohort that had not yet completed the elementary grades. These resolutions did allow for delayed implementation of one to two years in the remoter areas of the Soviet Union. NO, p. 115. Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo v SSSR: Statisticheskii sbornik (Moscow–Leningrad: Soiuzorguchet, 1940), p. 3. Expenditure rose from 1.7 billion to 6.5 billion rubles, figures that do not include the large amounts spent on schools by collective farms, factories, and trade unions. During the 1920s, almost all funds for schools came from the local budget whereas during the 1930s the latter had accounted for 65–70 per cent of the funding; from 1928 to 1931, 75 per cent; and in 1931, 82 per cent: Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse, p. 174. Local funds, it should be noted, came largely from transfers of sums from republican or union sources. I am reluctant to suggest the extent to which the value of the rubles assigned to education had inflated. Certainly prices of basic consumer goods had increased significantly and the ruble’s value against the dollar had slipped markedly. See Harry Schwartz, Russia’s Soviet Economy, 2nd edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1954), pp. 474–7. However, many items purchased by schools were artificially priced and subsidized with little or no regard for inflation. Nicholas DeWitt, Education and Professional Employment in the USSR, National Science Foundation (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1961), p. 72. The percentage declined to 4.2 per cent in 1957. Ibid., p. 580. Enrolment leaped from almost 12 million in 1928 to 20.5 million in 1931 and from almost 22 million in 1933 to 31.4 million in 1938. Schools in the USSR in 1928 numbered almost 125,000 with 365,000 teachers; in 1938, there were 172,000 schools with slightly over one million teachers. In the Russian Republic, the number of pupils tripled from 1932 to 1936, but a four-fold increase in the number of schools reduced the average number of pupils per institution from 1,111 to 933. Over the same period, the number of teachers almost kept pace with enrolment resulting on average in little change in the teacher–pupil ratio. See Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvov SSSR, 1940, p. 40. DeWitt, Education and Professional Employment in the USSR, p. 143. See N.K. Krupskaia, Pedagogicheskie sochineniia, 11 volumes (Moscow/ Leningrad, 1957–1963), vol. 9 (Moscow, 1960), p. 290. This article first appeared in Pravda, 7 April 1928. Literacy was based on an individual’s indication as to whether he or she could read. I.M. Bogdanov, Gramotnost’ i obrazovanie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii i v SSSR (istoriko-statisticheskie ocherki) (Moscow: Statistika, 1964), p. 78. The figure exceeded 95 per cent for young people aged nine to eleven, 98 per cent for those aged twelve to fourteen, and 97 per cent for those of fifteen to nineteen. The percentage of literate females in these age categories was only slightly below that of males. In 1926 for the entire Soviet Union, just over 50 per cent of children from nine to eleven years of age were judged to be literate, and little more than 60 per cent of those aged twelve to fourteen and fifteen to nineteen.

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31 In 1940/41, a total of 191,545 schools enrolled 34,784,000 pupils; in 1945/46, 186,853 schools taught 26,094,000 students; in 1950/51, 33,314,000 Soviet young people attended 201,628 schools. See Narodnoe obrazovanie, nauka i kul’tura v SSSR: Statisticheskii sbornik (Moscow: Statistika, 1977), pp. 26–7. 32 Programmy nachal’noi shkoly (Moscow: Narkompros, 1935), pp. 62–72; Programmy nachal’noi shkoly (Moscow: Narkompros, 1938). 33 V.K. Grechishnikov, ‘O rabote po novym programmam’, Literatura v shkole 5–6 (September–December 1938), p. 26. 34 Wolfgang Leonhard, Child of the Revolution, trans. C.M. Woodhouse (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1958), p. 29. From 1935 to 1937, Leonhard attended the Karl Liebknecht German School and from 1937 to 1939, School No. 93. 35 Programmy nachal’noi shkoly (Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1950), pp. 67–8, 90. 36 Ibid., pp. 78–80. 37 Programmy srednei shkoly. Biologiia, Khimiia (Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1935), p. 24. 38 See the syllabi in Eric Ashby, Scientist in Russia (New York: Penguin Books, 1947), pp. 217–41. 39 See, for example, syllabi for natural science released in 1950: Programmy nachal’noi shkoly (1950), p. 61. 40 See the article by a secondary schoolteacher, V. Venetskii, ‘Iz opyta prepodavaniia biologii’, SP 5 (May 1949), pp. 95–7. Although the term vernalization (iarovizatsiia), was new, the technique was not and had proven of dubious economic value. Lysenko came to label any tampering of seeds, whether by chilling, warming, or soaking, vernalization. On Lysenko, see David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 83, 192–7 and Zhores Medvedev, The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, trans. I. Michael Lerner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 12–17. 41 Students participated in military drills, practised hand-to-hand combat, fired small calibre arms, put out fires caused by incendiary bombs, and learned how to render medical assistance. 42 Education in the USSR (Washington, DC: US Office of Education, 1957), p. 54. The USSR Council of Ministers restored co-education on 1 July 1954. 43 For example: Kommunisticheskoe prosveshchenie [henceforth KP] 4 (1934), pp. 9–10. 44 ‘Pervaia pedagogicheskaia konferentsiia uchitelei shkol RSFSR’, SP 2 (February 1940), pp. 111–12. The drumbeat of demands for strict adherence to the syllabi and schedules submitted to teachers continued. See such demands in 1955 by the Presidium of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences and by L.V. Dubrovina, Deputy Minister of Education, in SP 9 (September 1955), p. 112 and 10 (October 1955), p. 44. 45 See the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom USSR, 10 April 1936, in NO, p. 459. 46 E. Thomas Ewing, ‘Stalinism at Work: Teacher Certification (1936–39) and Soviet Power’, Russian Review 57 (April 1998), pp. 219–22. 47 Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, Russian Research Center Library and Widener Library, Harvard University: Schedule A, no. 111, pp. 1, 3, 19; Schedule A, no. 166, p. 12; Schedule A, no. 387, p. 21; Schedule A, no. 493, pp. 13, 21; Schedule A, no. 1354 (NY), p. 10; Schedule A. no. 1434 (NY), p. 3; Schedule A, no. 1517 (NY), pp. 12, 16, 18, 24–5; Schedule B5, no. 45, p. 7. The Harvard Interview Project focused on refugees in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States who had left the Soviet Union for the most part from 1943 to 1946. It interviewed 764 and administered questionnaires to 2,718 individuals. I thank Tom Ewing for providing me with his notes on these interviews. 48 Harvard Project, Schedule A, no. 111, pp. 1, 3; Schedule B5, no. 45, p. 7; Schedule B4, no. 428, pp. 15–16.

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49 Leonhard, Child of the Revolution, p. 45. 50 Dora Titkina, A Rural Secondary School in the Ukraine, 1948–1962, Soviet Institution Series Paper no. 10 (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, December 1978), pp. 32–3. 51 For Stalin’s correspondence regarding this matter, see Iosif Stalin v ob”iatiiakh sem’i: Iz lichnogo arkhiva (Moscow: Rodina, 1993), pp. 45–8. 52 Holmes, Stalin’s School, pp. 47–56, 79–86. 53 ZKP, 21 February 1932, p. 4; 22 February 1934, p. 2 and 28 December 1936, p. 3; Nauchnyi Arkhiv Rossiisskoi Akademii Obrazovaniia [henceforth NA RAO], f. 17, op. 1, d. 149; and Narkompros’s correspondence with the Russian Republic’s Sovnarkom, GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2412, l. 51. 54 For details and sources, see Holmes, Stalin’s School, p. 41. 55 NA RAO, f. 17, op. 1, d. 408, l. 7. 56 Titkina, A Rural Secondary School in the Ukraine, p. 12. 57 See Section II of Blitstein, ‘Stalin’s Nations’. Blitstein points out that throughout the Stalinist period the Central Committee rebuffed all efforts to make Russian the medium of instruction in non-Russian schools. Such an extreme form of standardization occurred only later under Khrushchev. 58 See Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvov USSR, 1940, p. 78. 59 V. Zhebrovskii, ‘Neotlozhnye zadachi sovetskoi shkoly, KP 5–6 (1936), p. 99; SP 1 (July 1937), p. 59 and 3 (September 1937), p. 117. 60 SP 1 (July 1937), p. 60. 61 On the return to school of dropouts, see a 1937 report in Kontrol’nye tsifry narodnogo prosveshcheniia v RSFSR na 1937 g. (Moscow: Narkompros, 1937), p. 8. 62 M. Kashin, ‘The Problem of Grade Repeating’, Soviet Education VIII (February 1966), p. 20 (originally in Narodnoe obrazovanie 7 [August 1965], p. 20). 63 ZKP, 18 May 1937, p. 2. See also complaints of non-attendance, without specific figures provided, by judicial authorities in 1937, the Commissariat of Agriculture in 1940, and a conference of educators, January 1941: A.M. Danev (ed.), Narodnoe obrazovanie (Moscow, 1948), pp. 28–9, 30–2 and SP 4 (April 1941), p. 115. 64 See the resolution of 21 December 1939, NO, p. 116. 65 DeWitt, Education and Professional Employment in the USSR, 1961, p. 138. These figures are not precise in so far as they are based on a head count of pupils attending particular grades with no determination of pupils’ actual age. Nevertheless, they do provide a fairly accurate description. 66 Ibid., pp. 138–9. 67 A.N. Veselov, Professional’no-tekhnicheskoe obrazovanie v SSSR: Ocherki po istorii srednego i nizshego proftekhobrazovaniia (Moscow: Vsesoiuznoe uchebnopedagogicheskoe izdatel’stvo Proftekhizdat, 1961), p. 289. 68 NO, pp. 176–7. The USSR Council of Ministers abolished these fees on 6 June 1956. 69 I have seen no archival evidence of these quotas, but Soviet historians were not shy about acknowledging their existence. 70 Veselov, Professional’no-tekhnicheskoe obrazovanie v SSSR, pp. 351, 373. From 1946 to 1955, the Labour Reserve System trained almost six million young people. 71 E.G. Ostrovskii, Razvitie teorii professional’no-tekhnicheskogo obrazovaniia v SSSR (1917–1940) (Moscow: Vysshaia shkola, 1980), p. 190. 72 Veselov, Professional’no-tekhnicheskoe obrazovanie v SSSR, pp. 287, 289. In 1933 the Soviet government had limited the full course to no more than one year. By 1939, more than 82 per cent of apprenticeship schools offered a course of 1.5 to two years’ duration. Those institutions with a curriculum of less than one year disappeared.

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73 Ibid., pp. 353, 367–9; F.L. Blinchevskii and G.I. Zelenko, Professional’notekhnicheskoe obrazovanie rabochikh v SSSR (Moscow: Trudrezervizdat, 1957), p. 119. In one instance, special schools were designed for children with only three years of general education. After 1948 the problem posed by uneducated pupils in the Labour Reserves System became less acute. By 1952, most of its recruits had finished the seventh grade. 74 Narodnoe obrazovanie, nauka i kul’tura, p. 176. 75 Srednee spetsial’noe obrazovanie v SSSR: Statisticheskii sbornik (Moscow: Gosstatizdat, 1962), p. 61; Narodnoe obrazovanie, nauka i kul’tura, p. 176. Beginning in the fall of 1953, enrolment rapidly grew to reach a high of slightly over two million by the fall of 1956. 76 Narodnoe obrazovanie, nauka i kul’tura, p. 174. The situation rapidly improved thereafter to 39 per cent in 1955 and 50 per cent from 1957 to 1959. 77 In 1951/52, it was 72 per cent; in 1953/54, 52 per cent. In 1953 the percentage of students in the Labour Reserves System without seven years of education had dropped to 2 per cent. 78 In 1955, the number of graduates was almost the same. 79 Veselov, Professional’no-tekhnicheskoe obrazovanie v SSSR, p. 346. 80 DeWitt, Education and Professional Employment in the USSR, p. 193. 81 Ibid., pp. 138–9. 82 Ibid., p. 580. In 1951, rural areas contributed 68 per cent of the enrolment in elementary grades, 62 per cent in the junior division of secondary schools, and only 42 per cent in the senior division. 83 Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvov SSSR, 1940, p. 78. Most pupils who failed in the spring were allowed to retake the promotion examinations in the fall. The average promotion rate that spring for all ten grades was 84 per cent. 84 Kashin, ‘The Problem of Grade Repeating’, pp. 19–20. Almost 15 per cent of all those enrolled in all ten grades were repeating a grade. 85 Narodnoe obrazovanie, nauka i kul’tura, pp. 93, 246. 86 Izvestiia, 30 May 1935, p. 4. 87 Inkeles and Bauer, Soviet Citizen, p. 137. 88 On music, my interviews of former pupils Arkadii Mikhailovich Shneiderman and Antonina Nikolaevna Iakovleva, Moscow, 22 July 1993 and of five members of the school’s 1937 graduating class, Tamara Moiseevna Spiridonova, David Iakovlevich Gurevich, Iuliia Borisovna Kapusto, Tamara Mikhailovna Kasparova, and Irina Eitsveg, Moscow, 28 July 1993. On the spelling mishap, the report on the school’s instruction in Russian language and literature in 1935–36, NA RAO, f. 17, op. 1, d. 289, l. 5. 89 My interviews of Vladimir Dmitrievich Nikolaev, Moscow, 5 July 1992 and Lev Benediktovich Kozlovskii and Valerii Abramovich Tokarev, Moscow, 27 May 1990. 90 My interview of David Gurevich, Moscow, 4 August 1993. 91 My interview of Genrikh Oskarovich Valk, Moscow, 28 July 1995. For more on Vasilii’s behaviour, see appendix 2, ‘Vasilii Stalin as Schoolboy’, in Holmes, Stalin’s School, pp. 165–8. 92 Gurevich provided a copy of his daybook when I interviewed him in Moscow, 28 July 1993. For the daybook’s entries for the week of 7–12 September 1935, see Holmes, Stalin’s School, p. 57. 93 Aleksandr Nekrich, ‘Staropimenovskii, 5’, Detskaia literatura 5 (1991), pp. 68–9. 94 See Groza’s report to a conference of directors of model schools, 16 February 1935, GARF, f. A-2306, op. 70, d. 2246, l. 25 ob. and Groza’s report at a conference of directors of Moscow’s model schools, 21 April 1935, Tsentral’nyi munitsipal’nyi arkhiv Moskvy, f. R-528, op. 1, d. 242, ll. 22–3.

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95 See reports on the 1930s in M.E. Shil’nikova, Uchebno-vospitatel’naia rabota shkoly v 1930–1934 godakh (Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1959), pp. 139–40 and KP 4 (1933), p. 117. 96 Henry-Ralph Lewenstein (Johnston), Die Karl-Liebknecht-Schule in Moskau, 1932–1937: Erinnerungen eines Schülers (Lüneburg: Verlag Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1991), p. 40. 97 SP 10 (October 1955), p. 25. 98 See curricula for 1937 and 1938 in Biulleten’ NKP 18 (15 September 1937), p. 7 and 15 (15 August 1938), pp. 11–12. ‘Constitution’ took up two of twenty-seven hours of study per week in urban schools and two of thirty-two in rural areas. 99 Programmy nachal’noi shkoly (gorodskoi i sel’skoi) (Moscow: Narkompros, 1932); Programmy nachal’noi shkoly (Moscow: Narkompros, 1935); Programmy nachal’noi shkoly (Moscow: Narkompros, 1937). 100 NO, pp. 165–6. 101 Biulleten’ NKP 25 (1 September 1934), p. 12. 102 Biulleten’ NKP 25 (1 September 1935), p. 11. The two hours per week were added to the history of Russia and the USSR. 103 NO, p. 176. A Soviet teacher, Vladimir Samarin, reported that teachers refrained from relating the subject at hand to Stalin or to his official history of the Communist Party, the (in)famous Short Course: Vladimir D. Samarin, ‘The Soviet School, 1936–1942’, in George L. Kline (ed.), Soviet Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), pp. 25–52. 104 Larry E. Holmes, ‘Fear No Evil: Schools and Religion in Soviet Russia, 1917–1941’, in Sabrina Petra Ramet (ed.), Religious Policy in the Soviet Union (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 142–5. 105 E. Perovskii, ‘Narkompros ne rukovodit antireligioznym vospitaniem uchash chikhsia’, Antireligioznik 8–9 (August–September 1938), pp. 40–1. 106 E. Thomas Ewing, ‘The Teachers of Stalinism: Pedagogy and Political Culture in the Soviet Union’, dissertation, University of Michigan, 1994; E. Thomas Ewing, The Teachers of Stalinism: Policy, Practice, and Power in Soviet Schools of the 1930s (New York: Peter Lang, 2002). 107 NO, p. 174. 108 Ewing, ‘Stalinism at Work’, p. 228. 109 N.P. Kuzin and R.B. Vendrovskaia’, ‘Iz istorii razvitiia sovetskoi shkoly v gody uprocheniia sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva’, SP 4 (April 1977), p. 120. Perhaps the decision on another 3 to 4 per cent was postponed. See also similar figures for the period from 1936 to 1941 in Ewing, ‘Stalinism at Work’, p. 225. 110 Holmes, Stalin’s School, pp. 28–9, 42–3. 111 Ewing, ‘The Teachers of Stalinism’, p. 123. 112 Ibid., p. 152. 113 For the following examples and many more, see Holmes, Stalin’s School, pp. 86–97, 156. 114 On Leonova’s instruction, see comments at a session of Narkompros’s School Sector that examined social studies syllabi, 21 April 1934, GARF, f. A-2306, op. 70, d. 1998, l. 4 and Leonova’s remarks at a conference of teachers of Moscow’s elementary schools, 25 October 1936, GARF, f. A-2306, op. 70, d. 2380, l. 2. As was Russian custom, Leonova advanced with her first grade class until it completed the fourth grade, then she started again with a new first grade group. 115 Harvard Project, Schedule A, no. 51, p. 38. 116 Harvard Project, Schedule A, no. 476, pp. 13–14. 117 Harvard Project, Schedule A, no. 476, pp. 10, 14. 118 Harvard Project, Schedule A, no. 387, p. 32. 119 Harvard Project, Schedule B4, no. 122, p. 10.

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120 Lewenstein, Die Karl-Liebknecht-Schule in Moskau, p. 99. 121 Harvard Project, Schedule A, no. 111, pp. 16–17. 122 In particular, Makarenko and his supporters expected better treatment by Narkompros following the denunciation of pedology and an emphasis on correct methods as the key to a successful education. ‘It is with defective methods not defective people’, he liked to say, ‘that we ought to concern ourselves’: A.S. Makarenko, Learning to Live: Flags on the Battlements, trans. Ralph Parker (Moscow: 1953) (a third-person account about life at the Dzerzhinskii Commune). ‘If the child becomes a hooligan’, Makarenko proclaimed at Leningrad’s Palace of Culture in October, 1938, ‘then he is not guilty but the pedagogical methods are.’ A.S. Makarenko, Sochineniia, 2nd ed., 7 vols (Moscow: Akademiia Pedagogicheskikh nauk RSFSR, 1957–60), vol. 3, p. 446. 123 T.D. Korneichik, ‘O burzhuaznoi tiuremnoi pedagogike i “pedagogicheskoi poeme”’, KP 4 (1934), p. 123. Later Korneichik contributed several chapters to a major publication on Soviet education: F.F. Korolev, T.D. Korneichik, and Z.I. Ravkin, Ocherki po istorii sovetskoi shkoly i pedagogiki, 1921–1931 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii pedagogicheskikh nauk RSFSR, 1961). 124 Izvestiia, 26 June 1935, p. 3; quote from Pravda, 25 May 1935, p. 4. 125 N. Pokrovskii, ‘V zashchitu pedagogiki’, Sredniaia shkola 8 (August 1936), pp. 39–45. See also criticism in literary journals: M. Bochacher, ‘Antipedagogicheskaia poema’, Kniga i proletarskaia revoliutsiia 3 (March, 1935), pp. 62–4 and a milder but still critical review by the head of the Department of Criticism of the journal, Nashi dostizheniia, V. Kantorovich, ‘Poema o podvige pedagoga’, Nashi dostizheniia 9 (September 1935), pp. 126–9. 126 For Kolbanovskii’s favourable review of Makarenko’s Road to Life, see Krasnaia nov’ 6 (June 1936), p. 200. A mysterious silence also surrounds Kolbanovskii. I have been unable to find any biographical information on him. 127 V. Kolbanovskii in Krasnaia nov’ 2 (February 1937), pp. 185–200. 128 Narkompros’s SP and Uchitel’skaia gazeta published them only in 1942 and 1943. They may be found in A. Makarenko, Problems of Soviet School Education (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965) and in Makarenko, Sochineniia, vol. 5 (Moscow, 1958), pp. 109–224. 129 See Kniga i proletarskaia revoliutsiia 10 (October 1936), pp. 107–12 and 11 (November 1936), p. 153; Literaturnaia ucheba 11 (November 1936), p. 140–51; Literaturnyi kritik 10–11 (October–November 1937), pp. 256–80; and Literaturnoe obozrenie 1 (1938), pp. 72–4. To be sure, some reviewers thought Makarenko’s methods worthy of consideration by Narkompros and praised him for his attack on ‘bureaucratic scholasticism’. 130 Makarenko, Sochineniia, vol. 7, p. 306. 131 Makarenko made these comments at a meeting in early April 1937. ‘I could not shake off my [own] reader’s and teacher’s reverence for writers and could not believe that I was a writer.’ Makarenko, Sochineniia, vol. 7, p. 141. 132 Literaturnaia gazeta, 5 April 1939, pp. 1–2; Detskaia literatura 4 (1939), p. 8; Krasnaia nov’ 4 (April 1939), pp. 202–16. 133 Pravda, 17 March 1940, p. 6; 29 March 1940, p. 1; 16 April 1940, p. 4. The editorial of 29 March demonstrated some caution. It referred to Makarenko as a ‘writer-pedagogue’ and noted that Makarenko’s experience should not be applied mechanically in Soviet schools. 134 V. Kolbanovskii, ‘Novator sotsialisticheskoi pedagogiki’, Krasnaia nov’ 4 (1940), pp. 173–7. 135 See a summary of these developments in Götz Hillig and Marianne KrügerPotratz, ‘Die “zweite Geburt” des A.S. Makarenko. Zugleich ein Beitrag zu einem kaum bekannten Kapitel aus der Geschichte der sowjetischen Pädagogik,

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136 137 138 139 140 141 142

143

144 145

146 147

1939–1941’, in Bernhard Dilger, Friedrich Kübart, and Hans-Peter Schaefer (eds), Vergleichende Bildungsforsschung: DDR, Osteuropa und interkulturelle Perspektiven (Berlin: Verlag, Arno Spitz, 1986), pp. 318–20. See also: G. Hillig, ‘Makarenkos ‘Pädagogisches Poem’ in der zeitgenossischen Kritik (1934–1947)’, Pädagogik und Schule in Ost und West 4 (1980), pp. 85–96. It should be added that an increasingly favourable assessment of Makarenko as an educator mirrored growing interest in returning some form of labour to the school curriculum. Makarenko had gained fame and criticism for requiring his charges to contribute their labour to the upkeep of the colony and commune and to manufacturing items for sale. P. Shimbirev, ‘Tsennoe i oshibochnoe u Makarenko’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 2 July 1940, p. 2. See a summary of the discussion in Uchitel’skaia gazeta in Pravda, 27 August 1940, p. 4. A. Smirnov, ‘Shkola i sem’ia’, SP 6 (June 1940), pp. 136–40. Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 2 March 1941; Komsomol’skaia pravda, 1 April 1941, p. 3; Pravda, 1 April 1941, p. 4; Literaturnaia gazeta, 6 April 1941, p. 3; Literatura v shkole 3 (May–June 1941), pp. 76–83; Krasnaia nov’ 4 (April 1941), pp. 179–96. SP 3 (March, 1941). Hillig, ‘Die “zweite Geburt”’, p. 340. S.M. Rives, ‘Metody A.S. Makarenko po vospitaniiu soznatel’noi distsipliny’, SP 3 (March 1941), p. 26. At about the same time, another Narkompros journal, Nachal’naia shkola, featured a favourable review by a former schoolteacher and veteran at the commissariat, Boris Petrovich Esipov, one of the architects of the experimentalist curricula of the 1920s: Nachal’naia shkola 6 (June 1941), pp. 18–21. Hillig, ‘Die “zweite Geburt”’, p. 342. A few dissenting voices, however, could still be heard. Makarenko’s champion in March, Rives, objected at a conference of educators in late April to an uncritical application of Makarenko’s methods in regular schools and to a canonization of the man himself. In particular, Rives believed that in Makarenko’s enthusiasm for the collective he had underestimated the importance of the teacher’s role in the classroom. See S.M. Rives, ‘K voprosu o pedagogicheskom nasledstve A.S. Makarenko’, SP 7–8 (July–August 1941), p. 53. Rives made his remarks at the All-Russian Conference on Pedagogical Sciences, 26 April 1941. Rives also feared that Makarenko’s fondness for labour might be accepted uncritically. See the criticism of N.P. Goncharov’s Osnovy pedagogiki in SP 3 (March 1950), p. 126. Much has been written in the former Soviet Union and in the west about Makarenko. The most balanced treatments that avoid easy caricatures of Makarenko and his work may be found in Oskar Anweiler, ‘A.S. Makarenko und die Pädagogik seiner Zeit’, in Bildung und Erziehung (1963), pp. 268–93 and Frederic Lilge, Anton Semyonovitch Makarenko: An Analysis of His Educational Ideas in the Context of Soviet Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958); and the entry on Makarenko in the Modern Encyclopedia for Russian and Soviet History, vol. 20 (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press), pp. 240–5. See also a less valuable but nevertheless interesting treatment of Makarenko in Oleg Kharkhordin, The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), especially pp. 91, 103–4, 115. B. Brainina, ‘Poema pedagogicheskoi intuitsii’, Khudozhestvennaia literatura 3 (March 1935), p. 11; V. Shcherbina in Oktiabr’, 1 (January 1936), pp. 193–201; and F. Levin in Literaturnyi kritik 10 (October 1935), pp. 183–8. Makarenko made these remarks in preparing for a series of lectures at Narkompros in early 1938 and in a lecture, ‘My Experience’, 20 October 1938. The first

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148 149 150

151 152 153

154

155

156

may be found in Makarenko, Problems of Soviet School Education, p. 49 and the second in A. Makarenko, Izbrannye pedagogicheskie sochineniia, vol. 1 (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1977), p. 257. A.S. Makarenko, His Life and Work: Articles, Talks and Reminiscences trans. Bernard Isaacs (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publication House, 1963), p. 240. Makarenko had shared his plan with Kolbanovskii: Kolbanovskii, ‘Novator’, p. 174. M. Gor’kii, ‘Vpered i vyshe, komsomolets’, Pravda, 29 October 1933, p. 5. Gorky pressed home the same theme in an open letter of 20 February 1935, published in Viatskaia pravda, to seventh grade Pioneers, Nina Polstovalova and Tania Lapina, of the Urzhum Model School. Referring to Morozov and another Pioneer more recently killed in the Party’s service, Gorky asked the children to ‘remember our heroes who so fearlessly and courageously wage a struggle against the enemies of the working class’. The letter in Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo v Kirovskoi oblasti, 1917–1987. Dokumenty i materialy (Kirov: Volgo–Viatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1987), pp. 107–8. Yuri Druzhnikov, Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996), p. 105. Elena Bonner, Mothers and Daughters trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), p. 202. When Druzhnikov mentions the propagation of the myth, he refers almost always to articles published in the Pioneer newspaper, Pionerskaia pravda, from 1933 to 1935 and to literary works and never to materials prepared for the regular school curriculum. I have not, however, conducted a careful examination with Morozov in mind of Pioneer and Komsomol literature or of the materials in the archive of the Young Communist League. The Morozov story had limited appeal elsewhere. The boy is not mentioned in Paul C. Mishler, Raising Reds: The Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). See such recent studies of modern bureaucracy as: Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); Mark Beissinger, Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). See also James C. Scott’s critical evaluation of ‘high modernist ideology’ and his corresponding emphasis on the importance of informal processes and local improvisation in his Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). Moshe Lewin, ‘Russia/USSR in Historical Notion: An Essay in Interpretation’, Russian Review 50 (1991), pp. 261, 263 and Moshe Lewin, ‘Bureaucracy and the Stalinist State’, in Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (eds), Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), especially pp. 71–2. In this latter volume, similar arguments have been made for Nazi Germany by Hans Mommsen, ‘Cumulative Radicalisation and Progressive Self-Destruction in Structural Determinants of the Nazi Dictatorship’, pp. 75–87. See also V.P. Makarenko, Biurokratiia i Stalinizm (Rostov-on-Don: Izdatel’stvo Rostovskgo universiteta, 1989). For spring activity, see Biulleten’ NKP 8 (10 March 1935), p. 10, Titkina, A Rural Secondary School in the Ukraine, p. 13. See also general complaints to this effect in the Harvard Interview Project. A long book could easily be compiled with two parts: part one consisting of declarations from on high denouncing the practice of putting schoolchildren to work especially in the fields and part two consisting of equally urgent declarations requiring schools to engage their students in such work.

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157 These complaints, but not their solution, dominated educational literature throughout the Stalinist period. In particular, memorization was condemned. See comments by successive commissars of education: Bubnov in 1936 in A.S. Bubnov, Stat’i i rechi o narodnom obrazovanii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Pedagogicheskikh Nauk RSFSR, 1959), pp. 338–42; V.P. Potemkin in early 1941 in SP 4 (April 1941), p. 17; by Kairov in 1953 in SP 10 (November 1953), pp. 8–9. 158 On memorization in response to promotion examinations, see ZKP, 28 April 1934, p. 1 and 16 May 1934, p. 2. 159 KP 4 (1933), p. 93. 160 See the report on an examination in 1939 of fourth graders in thirty-five schools in the Arkhangel’sk region in N.I. Ulanov, ‘O nedostatkakh v prepodavanii istorii v nachal’noi shkole’, Nachal’naia shkola 2–3 (1940), pp. 54–5. 161 ZKP, 4 April 1932, p. 16; KP 1 (1933), p. 97. 162 As recalled by Inna Solomonovna Brodskaia during my interview of her, 11 July 1995, Moscow. 163 See a report on promotion examinations in I.G. Pechernikova, ‘O proverochnykh ispytaniiakh proshlogo goda’, Sredniaia shkola 4 (April 1936), pp. 10–12. See the scandal that erupted over School No. 25’s practice, one common in other schools, of informing pupils beforehand of the subject of year-end compositions: Holmes, Stalin’s School, pp. 143–7. 164 On removal of the teacher, Biulleten’ NKP 3 (1 February 1936), p. 10. See also: KP 1 (1936), pp. 21, 29; Sredniaia shkola 1 (January 1936), pp. 9–16. Volin’s predecessor at Narkompros, M.S. Epshtein, had engaged in much the same campaign but without Volin’s intensity and emotion: Biulleten’ NKP 4 (1 December 1935), pp. 8–9; KP 5 (1935), pp. 27–8. 165 Entire files of these complaints and pleas are in GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2413–2415, 2501–2502, 2504, 2516, 2562–2582, 2776–2777. The practice had prerevolutionary roots in the myth of the ‘just tsar’: see Daniel Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989). 166 See Makarenko, Biurokratiia i Stalinizm, pp. 17–9, 248, 250 and Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 301. See also an important discussion of the content and style of items submitted to the newspaper, Krest’ianskaia gazeta, in Sheila Fitzpatrick, ‘Signals from below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s’, in Sheila Fitzpatrick and Robert Gellately (eds), Accusatory Practices: Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789–1989 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 85–120. 167 See E. Thomas Ewing, ‘The Making of Stalinist Schoolteachers: Political and Professional Identities in Soviet Education, 1931–1939’, presented at the convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Philadelphia, November 1994. Several historians have only begun to gauge the centre’s response to the items it received from ordinary Soviet citizens and have reached at best tentative conclusions. Golfo Alexopoulus has surmised that central and local officials ignored or burned the complaints or that local officials when required to investigate turned the tables on the complainant. See Golfo Alexopoulos, ‘Exposing Illegality and Oneself: Complaint and Risk in Stalin’s Russia’, in Peter H. Solomon, Jr. (ed.), Reforming Justice in Russia, 1864–1996: Power, Culture, and the Limits of Legal Order (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 168–89. However, Sheila Fitzpatrick’s examination of thousands of letters submitted to the newspaper Krest’ianskaia gazeta has led her to suggest that the centre took them seriously and required an investigation of local authorities, who often dismissed the charges. Fitzpatrick, ‘Signals from below’, pp. 113–14.

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168 The Fifth Department (V Chast’) of the secret chancellery supervised this operation: GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2504, ll. 44–5; d. 2580, l. 61; d. 2582, l. 50; and d. 2583, ll. 40, 141. 169 For example: GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2415, ll. 89–90. 170 GARF, f. A-2306, op. 70, d. 2270, l. 17. 171 GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2327, ll. 33–4; d. 2412, l. 91; d. 2580, ll. 36–7; d. 2483, ll. 35, 40–1. 172 GARF, f. A-2306, op. 70, d. 2188, ll. 70, 104. 173 Verbatim reports of these meetings are in GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2293–2297 and op. 75, d. 4105. 174 To be sure, some of this testimony came after Bubnov’s arrest and was therefore self-serving and part of a ritualistic denunciation: see Tiurkin’s comments in November 1937, in Tsentral’nyi Arkhiv obshchestvennykh dvizhenii Moskvy [henceforth TsAODM], f. 1934, op. 1, d. 118, l. 30 and comments at a meeting of Narkompros’s Party organization on 13 November 1937 in TsAODM, f. 1934, op. 1, d. 118, l. 41 and a meeting of the Party’s unit in Narkompros’s Department for the Elementary School, 3 November 1937, in TsAODM, f. 1934, op. 1, d. 124, l. 70. However, such comments were made in advance of Bubnov’s arrest on 16 and 22 March at a meeting of Narkompros’s leading personnel, GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2294, ll. 86–7 and d. 2297, l. 76 and in a report for the Central Committee’s Control Commission in July 1937, TsAODM, f. 1934, op. 1, d. 118, l. 19. 175 See the comment to this effect by a Narkompros official, Nekrasov, at a closed meeting of the commissariat’s Party organization, 12 November 1937. Bubnov had allegedly refused to endorse the arrest of the head of one of the regional departments of education: TsAODM, f. 1934, op. 1, d. 118, l. 32. 176 The memorandum is in RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 953, l. 34. Shokhin had been a member of Narkompros’s Collegium into the early 1930s. 177 For a similar report on Volin at this time, see TsAODM, op. 1, d. 124, ll. 70–1. 178 On the reprimand, TsAODM, f. 1934, op. 1, d. 118, l. 19; on his new appointment, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 628, l. 95. He later worked in the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute. 179 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 992, l. 88. Bubnov was arrested along with his wife the day before. 180 Bubnov was also charged with attempting to sabotage education with policies designed to create shortages of teachers, hinder the publication of textbooks, and delay the re-examination of curricula. See the accusations, Bubnov’s response in which he admitted to some but not all of the charges, and the sentencing and later rehabilitation in ‘Vernite mne svobodu!’ Deiateli literatury i iskusstva Rossii i Germanii – zhertvy stalinskogo terrora. Memorial’nyi sbornik dokumentov iz arkhiva byvshego KGB (Moscow: Medium, 1997), pp. 80–94. He was not put on public trial. 181 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 993, l. 37. 182 This region was first called the Southeastern Oblast from February 1924, then the North Caucasus Krai from October 1924 until 13 March 1937, when it was renamed the Ordzhonikidze Krai. In January 1943, it became the Stavropol’ Krai. 183 GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2309, ll. 33–7. 184 GARF, f. A-2306, op. 69, d. 2309, ll. 35, 38. 185 TsAODM, f. 1934, op. 1, d. 131, l. 41. Comments at a closed meeting of Narkompros’s Party organization, 21 March 1938. 186 TsAODM, f. 1934, op. 1, d. 131, l. 41. 187 Pravda, 18 October 1938, p. 3. 188 Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 29 January 1941, p. 2. 189 Iuliia Borisovna Kapusto put it this way in my interview of her in Moscow, 28 July 1993.

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190 Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, p. 132. 191 I made these calculations at the Conference on Using Soviet Interview Project Data at the University of Illinois, 27 June to 1 July 1988. Admittedly, the results are at best rough indications of pupil sentiment. The émigrés themselves were overwhelmingly Jewish and urban. Moreover, my sample of pupils was considerably limited. I could identify with certainty only about 140 individuals who began and completed their schooling between 1931 and 1950 (and who responded to the questions at issue here) and about the same number who began and completed their schooling after 1950. For general information on the Soviet Interview Project, see James A. Millar (ed.), Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 192 George Fischer, ‘My Soviet School Days’, The Reporter 1 (16 August 1949), pp. 4, 6. 193 Leonhard, Child of the Revolution, pp. 24–5. 194 Iuri Orlov, Dangerous Thoughts: Memoirs of a Russian Life, trans. Thomas P. Whitney (New York: W. Morrow, 1991), pp. 44, 51, 53. 195 Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, p. 320. 196 Raisa Orlova, Memoirs trans. Samuel Cioran (New York: Random House, 1983), p. ix. 197 Dora Shturman, The Soviet Secondary School trans. Philippa Shimrat (New York: Routledge, 1988), reference note no. 3, p. 61. 198 My interview of Iakovleva, 22 July 1993, Moscow. 199 Lewenstein, Die Karl-Liebknecht-Schule in Moskau, pp. 14, 33. 200 Nekrich, ‘Staropimenovskii, 5’, p. 67. 201 Orlova, Memoirs, p. 65. 202 My interview of Elena Andreevna Bubnova, 8 April 1990, Moscow. 203 Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, p. 226. 204 Lewenstein, Die Karl-Liebknecht-Schule in Moskau, p. 61. 205 Leonhard, Child of the Revolution, pp. 51, 54. 206 Lewenstein, Die Karl-Liebknecht-Schule in Moskau, p. 97. 207 My interview of Surova, 31 March 1996, Moscow.

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4 THE EXP ERIM EN TAL TRADITION IN RUSSIAN EDUCATION Stephen T. Kerr

In the late 1980s, a number of so-called ‘authorial’ (innovative) schools appeared in Russia. While their advent was heralded by some, it puzzled many western observers and most Russian educators as well. What was the educational establishment to make of schools that promised to develop democratic sensibilities or ‘self-determination’,1 to base pedagogical decisions on conceptions of human development long frowned on by the Communist Party,2 to see historical experiences of the past as credible models for contemporary cultural creativity,3 or to devise new curricula on frankly experimental bases?4 In a system that had prided itself on the solidity of its curriculum, the uniformity of its practice, and the quality of its results, even the suggestion of radically different approaches was a challenge to central control. And these new schools and new educational ideas were clearly not arising out of some centrally defined platform; they mushroomed out of the yeasty social and cultural mix that Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika nurtured. That these new schools should have developed so idiosyncratically, that they were publicly discussed and debated by so many, and that they were pushed into practice rapidly and (sometimes) in piecemeal fashion was simply unthinkable. Yet this is in fact what happened in the late 1980s with the discovery of the ‘teacher-innovators’, the emergence of the ‘socio-pedagogical movement’, and the widespread dissemination of the resulting ideas through newspapers, television and radio, and local clubs and discussion groups. The facts of these developments have been discussed elsewhere, and their power, at least in a symbolic sense, cannot be denied.5 But as we look back at these developments from a vantage point of some fifteen years, it may be time to ask about the broader significance of these sudden outbursts of pedagogical innovation. The questions to be addressed here are part of that necessary task; four issues at this juncture seem to be of special importance: 102

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1

2

3

4

How should we think in general about schools, reform, and experimentation in education? That is, what are the current ‘givens’ which inform a western observer’s world view? To what extent can the recent experimental activity in Russian education be seen as a part of an existing tradition of educational and pedagogical experimentalism? How do the assumptions, approaches, and strategies of recent experimental activity compare with those common among educational reformers in the west? And most importantly (but also most difficult to assess), what are the likely implications and consequences of this experimental activity for Russian education?

A necessary foreword: current western assumptions about schools and reform Before launching into a consideration of the latter three questions, it will be useful to lay out some assumptions about the nature of schools, schooling, the educational system, and the prospects for altering it through educational experiment as they are currently viewed in the west. Doing so will be important especially in dealing with the third question above – comparing western and Russian assumptions about, and experience with, school change. It may also serve as a kind of caveat regarding the author’s own biases in this domain. These axioms represent a kind of brief introduction to the ways in which school change and school reform have been discussed and the kinds of studies that have been done, principally in the US and Great Britain, as well as other British Commonwealth countries and some parts of western Europe. They can be divided generally into three large questions: What is the proper role for government in respect of the ‘superstructure’ of the educational system, the setting in which schools are embedded? How do schools as organizations concerned with learning and teaching actually work? And what approaches are most effective in encouraging change, both for the system as a whole and for the individual schools, teachers, and students working within it? Superstructure: the system in which schools are embedded Education as a social institution predates the development of specific forms of organized schooling; societies throughout history have had to find ways to bring young people into the productive life and responsibilities of the community. Over the past few hundred years in industrialized countries particular forms of schooling have emerged as the predominant means of dealing with these needs. Age-segregated classrooms, a subject-segregated curriculum, and standards for moving through the system to further levels are all now taken for granted, although they have been in place for only a little over 150 years 103

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even in the industrialized west. The solidity of this system, and its seeming permanence, may obscure the fact that education is typically called on to be both conservative (to pass on to new generations the best of the past, including acquaintance with essential cultural ‘tools’ – as reflected, for example in President Bush’s drive to ‘Leave no child behind’ with respect especially to literacy) and revolutionary (to change current social forms and prepare for the future as in former President Clinton’s programme to connect all classrooms to the Internet). Doing both of these at once is difficult. The role of the central or regional government in directing and managing education is another important matter. The US has one of the world’s most decentralized educational systems, with most power retained by individual states. Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, power has increasingly migrated to the federal level, with leverage provided by the power to control the flow of money for federally funded educational programmes (Title I to foster early literacy, special education, etc.) Most recently, that control has been turned towards encouraging states to develop and enforce strong standards for schooling, often monitored via ‘high-stakes’ standardized tests.6 Political forces encourage activity and debate on the periphery of the system around such issues as charter schools and vouchers7 and increased funding for compensatory programmes for underprivileged children such as Head Start (from the left). Often missing from discussions about the federal or state role in education is the realization that the schools are what some social scientists term ‘loosely coupled systems’ – social settings where processes and results are necessarily difficult to define because they are so dependent on a myriad interacting external and internal factors. This fact about schools is often easy to lose sight of in an environment where conflicting claims abound about the relative weight of such features as teachers’ pay, instructional methods, the quality of school and district leadership, the effect of externally defined standards, the impact of family socio-economic status and levels of student motivation, breadth and depth of curriculum, the quality of teachers’ pre-service training, and the physical safety of those in schools. All of these have, at one time or another, been advanced by interest groups as ‘the essential component’ for school improvement. The problem is that all are important, and the definition of which may be more significant than another depends on local interactions among all these variables.8 The work of schools as organizations: fostering learning and teaching A second important set of issues in understanding questions of school change has to do with what happens inside schools themselves. This includes such things as how a school is organized and led, who teachers are and how they do their work, what content the school offers to those who come there to learn, and who the students are and what they bring to their experiences in school. 104

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School leadership normally is the responsibility of a principal or head who may work either relatively independently or under tightly defined rules mandated by a central school board or administration. Studies in American education have pointed again and again to the value of clarity of purpose for this role, as well as to the ability to communicate that purpose effectively to students, teachers, and parents, and to organize the activities of the school to make achievement of that purpose more likely.9 Teachers are obviously also important in this equation. Their preparation, goals, assumptions, and ways of working have all been intensively studied in the US and the west. One emerging new feature of the profession of teaching common to most developed economies is increased pressure to handle new and sometimes competing demands: increased diversity among students, new curricula and teaching methods, and demands for greater accountability via high-stakes exams are all parts of this new environment. A serious consequence is a shift away from a traditional ‘craft’ approach to teaching and towards a model inspired by scientific and technical training – less focus on ‘teaching the whole child’ or ‘working with kids’, more emphasis on being able to make precise diagnoses of learning problems, to handle large numbers of students working on different tasks at different times, and to prepare all students for the assessments that punctuate students’ school careers.10 Changes in assumptions about the nature of what students should learn, how they should learn it, and how they should be assessed also characterize the western educational scene today. Standards-motivated demands that students emerge from school able to think in complex ways about real-life problems, and that they be able to understand underlying relationships rather than merely memorize content, are reflected in a classroom turn towards a ‘constructivist’ model of pedagogy and related pedagogical approaches that stress deep engagement with materials that pose more realistic problems and ask students to work with more varied materials than in the past.11 Working in these ways, and handling the new diversity noted above, requires that teachers know more than a single approach to the teaching of any given subject, and that they understand the kinds of mistakes, misapprehensions, and conceptual errors learners are likely to make when approaching a new discipline for the first time. Instead of ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to instructional method, teachers are now urged to master the ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ of particular disciplines and fields.12 Learning obviously cannot take place if students are not themselves motivated to engage in the heavy mental efforts required to master new knowledge and establish new cognitive structures. While no ‘magic bullets’ have emerged in western research, a few elements stand out. First, students typically do better and have more positive attitudes about their school experiences when they work in small schools. It is not size alone that makes a difference, nor necessarily even class size within the school, but rather a sense that they are recognized as individuals – that they are names, not numbers, and that their 105

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teachers and principal/head see them as individuals. Also, students do better in school when there is a higher level of family and community involvement in education. When parents are aware of the school’s expectations of their children, and when there is some regular communication between the parents and their children’s teachers, the system becomes more effective. Having students play some active and productive role in the life of their community can also be valuable for school success.13 Encouraging change: reforming schools If the problems that educators confront today in simply adjusting schools to match current needs are daunting, then the difficulties imposed by rising demands for change and reform are frustrating because they come on top of so many other pressing needs. Nevertheless, two decades of serious effort in the west have yielded a few insights that are now widely accepted as essential (even if agreement on how to use these remains elusive). First, and perhaps most important, is the realization that success in reform can proceed from different sources: some of these may be philosophical,14 some may be curricular,15 some may have to do with the interaction among schools, parents, and communities, and yet others may focus on the organization and structure of the school itself, how it operates day-to-day, the kinds of interactions that take place among teachers and students, among teachers themselves, and the role of outside supportive agencies such as universities. Another important basic realization has to do with the role of the reform leader – typically a principal/head, teacher, or other administrator. This person is commonly instrumental in pushing for reform efforts within a single school or district, and may achieve great success. In some cases, the reform effort may be organized around a particular new curriculum or programme, often developed with special resources and tested in a special setting with unusually devoted teachers and interested students. The difficulty commonly comes when that experience is taken as a ‘model’ and the attempt made to ‘package’ it and ship it off to other schools, other parts of the country. The issue of ‘getting to scale’ (taking a new approach or technique that has worked well in small, controlled, often well-funded settings, and discovering how to apply it equally well in large, less controlled, more typically funded settings) has been identified as a crucial stumbling block to large-scale educational reform efforts.16 Many of those who have been interested in this question come from outside the community of professional educators; some, especially those with backgrounds in business, where processes are well-defined, assume that it should be possible to ‘scale up’ innovations and introduce them more broadly. Others suggest that the problem in doing so is that the levels of human interest and commitment, as well as the special organizational settings that may have contributed to the original success, may not be replicable in more ordinary environments.17 106

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A further set of realizations has come from efforts to study the way in which schools as organizations react to change-focused initiatives. In spite of claims by some that education is ruled by fads and ‘quick fixes’ (in the words of one observer, ‘purposelessly peristaltic, relentlessly overcome by labyrinthian schemes for accomplishing the unimportant’), the culture of schools and teaching has in fact been found to be quite resilient, in the sense that it readily adapts in small ways to threats from without. And school culture is also quite solid and quite determining, in the sense that it tends to radically constrain teachers’ choices about possible avenues for experimentation or exploration.18 Powerful norms and expectations for what a school should look like, how teachers should do their work, what kinds of learning activities by students ‘count’ as ‘real learning’ – all are shared in a largely unconscious way by parents, students, teachers, principals, and administrators, and all powerfully limit the kinds of changes that most educators are willing to consider under most circumstances. Breaking these established patterns turns out to be one of the most complex problems of school reform.19 A final question has to do with how information about new approaches and successful reform efforts should be disseminated. The classical model in the US involved various formal mechanisms: conference presentations describing the new practice, special meetings or workshops to engage educators more directly, regional, state, or local-level ‘labs’ or demonstration centres to encourage use of new practices, centrally compiled information resources (e.g., ERIC – the Educational Resource Information Center Clearinghouses that, beginning in the 1960s, tried to collect and organize all manner of educational publications, reports, curricula, and other ephemera). While each of these had some success, there developed a realization that in many cases what was most effective was not simply hearing about a new approach once, but rather getting to see it in action, discuss it with colleagues, try it out, and then re-engage in conversations about what made it work (or not) in a local context. This more socially defined model for innovation has found expression in a number of networks and consortia for educational reform and renewal in the developed west. In some cases, these involve only schools themselves; in others, government plays some role; universities, labs, and other sources of specialized expertise may also be involved. The model for dissemination that emerges from this framework puts more stress on the adaptation of new approaches to match local conditions than on simply ‘getting the word out’.20 Are these assumptions culturally bound? Whether or not these basic tenets about education and educational reform are valid only within the US, or for developed industrial nations generally, is something that we can reflect on as we proceed here. Some of them, at least, seem to spring from basic aspects of how educational services are commonly 107

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organized in advanced societies today; others offer interesting contrasts when we examine the Russian experience.

Russian and Soviet traditions of educational and pedagogical experimentalism Russia and then the Soviet Union had a long and distinguished history of pedagogical thought and experimentation. The discussion here will be framed in reference to three main historical periods: the development of Russian educational experiments in the nineteenth century; the appearance of a distinctively Soviet pedagogy during the twentieth century (but with roots and connections to antecedent Russian practices); and the gradual enlargement of the pedagogical experimental tradition during the late Soviet era of perestroika. The Russian experience with pedagogical experimentation To an extent rarely seen in western countries, education was a topic of interest, activity, and development for philosophers, literary figures, artists, and scientists in pre-revolutionary Russia. To be concerned about it was central to visions of how a civilized society might be created; it was not merely an issue to be exploited for political or economic ends. Major figures of the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia – Lev Tolstoi (1828–1910), Dmitrii Mendeleev (1834–1907), and Nikolai Chernyshevskii (1828–89) – saw education as a critical element for the further development of Russia as a nation. In many cases, the ideas advanced by this group (and later groups of educational thinkers) were purely theoretical – proposals for what the education system should do, for what content an educated person should know, for the ways in which moral and patriotic citizens should be prepared. Mendeleev, for example, was concerned about the ‘perfection of the person’, his or her usefulness to society and the state; he urged the development of a system that would be ‘life focused and real’. Chernyshevskii, another leading figure in mid-nineteenth-century Russia, stressed the need for upbringing in moral, mental, and aesthetic realms, with the aim of leading students into an active life; he also maintained the value of matching educational experiences to students’ needs and interests. He saw existing problems with the schooling system inextricably linked to the condition of Russian society in the mid-nineteenth century, something with which he was not overly impressed. Other figures played more direct roles in practical matters of schooling, even as they also developed compelling new models of pedagogical theory. Konstantin Ushinskii (1824–70), often referred to as the ‘founder of scientific pedagogy’ in Russia, pressed for curricular reform to match children’s interests and needs, and urged ‘rational’ methods of instruction, including what today would be called more ‘child-appropriate’ methods of teaching, with varied 108

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activities, and use of materials connected to the child’s cultural heritage.21 Many of Ushinskii’s ideas about the role of ‘upbringing’ (vospitanie in Russian) in creating necessary links between generations were developed further by twentieth-century thinkers such as psychologist Lev Vygotskii and educator Vasilii Sukhomlinskii. Perhaps the most famous Russian writer on education in the nineteenth century was Lev Tolstoi, who saw the point of pedagogy as connecting the teacher and the student in a search for new, ‘harmonious’ understandings of the world. For Tolstoi, what was taught was significantly less important than how it was taught, and (unlike many of those writing on education in this period) he created a model school for the children of peasants on his estate where he could put his ideas into practice, and also supported many other schools in the Tula region. Tolstoi’s specific ideas about pedagogy were strongly influenced by his religious and philosophical views (and indeed cannot be understood outside of that context), and so were largely ignored during the Soviet era. In recent years, however, there has been a strong resurgence of interest in Tolstoi’s ideas in Russia, and a number of ‘Tolstoian schools’ have opened. In these schools, students are not forced to study any particular curriculum, they are provided with adult presence and guidance, they are encouraged to take responsibility for their own activities and decisions, and they are provided with a supportive but non-coercive environment generally. In many ways, these schools often remind the observer of the approach taken by Neill at his famous Summerhill school,22 or in other similar schools in the US such as the Sudbury Valley School outside Boston, Massachusetts. In the Soviet context of perestroika, their lack of structure and assumption that children must learn how to take responsibility for their own actions appeared revolutionary, even anarchistic. Russian educators in the late nineteenth century extended the ideas of such figures as Chernyshevskii, Ushinskii, and Tolstoi. Nikolai Fedorovich Bunakov (1837–1904), who focused on developing literacy and oral presentation skills among the populace in elementary schools, pressed for free general public education, and stressed the importance of developing a national corps of teachers and urged involvement by local citizens and groups in the work of schools. Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinskii (1833–1902) began his career as a university professor, quit, and built and operated a school for peasants on his estate, and, like Tolstoi, created and supported more than twenty elementary schools. He might be credited with the development in Russia of the notion of the ‘laboratory school’, since he welcomed teachers who came from across the country to visit, observe, and discuss the work of his own establishment.23 Like Bunakov, he saw a key role in the process of upbringing for family and the local community, and also involved older students in working with younger ones, features that were to reappear later in the work of such twentieth-century pedagogues as Makarenko and Briukhovetskii.

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The early Soviet period and the emergence of Soviet experimental pedagogy Broadly speaking, we might divide the experimental efforts during the Soviet period into two categories, using the same descriptors that Soviet educators themselves used to divide the world of education: obuchenie or instruction, and vospitanie, usually translated as ‘upbringing’, but also sometimes as ‘nurturance’, ‘character formation’, or ‘socialization’.24 The division is an important one, for these were thought of as two different, but complementary, aspects of the overall process of education. Upbringing seemed to have pride of place during the early Soviet efforts at educational experimentation, as the critical needs of social reconstruction in the brutal post-revolutionary social situation and the demands of a rapidly industrializing economy forced thousands of illiterate workers from the countryside to the cities. Earlier Russian (and particularly Orthodox) ideas about the value of the collective as a way of expressing and retaining basic human values survived into the Soviet period, which then saw a rapid ideologization of earlier efforts to create school environments in which children would be raised to become members of the culture, contributors to the common weal, and upstanding parents for the next generation. Efforts to create a ‘New Soviet Man’ led in the 1930s and 1940s to a highly politicized version of vospitanie, one in which the needs of the collective (in fact, the state) were placed before those of the individual, and in which devotion to Communist ideals would overcome ties to family and friends. Public attention to and adulation of Pavlik Morozov, a boy who informed on his parents for withholding grain from the state, is a good example of how these ideas played out under Stalin.25 On the instructional side, many of the efforts during the Soviet era reflected the growing interest in and attention being paid to psychology as a science able to accurately define and guide how education should be carried out. Also prominent during this period were tensions within the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union over the amount of attention to be paid to academic vs. vocational training, and the kind of training in academic subjects that students were to receive. Was it to be traditionally ‘classical’, with emphases on understanding the nature of the disciplines and their underlying basic concepts, or was it to address the importance of being able to solve realworld problems? The distinctive approaches in education that came to be identified as ‘Soviet pedagogy’ did not simply emerge immediately following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution; rather, they had their roots both in the earlier nineteenth-century approaches described above, and also in the activities of educators who effectively bridged the late Russian imperial and early Soviet periods. For example, Konstantin Nikolaevich Ventsel’ (1857–1947) worked extensively on the creation of Family Schools in the Moscow region, and stressed the value of free

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education and free upbringing (to the extent of allowing individual children to select their own teachers, to leave their parents if conditions at home were intolerable, and to choose not to attend school). While many of his positions were attractive in the early Soviet period (for example, he valued creative productive work as a necessary part of aiding the moral, mental, and physical development of the child), some of his ideas (as when he saw the primary goal of education as the creation of a ‘spiritually free’ person, and opposed military training in schools) became anathema under the Stalinist regime. None the less, his views on such facets of children’s activities in schools as the creative character of work and the potential role of ‘self-organizing’ schoolchildren’s collectives were influential for the development of Soviet-era pedagogy. Stanislav Teofilovich Shatskii (1878–1934) was another transitional figure in Russian–Soviet experimental pedagogy. Arrested early in his career for ‘propagandizing socialism’ among children, Shatskii might rightly be seen as the inspiration for many of the forms that came to be associated with Soviet images of ‘upbringing’ work: collectivism, educating children in social as well as mental and physical spheres, and integrating instructional experiences so that they included games, physical labour, and artistic experiences. Shatskii also encouraged teachers to become more active in investigating the success or failure of their own instructional activities with children, to think of themselves as ‘investigators of the child’s life’. These sorts of experimental and reflective approaches in pedagogy were to re-emerge in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period among the various groups of ‘innovator-teachers’ and their followers. Perhaps the central figure who defined direction and purpose for education in the early Soviet era was Anton Semenovich Makarenko (1888–1939). Makarenko is best known today for his work with bezprizornye deti (homeless or orphaned children) who emerged in the chaotic conditions of the Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s, but he also can rightly be credited with many of the ideas about upbringing and the role of social activities for children in schools that became widespread throughout the USSR and remained firmly in place until the dissolution of the Soviet system in the 1980s. Makarenko started his career leading a work colony for minor criminals near Poltava, and later moved to a children’s labour colony near Kharkov; he subsequently led efforts to establish labour colonies throughout the country under the direction of the NKVD. Makarenko saw the aim of his work as creating a new, ‘perfect’ person through links between education and labour. In a kind of reflection of Max Weber’s Protestant ethic, Makarenko thought that a child’s joy should be responsible, and his responsibility – joyful; he wanted children to develop ‘long-term lines’ of thought, where they could imagine their activity today leading to ‘happiness tomorrow’. In pedagogy, Makarenko saw the needs and demands of individuals as being intimately linked to respect shown to them by 111

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educators, and forbade the use of physical punishments (although not punishments generally) in his institutions, seeing encouragement as more valuable and more productive. He encouraged teachers to think about the cultural origins and symbolism of the instructional methods they used in their work, and to reflect on their ‘pedagogical mistakes’. Makarenko saw the collective as a central part of the pedagogical process, and made it a special focus of his own work, connecting it to upbringing, relationships among children and among various collectives within a school or institution, and the processes of labour. The collective was not simply good in and of itself, but provided for growing relationships between the individual and the best qualities of society generally. The collective was also the locus for development of positive traditions among the children participating; it allowed them to establish self-governing relationships, and provided a place for each child to join in common work. Makarenko developed a sophisticated ‘technology’ to help elicit the sorts of productive relationships he saw as essential for an effective collective, including commanders’ councils, general meetings, and so on. He also stressed the value of what he called ‘pedagogical explosions’, events where conflict and contradiction could not be suppressed and had to emerge into the open. These often involved the expression (by both students and teachers) of anguish, critical judgements, boycotts, etc. Handling these occurrences obviously demanded special skills on the part of the teacher, due to their intensity. The idea of the school collective as an essential feature of educational culture became firmly rooted in the image of the Soviet school not only at home but also abroad. It was the key feature highlighted by American social psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner in his well-known comparative study Two Worlds of Childhood,26 and served as a touchstone for thinking and rethinking the Soviet educational experience by both supporters and critics. Makarenko’s ideas were important for Sukhomlinskii, who extended and amplified many of his ideas about upbringing. In the 1970s, a small group of ‘Communards’27 created a network of camps and special environments for children where the ideas of Makarenko and other original thinkers about upbringing were the central focus, and where his approaches could be tried without the sorts of simplification, regimentation, and militarization that quickly overcame them in common Soviet school settings and in the Pioneer and Octobrist youth organizations, many of whose activities represented a kind of crude version of Makarenko’s approach. Vasilii Sukhomlinskii stands out especially for his work on the development of young peoples’ personalities and their intentional formation through structured systems of guidance and activity. A school director in the Ukrainian town of Pavlysh, Sukhomlinskii’s views on upbringing were somewhat unconventional: rather than concentrate solely on the creation of a ‘collective mentality’, he stressed the importance of individual happiness as a precondition to any later productive relationships within a group.28 As he noted 112

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in one of his books on experiences at Pavlysh School, ‘A truly human being is unthinkable without kind feelings. Education, in essence, begins with the development of personal sensitivity . . . Personal sensitivity provides a general background for harmonious development, against which any human quality – intelligence, industry, talent – acquires its true meaning, finds its most vibrant expression.’ As noted above, Sukhomlinskii’s approaches became popular among a small group of renegade educators and social thinkers who practised them not only in schools, but also intensively in summer sessions at a children’s camp on the Black Sea coast. Needless to say, many of Sukhomlinskii’s views did not garner favour among the collectivist conservatives in the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APS), and some of his works (for example, his Etudes on Communist Upbringing), were considered subversive by the establishment and subjected to withering official criticism. Other Soviet educators working during this period elaborated on the role of the collective. For example, Fedor Fedorovich Briukhovetskii (1915–), a school director in Krasnodar whose school was a base for the Research Institute on Problems of General Upbringing, concentrated on encouraging joint activity among children, parents, and teachers, and did much to create the distinctive ‘holidays’ which became hallmarks of the Soviet school (‘For the Honour of the School’, ‘The Last Bell’, etc.); he imagined the school as the city’s ‘cultural centre’, and constantly sought to stage concerts, exhibits, and other activities that would draw the community into the school. Not all educational experimentation of the Soviet era was focused on upbringing. Many educators concentrated on more traditional topics such as models for instruction, assessment, or the design of curricula and materials. Three among this group bear special mention. Lev Vygotskii is thought of by Russian and foreign observers as more of a psychologist than an educator, although his theories and ideas have had enormous influence on pedagogy both in Russia and abroad. His ideas were intimately linked to the emergence of ‘pedology’ in the mid-1930s, a movement that sought to draw on emergent western ideas about assessment and common models of human development. Pedology was seen by Stalin as too strongly directed by western models, and was suppressed in the late 1930s. While Vygotskii’s ideas remained important for Soviet education, full texts of his work were not available to ordinary teachers, nor did they become widely available until the 1970s. A corps of Vygotskian psychologists, including such well-known contemporary figures as V.V. Davydov, D.B. El’konin, and V.P. Zinchenko, carried on his ideas and brought them to a new level of prominence in the 1980s with practical pedagogical applications of Vygotskii’s ideas in such disciplines as mathematics and natural sciences. Other leading educational thinkers in the experimental tradition from the Soviet era included L.V. Zankov (1901–77), a promulgator of models for educational experimentation and research, and for the evaluation of pedagogical innovations. His work focused mostly on studies of the psychology of 113

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thought, speech, and memory, and on the relationships between specific instructional forms and their results. He noted the importance of paying attention to individual variation and the hidden potential of students that was not typically capitalized on in the mass educational system. His activity included development of a large number of instructional materials and distinctive pedagogical guides for teachers.29 M.N. Skatkin (1900–91), a student of Shatskii, worked on problems of instruction, with specific reference to polytechnical and vocational education. He designed educational programmes, created curricular plans and systems of instruction for particular subjects, and wrote texts for elementary teachers on these issues.30 An interesting bridge between the social-psychological focus on children’s upbringing and the more purely psychological and disciplinary focus on teaching school subjects is seen in the work on V.N. Soroka-Rosinskii (1882–1960), a teacher, Director of the Dostoevsky School-Commune, and professor at the Herzen State Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad during the 1920s–1940s. Soroka-Rosinskii focused on the needs and problems of ‘hard to teach’ children, and concluded that the solution lay in providing sufficient outlets for the creative but non-traditional energy that such students brought with them to school. His methods were unorthodox, and his willingness to accommodate unusual approaches to subjects in the curriculum (staging plays, extended games, journalism) led to his falling from favour, but many graduates of the school went on to become artists, writers, scientists, or journalists. With the foundation of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR in 1943, and its mutation into the APS of the USSR in 1966, the experimental movement in education gained further impetus. At the height of its activity in 1990, the APS managed the work of some seventeen experimental schools with about 1,000 teachers and enrolling more than 11,000 students; another 700 teacher-experimenters worked individually on Academy-sponsored projects in another 1,000 schools. The large majority of the efforts of the various institutes, laboratories, and schools of the APS USSR during this era were aimed at promoting and fostering instructional and upbringing approaches that would promote the interests of the state, and that would advance state- and Party-sponsored initiatives to make of the educational system a reliable and supportive part of the Soviet social infrastructure. Instructional practices – ‘problem-centred instruction’, ‘the classroom laboratory system’ – were investigated, and it was hoped that these would produce workers better able to solve increasingly complex technical problems and serve the emerging Soviet high-tech industries in aerospace, cybernetics, and other military-related fields. On the upbringing front, various alternative models for the inculcation of Communist values were tried, in an environment where disenchantment with the system was constantly rising alongside disillusionment with old-style Party slogans and platitudes.

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Recasting the experimental tradition: perestroika and after Perhaps the best known of the instructionally oriented experimental schools during the Soviet era was that organized by Vasilii Vasil’evich Davydov (1930–97) and Daniil Borisovich El’konin (1904–84) in Moscow School No. 91 during the 1962–63 academic year. The methods used in the school (as in a number of other schools where the scholars had conducted studies under somewhat less formal arrangements in previous years) were an extension of Vygotskii’s ideas about the formation of mental abilities and their rootedness in social interaction among learners, and between the learners and the teacher. Later to be called ‘the El’konin-Davydov Method’, and still later to be known by the more general term, ‘Developmental Teaching’ (razvivaiushchee obuchenie), the approach was basically what in the west would have been termed ‘discovery learning’, or today, a ‘social-constructivist approach’ to learning. As Davydov himself later wrote, A ‘new curriculum’ means introducing theoretical knowledge into primary education. And a ‘new method of instruction’ means organizing the learning activity of younger pupils so that they can master this knowledge, and in particular, so that they can engage in learning activities that involve transforming the content, which permits them to discover its properties for themselves.31 In other words, children were presented with a set of very carefully structured problems and then presented by the teacher with equally well-structured approaches to solve the problems; the intent was not so much that each child would go through an entire process of discovery de novo, but rather that the child would instinctively come to see how already developed psychological ‘tools’ could be applied in particular settings. The teachers in the school produced a large body of studies and papers describing the essence of the approach, and eventually carried it from its initial focus on mathematics to other domains, including natural sciences, language arts, history, and so on. In spite of their promise, however, Davydov’s new approaches were considered heretical by many in the APS establishment, and he found himself in 1983 exiled from his position as Director of the APS’s prestigious Institute of Psychology, at least partly because his views on instruction did not square with those of the leadership. Later (in the early 1990s), Davydov emerged from academic exile and became the de facto intellectual leader of the APS as it sought to reorganize itself in response to the pressures of the post-Soviet era. Other central figures in late- and post-Soviet psychological work included Vladimir Petrovich Zinchenko (1931–), a specialist on human factors who has been instrumental in translating the works of Vygotskii and his followers in ‘Activity Theory’, an approach widely used to understand how students’ interactions help to guide and shape learning. Another important figure from the

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academy who helped to bridge theory and practice in novel ways was Georgii Petrovich Shchedrovitskii (1929–94), a psychologist who created so-called ‘organizational-activity games’ in the late 1970s. Widely influential in the 1980s and 1990s, these large-scale, complex, demanding, and exhausting simulations sometimes involved hundreds of professionals, civic leaders, teachers, or managers over a period of many days; they served as a kind of test bed for novel ideas about organization and development in a variety of settings during the late Soviet period, and then became a tool for newly installed regional leaders to assess the situation in key constituencies. Other instructional innovations during the post-Soviet period depended, to a much larger extent than ever before, on the newly publicized activities of teachers themselves. For example, Viktor Fedorovich Shatalov (1927–), a teacher in Ukraine, created a specific instructional model founded on a distinctive verbal–graphic outlining procedure, intended to make even complex and difficult materials comprehensible to ordinary students. He also created and used a number of non-standard methods for student assessment, including mutual cross-evaluation by students of their own work, games, and procedures to guarantee ‘systematic feedback’ to students. Homework assignments became much less specific and more global, linked to the teacher’s perception of student readiness to work independently. His requirement that all instruction be limited to 30 hours per week also flew in the face of traditional Soviet practice, where ‘overburdening’ of students had become the norm. Another pioneer teacher of this period, S.N. Lysenkova, created a system of ‘intensive instruction’ (operezhaiushchee obuchenie), under which first-grade pupils, using specially created materials and templates, were rapidly introduced to the essentials of writing. The method proved highly successful, and Lysenkova (who had initially been subjected to much criticism from the APS for her non-standard approaches) was eventually awarded a prize by the Academy. Yet other work of this late Soviet and perestroika period focused on the importance of upbringing in new circumstances. Rejecting the regimented and highly ideologized approaches common in Soviet practice, a Georgian psychologist, Shalva Aleksandrovich Amonashvili (1931–), created a new model for working with children that was based on mutual respect between student and teacher, on the value of working with children in regular schools from the age of six (a strategy which became official policy with an educational reform launched in the early 1980s), and the value of allowing children to experience important kinds of self-determination and self-governance.32 Traditional grades, under this model, became unnecessary, and older children would be encouraged to supervise the work of their younger counterparts. Amonashvili saw as central the ability of the child to find happiness not only in his or her own activity, but in the happiness of others. Another educator who has thoughtfully approached issues of upbringing in new ways is Mikhail Petrovich 116

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Shchetinin (1944–), director of the Centre on Complex Personality Formation in the southern city of Krasnodar. His method focused on bringing children to more intensive engagement through varied creative activities, games, and an arts-based curriculum. Shchetinin has also advocated structuring lessons into more compressed (35-minute) formats with more interdisciplinary content, an approach he calls ‘immersion’ (pogruzhenie); such lessons are occasionally interrupted by longer (1–2 week) special in-depth studies of particular topics or issues. As perestroika evolved into current post-Soviet educational reality, then, there had been both a well-established tradition of ‘official’ experimentalism in Soviet education, and variations from the official directions that brought problems for those involved, but that also suggested some of the developments that were to follow.

Recent Russian educational experiments: how do they compare with experience in the west? We turn now to the focus of this chapter, and in some ways the most difficult to write. Any effort at comparative analysis of educational practice is fraught with peril: differences in basic values and assumptions derail the analysis; differing conditions, standards, and traditions make true comparisons hard; conditions of context and the press of systemic specifics force one to question the applicability of any general conclusions. None the less, it may be useful to examine what has happened in Russia over the past 15 years in the arena of experimentally based school reform, and compare it to what has happened during roughly that same period in the west. The early Soviet educational renaissance: the late 1980s The developments in Soviet education at the beginning of perestroika have been well documented elsewhere, so we do not need to recount them in detail here: the ‘discovery’ of a group of ‘teacher-innovators’ by journalists from Uchitel’skaia gazeta in the mid-1980s; the formation of a large number of independent teachers’ clubs under the Eureka organization in the late 1980s; the well-publicized contests for new pedagogical approaches and new school models, culminating in the formation of the ‘Creative Union of Teachers’ under a general banner of innovation dubbed the ‘Pedagogy of Collaboration’; the formation and pioneering curricular work of the Temporary Scientific Research Collective ‘School’ (VNIK-Shkola), officially sponsored by the APS but whose activities and outlook were so threatening that many there disowned it before its results were published; the contests over reorganization of the APS, the squabbling over the replacement of V.F. Matveev as editor of Uchitel’skaia gazeta, and the attempts to reorganize the Congress of Educators held at the end of 1988.33 117

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These developments were clearly orchestrated through the agency of the editor and journalists of Uchitel’skaia gazeta and a few other activists and renegade scholars and intellectuals – they mostly did not reflect a general rejection on the part of educators, or the public at large, of the model of education that had dominated the Soviet scene for almost seventy years. None the less, they stirred considerable debate in other parts of the press, and among teachers generally, about the true purposes of education, and about how adequately the existing system was serving the nation’s future citizens, both in terms of their possible economic productivity and their individual psychological well-being. At this point, the experimental mode might be called one of organized, informal action, with strong opposition from some quarters (the Party, the government) and passive observation by the majority of educators. Using the typology of reform questions and issues presented earlier and derived from western experiences, how can we further characterize what happened during this early period of experimental reform efforts in Russian education? Looking first at the superstructure of education, certainly the intent of the reformers was revolutionary – to challenge the status quo and bring new ideas into currency, both among educators and (probably more importantly) among the intelligentsia and the general public. True scientific debates about the questions raised by the reformers and the merits of their proposals were largely absent at this stage; the models advanced as exemplars of new pedagogical thinking were not ones that had been evaluated or measured by any standards that would be recognized as appropriate in the west. They were rather on the order of educational statements in the moral or political domains: propositions about the appropriate shape of the curriculum in contrast to what had been, declarations about the roles to be played by teachers vis à vis their charges, images of the relationship between schools and society as a whole. At this point, the question of ‘standards’ for education and their role in reform did not yet appear significant, although it would in the future. And, although desired outcomes were to be sought via the new models and approaches, there was little sense of how to link the new models (via assessment or evaluation) directly to outcomes from the new practices proposed. In contrast to the uncertain external standards against which these experimental reform efforts were to be judged, their internal structures were often described in quite detailed ways. Certainly the models of teaching that many of the innovators proposed were very clear about how the new systems were to work internally, what was to be expected of teachers and students at various points, what kinds of curricular materials were to be used and what kinds of instructional activities learners were to engage in, and so on. School principals (directors) were very important in this setting, and many ‘models’ of schooling came to be linked to the names of their founders: Tubel’skii, Karakovskii, Guzik, Froumin, and others. In contrast to many of the externally generated reform efforts in the west, 118

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which increasingly called for teachers to be held to higher technical standards of preparation and outcome-oriented interaction with their students, Russian pedagogues were urged to turn away from a technical–rational approach and return to a child-centred vision of teaching and upbringing as an essentially human activity. And many of the new models of instruction could be quite easily described as ‘constructivist’ by western standards – Davydov’s ‘developmental teaching’, for example, which gained new adherents during this period, and Vladimir Solomonovich Bibler’s ‘Dialogue of Cultures’ approach, in which students use cultural archetypes through history as a way of understanding both values and the development of major conceptual streams over time, and by doing this become themselves able to live and think as creators (not merely consumers) of culture. Other models that emerged at this point stressed the value of parental and community involvement with the school – A.N. Tubel’skii’s ‘School of Self-Determination’ and I.D. Froumin’s democratically organized Univers School are examples in which the day-today organization of the school in a supportive and democratic way was seen as being inexorably linked to the larger purposes and philosophy of the undertaking.34 In most of these cases, the impetus for change came from an inspired individual school leader. These were in most cases not community responses, but individual projects, fuelled by personal conviction and by images of how the world might work better. Concerns about replication were not high on the reformers’ agendas, and most seemed willing to assume that transfer of their approaches to a new school or locality could be accomplished with few difficulties. For the most part, schools were not yet seen at this point as having strong local cultures, or patterns of norms and values that might constrain change. Dissemination possibilities were limited by history, tradition, and economics to accounts in newspapers or television specials, a few conferences and public demonstrations, and the occasional book or journal article. Wellorganized programmes for dissemination were lacking, and the ability of educators to participate regularly in (for example) the seminars and festivals that the Eureka group staged regularly starting in this period was limited by increasing inflation and scarcity of travel funds. Charisma and backlash: the reformers in power The early 1990s brought significant changes to the Russian educational scene. Those once excoriated by the establishment suddenly found themselves in the seats of power. After Edward Dneprov became Minister of Education for the Russian Federation in 1990, then Minister for Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, there was a sense of euphoria among the reformers, but also a sense of uncertainty. The draft plan for development of Russian education prepared by the Ministry in 1991 reflected the spirit of VNIK and the approaches towards liberalization that the reformers had developed. But 119

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there were problems, too. The Creative Union of Teachers proved incapable of enlisting teachers’ support on a broad and continuing basis after being taken over by factions that did not share some of the founders’ visions. The APS, even after major efforts to elect new members and create a sense of urgency, seemed impervious to significant innovation. Regions and cities, eager to develop educational systems that could aid in economic growth, sometimes bought western curricula or programmes, ‘sight unseen’, and found it difficult to adapt these for local use. Dneprov, the charismatic leader who had led the work of VNIK, was unable to translate that charisma into workable programmes for educational change and was replaced as Minister of Education in late 1992. Worsening economic conditions in the country as a whole suddenly absorbed any economic cushion that might have permitted larger-scale innovation in education, steering any resources available towards more ‘critical’ expenditures. None the less, some interesting new curricula were developed during this time (many with aid from George Soros’s Open Society Institute), the Davydov–El’konin model for instruction gained in popularity and spread to more schools, and plans and programmes for ‘educational development’ proliferated around the country. The categories developed earlier based on western experience can also shed light on developments during this era of Russian experimentalism and reform. Some of the voices heard during this period began a chorus that was increasingly heard, to the effect that the conserving function of education had been abandoned for thoughtless experimentalism. Discussions of how to preserve Russia’s formerly ‘unified educational space’ began, and the initial fascination with all things western began to subside. This was expressed practically in the suggestions that the federal government adopt and enforce strong standards for the content of education, as a way of preserving that ‘unified space’. Central control and the power to effectuate specific changes in policy (along with budgetary responsibilities) rapidly devolved from Moscow to the regions and cities. Results of change efforts became increasingly difficult to measure accurately. In spite of the growing problems, some school principals managed to carry on, and a few managed to implement new models or find resources to train teachers. Teachers, though, increasingly began to note the physical and mental problems their charges brought with them to school: physical problems wrought by malnutrition and chronic (environmentally caused) illnesses; psychological problems caused by the stress of living in a chaotic society, having to deal with unemployed or alcoholic parents; and simple behaviour problems caused by boredom or the growing sense that education would be of little long-term use, and that the real goal was to make money quickly. Not surprisingly, teachers, especially those trained during the much more stable Soviet era, had little preparation to deal with such phenomena; many simply left the profession. Instructional materials, especially new textbooks, became increasingly difficult to find, and many older, Soviet-era teachers had no sense of 120

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how to use newer materials that asked students to pose questions or engage in group-oriented activities. In this sort of environment, encouraging family or community activism was a task simply impossible for most school directors or municipal authorities to accomplish. A further problem that became obvious during this period, one that was not surprising to western observers, was the continued power of the system to constrain and limit the options educators had to make significant changes in their practice. While many regions and cities actively sought some form of educational experimentation or renewal, few schools had the capacity to respond in serious ways, and many who made initial tentative efforts simply gave up. The old patterns of thinking of change as something imposed from the top, a command to which the appropriate response was always, ‘We have implemented the innovation!’, were difficult to modify. Few teachers or school directors appeared equipped to push for change in an educational system as cautious and fearful as that left by the Soviet Union. Rebuilding a system: possibilities for change amid chaos Russian education since the mid-1990s has been marked by increasing signs of collapse. There are two primary reasons for this, one internal to the system itself – the virtual disappearance of financial resources to support the system – and the other external – the continuing and worsening problems with children’s health. The financial difficulties mean that the possibilities for reform and experimentation have been seriously curtailed. The status of children, the decreased ability of the country’s health care system to support them, and the ongoing environmental, physical, and social problems that contribute to their condition, all create problems that the educational system, with its own limited resources, is ill-equipped to handle. To try to address a variety of poorly understood chronic physical and emotional conditions would be difficult for any teacher under the best of circumstances; to attempt this in the Russian context, where teacher training never emphasized the need to deal with such problems, and where schools lack the variety of specialist services common in many western countries, is a Herculean task. For the most part, it is not even attempted. None the less, some efforts at reform and experimentation continue. Working together with the Ministry of Education, the Eureka organization has created a Federal Programme of Experimental Sites which runs an annual competition. Under the auspices of the Ministry, proposals are solicited, judged, and finalists invited to come to Moscow for a presentation and series of discussions with experts who comment on various aspects of the proposals. The types of programmes suggested are varied – some are broad curricular innovations such as intercultural awareness or interdisciplinary work by students; others have a more narrowly defined instructional intent – use of computers in science classes, for example; still others focus more on the aims 121

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of vospitanie, such as involving students in the life of the community. Winners get a small award to be used by their school, but most seem interested in competing for the honour, as a sign that they are still pedagogically aware and involved.35 Other changes during this period included a sharp increase in the number of ‘specialized’ schools, principally gymnasiums and lyceums, as well as ‘schools with intensified study of subject X’. While it might be tempting to see these as ‘experimental’, in most cases they are not. The curricula, while in many cases challenging and deep, often are borrowed from classical models that reflect the past rather than the future. In most cases, the parents of those who attend are members of the intelligentsia, and their concern is how to maximally preserve the qualities of pre-perestroika Soviet education that they find valuable, rather than changing that model. Many of these schools are either private or semi-private, accepting fees and/or tuition costs from parents; many teachers also work on the side as tutors, providing students with special instructional services for extra money. Governmental initiatives came to play a role once again during the late 1990s. With new laws or decrees on such topics as boards of trustees for schools, experimental education, and the promulgation of a starkly regressive ‘Doctrine on Education’, the Ministry and the state sought to reassert their roles as having key responsibilities in directing development of the educational system. Standards came to be an accepted part of the educational environment, at least as viewed from the top. But these laws and decrees seemed to have little effect on the schools themselves, most of which appeared to proceed with their business as best they could under trying circumstances. Indeed, Russia’s teachers may be the ones deserving the highest marks for continuing to work and support the tottering educational system under almost unimaginable conditions. Our set of western-derived reform categories can help us further to elucidate the situation here. The top levels of the educational system seemed, in the late 1990s, to swing in a more conservative direction, although the effect of this shift was muted by the increasingly varied distribution of power and authority within the system, with control increasingly being exerted on the local and regional level. Political parties began to take serious notice of education as an issue to be addressed, and proposals to address the problems of education using a much more technical and administrative approach started to emerge from these political debates. In a way, this is not unlike what happened in the US in the late 1980s, a time when corporations first began to pay serious attention to the problems of schools and suggest that these might be addressed through application of technical rationality. Demands for some form of accountability were increasingly heard, not infrequently connected with reference to standards. While education was not at the level of political concern and attention that it found in some western countries, there was a growing audience for various forms of political commentary on education. At 122

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the same time, the public as a whole seemed less informed about the schools and their problems than at any time since the early 1980s; other matters took precedence. If one thing seemed clear, it was that the system established during the Soviet era continued to exert its influence. Many patterns of instruction and upbringing that were features of schools in the USSR continued to be part of the Russian school experience. While many curricula had been revised, the problem of changing teachers’ fundamental assumptions remained. These assumptions were powerful, as they are in all educational systems around the world, and they shaped how teachers should work with students on lessons, how much responsibility they should take for defining their own curriculum, how they should collaborate with others to improve their practice, and how they should define their own work in relation to that of school administrators and to the roles of parents. While the experimental inclination persists in select schools, models for accountability, assessment, programme evaluation, and other methods of checking to see whether the system in fact is accomplishing the kinds of goals that society would expect of it all continue to reflect Soviet roots, in spite of concerted efforts at various levels in the system to bring about change.

Likely implications and consequences for Russian education What are the implications of these changes for education in Russia, and for the fate of the experimental impulse in particular? The late 1980s and 1990s brought a wave of change, most of it originating from above, either informally (through the various innovators’ groups and projects) or formally (through federal and regional efforts to bring a chaotic system under renewed control). At the ‘street level’, however, change seems to have been minimal in most places. The structure of formally sanctioned experimental schools, as organized and run by the APS (now the Russian Academy of Education) has mostly disappeared due to the economic crisis. Many of the innovative schools of the 1980s continue, but they have mostly not managed to clone themselves into strong networks united under a common pedagogical banner. Western experience during this period has also not been very encouraging. The problems of ‘getting to scale’, of transforming the curriculum to focus on deeply constructivist tasks, of helping all children to learn at a high level, and of recreating teaching as a less affective, more technical profession – all have largely eluded western educationalists.36 A large part of the reason for this, and it is probably also a serious factor for Russian educators, is that charisma in a leader is not easy to duplicate, and a dedicated corps of teachers and other assistants is often by definition an élite group. Reality is not so cooperative – trying to adapt an experimental programme to a new site, or worse, a whole series of new sites, has so far proven to be a most complex task. Is there any hope that Russia, in its difficult state, might be able to do a better job with 123

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experimentally based reform than the west? While many of the factors noted above would suggest that the answer is ‘No’, there are at least a few elements in Russia’s favour in this equation. First is the Russian heritage of taking pedagogy seriously. While western (especially American) teachers often are lured to easy solutions, quick treatments, one-shot workshops, and sweat-free innovations, Russian educators have a zest for thinking and talking about their pedagogy in ways that are deep, organized, and theoretically grounded. Interestingly enough, trying to get teachers to talk in such ways has emerged in the past few years as a hopeful approach for educational reform in the US. If teachers can generate a common language, a ‘community of practice’, the reasoning goes, they will be able to work together around pedagogical issues more easily in their school environment. In fact, there is some good evidence now that this can actually happen – when teachers talk about their work regularly, and come to share common understandings about the nature of their problems and the kinds of solutions that might address them, the quality of learning improves for students in the school.37 It is not magic, and requires (for westerners, anyway) much unaccustomed work. For Russians, the process may come easier. That is, if they can avoid being seduced by the ‘western disease’ of quick panaceas. Second, there is the distinctive contribution of socio-cultural experimentalism. Based on the work of Lev Vygotskii, the so-called socio-cultural method suggests that learning is not a solo psychological phenomenon, but rather emerges out of activity engaged in together with others. Many of the basic ideas developed under Vygotskii and his school in Russia found new audiences in the west while remaining under something of a cloud of suspicion at home during the 1930s and until the end of the 1960s. At this point, many experimental pedagogical approaches in the US and much of Europe are based on variants of Vygotskii’s theory; it appears to cope more easily with the complex interactions of variables found in real learning settings, and moves the experimenter away from expecting statistically clean, easily interpretable, quantitative results.38 Since much recent Russian work is also grounded in (somewhat different) conceptions of Vygotskian psychology, and since the socio-cultural project seems at root familiar and comfortable to Russian educators, this may provide a stimulus for further Russian reforms. Third, there is the possibility that a renewed enlightened centralism could encourage Russian educational reform. While much western work in the 1970s and 1980s stressed such democratic values as involving participants in project definition and developing consensus for reform efforts, more recent work has swung back slightly towards the role for some firm, central direction to encourage reform along (e.g., The Concept of Modernization of Russian Education).39 If everyone must agree on everything, then perhaps the actual kernel of the reform effort will lose definition, the reasoning goes. Russia certainly has a history of centralism, if not always of the enlightened sort. If the federal 124

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government could develop an experimentally based reform programme that was genuinely enlightened, and that offered the possibility of real variation on the regional and local levels, then the system might actually be able to move forward fairly quickly to implement a significant reform. And finally, there is the Russian tradition of dealing with the socialization and acculturation of children in a serious way. Vospitanie has never disappeared from the Russian educational scene, and the long history of programmes and developments, especially those started in the 1970s under the auspices of the Communard movement, could provide a basis for further achievements in this direction.40 Given the collapse in the social ‘safety net’ that Russia has experienced over the past decade, this could be a useful focus for educational reform efforts, and provide new forms of psycho-social support for both individuals and communities. While that would be a noble goal in and of itself, it may also be linked to broader traditional educational reform efforts – work in the US under models such as that of James Comer and Henry Levin has shown that social and community support for educational reform can generate large improvements in student achievement.41 This propensity to look carefully at the relationships that undergird socialization and acculturation could provide Russia with an important kind of social capital for educational renewal. Ultimately, any educational reform effort based on experimental models depends both on the quality of the models themselves and on their clarity and appeal to large numbers of people, ordinary citizens and parents, but also the ordinary teachers and ordinary school directors who will have to find the enthusiasm to take new programmes and approaches, and recast them so that they become their own. The likelihood that this could happen in Russia today is probably not great. But if Russia’s educators choose to capitalize on them, the traditions are there to create truly interesting new educational patterns.

Notes 1 I.D. Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia (Krasnoiarsk, 1998); A.N. Tubel’skii, Shkola samoopredeleniia: Shag vtoroi (Moscow: AO Politekst, 1994). 2 Vasilii Davydov, Problemy razvivaiushchego obucheniia (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1986); V.P. Zinchenko and E.B. Morgunov, Chelovek razvivaiushchiisia: Ocherki rossiiskoi psikhologii (Moscow: Trivola, 1994). 3 Vladimir S. Bibler (ed.), Shkola dialoga kultur: Idei, opyt, perspektivy (Kemerovo: Alef, 1993). 4 Vasilyi [Vasilii] V. Davydov (ed.), Psychological Abilities of Primary School Children in Learning Mathematics [Translation of Psikhologicheskie vozmozhnosti mladshikh shkolnikov v usvoenii matematiki] (Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematic, 1991). 5 Ben Eklof and Edward Dneprov (eds), Democracy in the Russian School: The Reform Movement in Education since 1984 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993); S.T. Kerr, ‘Reform in Soviet and American Education: Parallels and Contrasts’, Phi Delta Kappan 71 (1989), pp. 19–28; S.T. Kerr, ‘Will “glasnost” lead to “perestroika”? Directions for educational reform in the USSR’, Educational Researcher

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6 7 8

9

10

11

12 13 14

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19 (1990), pp. 26–31; S.L. Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1967). See Deborah Meier, Will Standards Save Public Education? (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000). From the right; see Chester Finn and Marci Kanstoroom (eds), New Directions: Federal Education Policy in the Twenty-first Century (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 1999). Larry Cuban, The Managerial Imperative and the Practice of Leadership in Schools (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988); Richard Elmore, Penelope L. Peterson, and Sarah J. McCarthey, Restructuring in the Classroom: Teaching, Learning, and School Organization (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996); Deborah Meier, The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). Ann Lieberman and Lynne Miller (eds), Teachers Caught in the Action: Professional Development that Matters (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001); P.A. Wasley, Teachers Who Lead: The Rhetoric of Reform and the Realities of Practice (NY: Teachers College Press, 1991); P.A. Wasley, Stirring the Chalkdust: Tales of Teachers Changing Classroom Practice (New York: Teachers College Press, 1994). M. Cochran-Smith and S.L. Lytle (eds), Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge (New York: Teachers College Press, 1993). This approach is mirrored strongly in the current Bush administration’s initiative to curb ‘pointless experimentation’ in pedagogy and marshal all efforts behind ‘scientifically proven instructional strategies’. Including technology-based and internet materials; see John Bransford, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking (eds), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning and Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000). L.S. Shulman, ‘Paradigms and Research Programs in the Study of Teaching: A Contemporary Perspective’, in M.C. Witrock (ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching (3rd edn) (New York: Macmillan, 1986). James P. Comer (ed.), Rallying the Whole Village: The Comer Process for Reforming Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1996). A general proposition that schooling has a moral component, or that intense and continued discussion about fundamental purposes is important; see John I. Goodlad, Educational Renewal: Better Teachers, Better Schools (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1994). Creation of distinctive new kinds of resources for teaching science or mathematics, for example; or pushing children from lower socio-economic backgrounds to do work at higher, rather than remedial, levels; or developing new kinds of assessments to match new curricula; see Henry M. Levin, Privatizing Education: Can the Marketplace Deliver Choice, Efficiency, Equity, and Social Cohesion? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001). Lee S. Shulman and Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (eds), Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999); R.F. Elmore, ‘Getting to Scale with Good Educational Practice’, Harvard Educational Review 1 (1996), pp. 1–26. Larry Cuban and David B. Tyack, Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). Larry Cuban, How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890–1990 (New York: Teachers College Press, 1993).

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19 Ibid. 20 E.C. Lagemann, An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Educational Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); T.R. Sizer, Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992); T.R. Sizer, Horace’s Hope: What Works for the American High School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996). 21 K.D. Ushinskii, Izbrannye pedagogicheskie sochineniia (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1974). 22 Alexander Neill, Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing (New York: Hart, 1960). 23 S.A. Rachinskii, Sel’skaia shkola: Sbornik statei (St Petersburg: Sinodal’naia tipografiia, 1898). 24 For further discussion of these terms see Janet Vaillant’s chapter in this volume. 25 For another approach to the Pavlik Morozov story see the chapter by Larry Holmes in this volume. 26 Urie Bronfenbrenner, Two Worlds of Childhood: US and USSR (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970). 27 ‘Communist Protestants’, according to one characterization, or those whose aim was to try to recapture within the Soviet system the original Marxian ideas of mutual care and support; see Aleksandr Mikhailovich Sidorkin, ‘The Communard Movement in Russia’, East/West Education 16 (1995), pp. 148–59. 28 V.A. Sukhomlinskii, O vospitanii (Moscow: Politizdat, 1975). 29 L.V. Zankov, Teaching and Development: A Soviet Investigation (White Plains, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1977). 30 M.N. Skatkin, Voprosy professional’noi pedagogiki (Moscow: Vysshaia shkola, 1968). 31 Vasilii Davydov, ‘Iz istorii stanovleniia sistemy razvivaiushchego obucheniia’, Vestnik (Mezhdunarodnaia assotsiatsiia ‘razvivaiushchee obuchenie’) 1 (1996), p. 23; see also Vasilii Davydov, Teoriia razvivaiushchego obucheniia (Moscow: INTOR, 1996). 32 See ‘Ob osnovnykh napravleniiakh reformy obshcheobrazovatel’noi i professional’noi shkoly: Postanovlenie Plenuma Tsentral’nogo Komiteta KPSS 10 aprelia 1984’, in O Reforme obshcheobrazovatel’noi i professional’noi shkoly: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Moscow: Politizdat, 1984), pp. 9–13. 33 For example, see Eklof and Dneprov (eds), Democracy in the Russian School; Kerr, ‘Will “glasnost” lead to “perestroika”?, pp. 26–31; Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994); Tatiana Matveeva (ed.), Vladimir Fedorovich Matveev (Moscow: Russian Open University, 1992); Edward Dneprov, Chetvertaia shkol’naia reforma v Rossii (Moscow: Interpraks, 1994); Simon Soloveichik, ‘Matveev’, Pervoe sentiabria (26 October 1995), p. 1; Stephen Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000). 34 See the chapter by Isak Froumin in this volume. 35 Material relating to the competition, the ‘Concourse of Socio-Cultural Initiatives’, may be found on the web site of the Eureka Institute: http://www.eurekanet.ru. 36 Elmore, ‘Getting to Scale with Good Educational Practice’, pp. 1–26. 37 See for example, Pamela Grossman and Samuel Wineburg, ‘Creating a Community of Learners Among High School Teachers’, Phi Delta Kappan 5 (1998), pp. 350–3. 38 For example, Luis Moll (ed.), Vygotsky and Education: Instructional Implications and Applications of Socio-historical Psychology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); J.V. Wertsch Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1991).

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39 ‘Concept of Modernization of Russian Education for the Period up to 2010.’ Draft, approved on the whole by the Government of the Russian Federation (Protocol# 44, 25.10.2001) (Moscow: RF Ministry of Education, 2001). The final version, ‘Kontseptsiia modernizatsii rossiiskogo obrazovaniia na period do 2010’, can be found at http://www.ug.ru/02.31/t45/htm. 40 For example, Sidorkin, ‘The Communard Movement in Russia’. 41 James Comer, School Power: Implications of an Intervention Project (New York: Free Press, 1980). Henry Levin and Wendy Hopfenberg, ‘Don’t remediate: Accelerate!’, Principal 70 (3), (1991), pp. 11–13.

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5 DEMOC RATIZIN G THE RUSSIAN SCH OOL Achievements and setbacks1 Isak D. Froumin

The age of education: freedom or conflict Among the many labels applied to the twentieth century one seldom encounters ‘the age of education’. Yet if we were to consider the present as a time of shared, interconnected experiences significantly affecting all of us, then it would be difficult to find anything that has changed the lives of a greater number of people than universal education. Universal education spawned an entirely new set of problems that led educational leaders of many countries to attempt transformation and renewal. Before the appearance of the concept of universal education, all approaches to educational reform had a single purpose – to achieve a better way of guiding children, to mould them more effectively, and to convey a substantial mastery of knowledge and skills. Early in the twentieth century, Dewey, Montessori, Shatskii and Blonskii (the latter two, Russian progressive educators) emphasized additional goals: supporting children in their development, assisting students in self-realization, and providing equal educational opportunities. The concept of providing equal educational opportunities was, however, frequently at odds with the notion of creating a competitive learning environment. Today some theoreticians and many practitioners draw on the experience of Soviet and Asian educational systems in an effort to reconcile these two trends. In fact, following the shock produced by the launch of Sputnik, educational leaders in the west began to examine the Soviet experience in earnest. Many western educators sought to pinpoint the reasons for the Soviet success.2 The studies they produced assessed the achievements of Soviet science chiefly as the result of a greater number of courses in schools in mathematics and the natural sciences. Without diminishing the significance of this view, we can now say that these experts used a frame of reference that was too narrow, ignoring, as it were, the clash between egalitarian and libertarian tendencies in 129

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the Soviet system of education. These scholars failed to see the rather original Soviet solution to the conflict between high academic standards and universally accessible education: namely, rigorous levelling (vyravnivanie) of children, uniformity of requirements and educational programmes, and high demands made by teachers both of students and of their families. In our opinion, the success of the Japanese educational system can be explained in similar fashion. It employs a frontal approach, strict and regular student evaluation, and little choice of subjects by students. Notably, while western conservatives sought to draw on the Japanese emphasis on strict educational discipline, even if it resulted in greater student failure, the school reform undertaken in Japan in 1989 emphasized greater choice by students as well as reinforcing the interactive, creative character of education. For a long time the contest between libertarian and egalitarian tendencies was carried out in the realm of high politics and was reflected in government policy in general as well as in changes that were carried out in educational content and methods. After World War II increasing public attention to issues of organization and administration led to a revamping of the system of educational governance. The dual (as well as cyclical) character of this overhaul stemmed from a clash between a tendency towards centralization and efforts at decentralization (the latter involving an intensification of public control) of educational management. In the second half of the twentieth century most countries with well-developed educational systems systematically reapportioned authority among different levels of educational administration.

Comparative assessment of reforms in Russia and abroad In an effort to assess democratic reform in Russian education and compare it to western models, it would be useful briefly to outline its distinctive characteristics: •

•

•

• •

The primary initiative for educational changes in Russia came from below, from teachers, while western reforms came from above as well as from below. The primary aim of many western reforms was democratization of governance, while Russian reforms aimed at democratization of the relationship between the teacher and the student. Russian reform took place in a school system that was controlled entirely by the state, while western reform had to compete with a network of independent schools. Western schools traditionally enjoyed autonomy, while Russian schools were part of a rigid centralized system. Western teachers sought to improve the educational system, while Russian teachers worked towards the more ambitious goal of democratic reorganization of an entire society, including and through the school. 130

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•

•

Russian teachers initiated their reform efforts at a time of public euphoria over democracy; in the west the values of democracy gave way to those of efficiency. At the same time, western and Russian reforms initially faced the same conditions: problems related to the market economy and to social justice in education; decreased state financing; and parental conservatism.

Naturally, the paths that reform took in different countries have both similarities and differences. Common to these reforms were: the organization of school boards or councils (sovety); the establishment of education councils at various administrative levels; an increase in various types of special education programmes for children with special needs (oslablennye) as well as for gifted children; decentralization of decision-making; and granting greater autonomy to certain schools and teachers. However, considerable differences between Russia and other countries became apparent in the implementation of reforms: •

•

•

Russian reformers emphasized changes in instructional methods and programmes, while their western counterparts focused on administrative change. In Russia students and teachers were considered to be the primary ‘consumers’ of democracy, while in the west parents and the general public were regarded as such. Consequently, reforms in democratic governance (the school councils) involved mainly students in Russia but parents in the west. Finally, western reformers worked for an evolutionary change of the system; Russian reformers sought revolutionary renewal through the establishment of a diversity of alternative schools and pedagogical approaches.

Significantly, different reform strategies faced similar obstacles, resulting in the following shortcomings (felt more acutely in Russia than in the west): the fictitious character of public participation in educational governance; an increase of tensions at the local level as a result of decentralization; heightened apprehension and even anxiety within the school community (kollektiv); intensification of social stratification among schoolchildren as a result of educational choice;3 ineffectiveness of the direct or frontal approach for the teaching of democracy; a discrepancy between slogans on the macro level and practice at the level of the school; and a decline in the level of educational achievement.

Democratization of governance It was, perhaps, the notion of democratic governance that was ‘appropriated’ most fervently in the process of democratizing education. Many reformers 131

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equated democratization of governance with democratization per se. The following statement is typical in this regard: At present the main trend in the democratization of the school includes: guaranteeing mutual respect and continual cooperation between teachers and students and between the wider public and parents; increasing the effectiveness of student self-government; overcoming authoritarian and bureaucratic relationships between the administration and teachers, on the one hand, and parents and students, on the other; and complete rejection of autocratic methods of school administration.4 Another scholar put it more bluntly: ‘We understand democratization of the educational process to mean the gradual increase in participation of members of the school community – teachers, students and their parents – in governing the school.’5 Efforts by officials to ‘catch up’ with democratization resulted in a large number of publications devoted to problems of democratic governance.6 A majority of these studies, however, ignored the unique experience of the public pedagogical movement and that of schools where the impetus for renewal came from teachers and students themselves, where democratization began in the classroom, and where the competency necessary for a democratic debate developed as part of the educational process. More often than not, publications on democratization appeared in response to new ideological requirements and made trivial recommendations for the organization of school councils. The following tired rhetoric concerning democratization of governance typified such studies: Now the motto of the school collective is: ‘We work together, respect each other, and the result of our work is of high quality.’ A school council constitutes a legislative body . . . Both the kollektiv as a whole and each individual should have mutual responsibilities articulated in the proposed school-wide code of laws.7 ‘Optimization of governance is the means of democratization.’8 At the All-Union Congress of Educators in 1987, school boards or councils were treated as one of the most important mechanisms for democratization. The councils were seen as places where decisions could be made democratically, where people could experience democratic behaviour and interaction. They were also regarded as a conduit for parental and student influence in school affairs.9 Thus, these councils were introduced ardently and ubiquitously; their appearance featured noisy elections, sometimes embroiled in scandal, and almost always accompanied by democratic sloganeering and euphoria. However, the call for ‘more self-government!’ was not accompanied 132

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by a re-examination of the notion itself, which had ‘at no stage of development been opposed to discipline’, meaning that behind this notion of self-governance lies a perception of the school as an essentially bureaucratic organization and an outdated model of democracy.10 At the Univers School in Krasnoiarsk, Siberia, the most ignominious teacher, well known for insulting students in class, was elected to the school council.11 The decision-making process in the councils turned out to be a prolonged and ineffective affair, fraught with discord. Ordinarily, such councils tended to rubber-stamp the administration’s decisions. Parental involvement and especially student participation were superficial, and there were no provisions for real feedback or for learning from experience. Experience gained in the Univers School led to two conclusions regarding self-government: first, the need to differentiate its various forms and content according to students’ ages; and, second, the need to find an alternative to its rigidly formulated structure. To overcome the latter, a contractual regulation of relations between the students and the school was proposed. The Univers School introduced the idea of contractual relations between the school and its students as early as 1988. Quite a few schools then familiarized themselves with this experience and began to adopt it. According to data collected by S.M. Iusfin, the contract is an important means of ‘effective realization of educational aims’.12 However, as is apparent from the same study, very few schools use it well in attempting to foster genuine student independence. A majority of schools in Russia became disenchanted with school councils. Many principals tried to curtail their activities, despite directives from above insisting on the preservation of this democratic ‘fig leaf’. As noted in one of the first studies of school councils: ‘Students and teachers did not rush to “take power”, indeed, they were ready to give up the rights of self-governance, to free themselves of the responsibility generated by these rights. Thus, neither teachers nor students were prepared for the implementation of democratic principles in school life.’13 To be sure, one can cite dozens of examples of interesting work done by school councils and of children’s satisfaction with such activity.14 However, all of this is a far cry from true democratization of school governance. In fact, school councils can be viewed as an example of a deceleration of the deliberate democratic transformation of the school and of the educational system as a whole. According to data collected by the Association for Assistance to School Councils, ‘everywhere in school practice one can observe a state of uncertainty, of expectation, of timid exploration by trial and error’.15 The main reason for this situation has been the formal transfer of rights and responsibilities to these councils before the functions of various administrative levels were fully understood. Moreover, in Russia (as in many other countries) teachers were unprepared for a new type of relationship with students and for participation in decisions regarding the redistribution of resources and redesign of school programmes. Parents and students were 133

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equally ill equipped, both in practical and psychological terms, for their new role in administration. The hasty introduction of school councils involved parents in school governance in a way that often hindered real democratization. At a time when the country has undergone tremendous socio-cultural transformations and overhaul of schools, the parents’ generation has willy-nilly stood for the old values and way of life. According to our 1995 poll of schools, 45 per cent of parents regarded humanization of the school as harmful. They placed strictness first and a demanding nature second as the most desirable qualities in a teacher. In this poll, love of children lagged far behind. As in many other aspects of democratizing education, no model exists for parental participation in school governance. Yet, clearly, in a democratic society individual rights are inviolable unless they infringe on the rights of others. Thus, unless parents harm their child (or any other member of society), neither society nor the school has the right to interfere in family business, or to categorically demand the fulfilment of perceived (societal or school) needs. On the other hand, in a multicultural society parents do not have the right to impose their views on professionals. While acknowledging parental opinion, professional educators can reserve the right to act according to their own judgement, but with one qualification: the final decision lies with the parents. If parents do not like the proposed educational system, they have the right to reject it. Thus, from the point of view of parental participation, democratizing the school means that the school enters into a dialogue or a contractual relationship with parents. In parental collaboration at Univers, the school’s tasks and approaches are formulated with particular clarity so that parents are aware of the differences between new and familiar approaches and can anticipate the consequences of their decision. The school’s contract with parents also lists parental obligations of support and, naturally, rights of parents, including full information disclosure, special assistance for the child and the family, consultations with teachers upon the request of parents, and transfer of the pupil from one class to another (smena uchebnogo klassa). The practice of signing such contracts has been exceptionally useful, bringing about a change in the relationship between the school and the parents, a conclusion supported by surveys and expert evaluation. Election of school principals often resulted from hasty or, more precisely, fictitious, democratization of school governance. According to the pedagogical press of those years and to the data of an education expert, elected directors often turned out to be ineffectual administrators who did nothing to prevent the disintegration of the school kollektiv.16 The practice of decentralization turned out to be rather controversial as well. The transfer of much of the authority from the basically democratic centre to the regions (there are eighty-nine regions, roughly like American states, in the Russian Federation), with their predominantly conservative 134

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administrations, fell far short of the expected democratization by failing to incorporate public opinion, to address society’s educational demands, or to foster creative development of the school and its teachers. School autonomy and protection from inspections also had unexpected consequences. The standard integrated educational environment as well as coordinated school programmes and requirements began to erode. With the formulation of ten reform objectives in education, Edward Dneprov, who in 1990 became the Russian Federation’s Minister of Education, offered a more comprehensive view of democratic change in governance: democratization, less dependence on the state, regionalization, nationalcultural autonomy, openness, humanization, focus on the humanities, differentiation, developmental education and lifelong education.17 He thereby linked changes in governance to new requirements in educational content. Moreover, educational leaders at that time developed a concept of education focusing on the development of a joint state–public system of governance. However, this objective was not fully pursued either in theory or in practice. In the end, Dneprov himself was chagrined to acknowledge: ‘What has been done regarding the implementation of one of the key ideas of the reform, the notion of combined state–public governance in education? Nothing!’18 At the ministerial level, both state–public governance in education and democratization of educational content required substantive elaboration rather than simple declarations of intent. As of the beginning of the twentyfirst century, democratization of education has been virtually cut off from ongoing changes in the structure of governance, from the decision-making process, and from a discussion of efficient use of resources. At best, the public has been engaged in education only through parental associations. As has been the case with many other educational reforms, efforts in Russia with regard to democratization at different levels of governance have remained uncoordinated. Moreover, coordination was not even envisioned, as each level had its own objective. This absence of linkage is apparent, for example, in the basic proposed strategy of involving the public in education through the state–public structures of governance, local self-government and professional communities.19 Significantly, the school community and, above all, students are not included in the above inventory. The school’s relative isolation from other types of educational institutions was yet another aspect of the democratization process. Democratization of pre-school and professional–vocational education lagged far behind the transformations taking place in the general school, even though, as a western scholar of Russian reform has accurately pointed out, ‘it is now obvious that interdependent changes are needed at all educational levels (from pre-school to post-graduate education)’.20 One can point to a number of reasons for the derailment of democratic governance. One is that the transformation of governance did not originate spontaneously, from below, but came as a result of democratization ‘from 135

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above’ based on slogans and decrees, which brought about cosmetic improvements rather than radical changes in the philosophy of governance. The following revelation by a school principal typified this attitude: For me, as a head of the school, democratization is a rather complex process. There is a problem of combining strict control by a single person, with accountability for my actions, while at the same time taking into consideration the school kollektiv’s notions of what is valuable, kind, and intelligent and worthwhile. To run the school under such conditions is much harder for me as a principal. The question is how to combine the traditional system of leadership with what comes from ‘below’.21 Another reason for the breakdown of democratic governance was the unpreparedness of officialdom for interaction with informal public groups. Scholars and practitioners alike suggested possible ways for interaction to take place but without any tangible effect.22 In addition, observers had different conceptions of democratization: some saw it as a single act – they had only to find the magic word which would make the school instantly democratic; others viewed it as a smoothly unfolding process. However, the process of democratization has not only been lengthy; it has also been fraught with contradictions. It comprises several phases, any one of which could undermine the entire process.23 The first experience with freedom is intoxicating. Not only children and adolescents but adults, too, test this freedom to confirm its reality and then to determine its boundaries. Such a reaction is to be expected. A reduction of teacher control, even in a limited sphere of activity, brings about a significant increase in non-normative behaviour of children in and outside of school. For a long time psychologists and teachers considered this development to be an epiphenomenon. We would argue that it has been an essential phenomenon, which we have termed ‘the phenomenon of extending the realm of social experimentation’.24

Democratizing the educational process The Russian school has been significantly more successful in democratizing the educational process than in democratizing governance. The primary emphasis has been on changing the dynamics of relationships among the various constituencies of the school community and the style of instruction. Many teachers believe that one of the main difficulties lies ‘in the teacher’s undemocratic style of behaviour. In their relationship with students a majority of teachers do not abide by democratic norms, are authoritarian, and resolve conflicts which arise in accordance with their notions of common sense.’25 Supporters of this position regard ‘bad’ teachers as the root cause of the problem 136

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and, being humanists, seek to retrain them, or re-educate them entirely. In practice such retraining is quite varied, ranging from psychological reconditioning to the ‘collaboration of teachers and scholars in restructuring educational content with the aim of proceeding from simple knowledge transfer to teaching how to master knowledge independently’.26 Often this approach produces visible results, considerably refining the teacher’s system of values and convictions. However, as our data have shown, upon returning to school, more than half of the teachers who have undergone democratizing or humanizing retraining revert to their former methods and instructional styles even as they continue to speak the new jargon. Usually, the reason for this lies in the unchanged structure of school life. Humanization and democratization of relationships within the school community are viewed as socio-psychological therapy unrelated to school structure.27 Considerably less often in the literature but more so in practice, one encounters yet another position, one offered with touching candour in one of the first studies on democratization of the school: ‘In our experience the chief difficulty in the democratization of school education lies not in the person of the teacher, in a lack of skill or in a lack of desire to establish with students a relationship based on democratic principles, but in the person of the student, who is unprepared for such a relationship.’28 This situation leads to pressure from the ‘local administration’ to find students who are already suited for integration into a democratic environment or, more often, a selection of students who may likely be in the future. To be sure, democratic procedures and amicable relationships take root with considerably greater ease in élite schools which select their pupils. But it is doubtful whether this testifies to pedagogical effectiveness. A marked expansion of student choice can also lead to democratization of education. One of the major reform slogans (especially in the mid-1990s, under Minister of Education Evgenii Tkachenko) was ‘education by choice’. This slogan was generated in an atmosphere marked by an abundance of new opportunities, and was based on the proposition that the very process of choice was inherently democratic and educational. Many scholars simply equated choice with democracy. In her engaging study of democratization of the school, E.M. Kolosova wrote: ‘Choice is the essence of democratization.’29 However, identification of the conditions facilitating real change rather than merely an illusion of choice was inhibited by the exclusive focus of a vast number of studies on the techniques and technologies of education by choice and by a concern for various organizational schemes. The dynamics underpinning the ability to choose, or the cultural–psychological ramifications of choice, were virtually ignored in pedagogical writing. Only a few studies examined in detail the vast potential inherent in the use of choice, and they drew little attention.30 Even the more refined interpretations of ‘education by choice’, such as ‘a process directed towards the broadening of abilities for a competent choice by 137

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an individual of a life path’,31 turned out to be catchwords not entirely supported by actual school practice. Choice has often been limited to early specialization or, even worse, to tracking accompanied by rhetoric about responsible choice. In our experience, choice becomes personally and developmentally significant only when it is a part of the pedagogical mechanism providing for the schoolchild’s self-determination. It is methodologically incorrect to view choice as a separate element and to impart a special status to it.32 The act of choosing by itself does not have any inherent value. Nevertheless, choice might facilitate in creating innovative modes of activity or in developing independent personality providing that some special institutional provisions exist. The use of various types of collectives and groups for the learning process is seen as yet another means for the democratization of education. One author calls his ‘collective system of instruction’ democratic.33 Yet, for all the attractiveness and effectiveness of group methods, they admittedly are still secondary in the effort to achieve democratization. In principle, group work can be used for other educational purposes as well. Consequently, teachers who utilize these methods must be aware of the need for a comprehensive democratic framework and promote organizational, communicative and reflective, that is, self-analytical, skills. In light of these arguments there has naturally arisen a cluster of proposals that use dialogical forms of education as a means of democratization.34 To be sure, it is impossible to imagine a democratic discussion as a monologue. Yet democratization is more than a dialogue. The transformation of the content of education is an important condition for using dialogue to achieve the basic aims of democratic education. Attempts by the ‘school of developmental education’35 and of the ‘school of cultural dialogue’36 to design educational materials that would incorporate dialogue as a natural form of activity are still only the exception in pedagogical practice.

Overcoming alienation Soviet sociological and pedagogical literature rejected the very possibility that alienation could exist in the USSR since the fundamental requirement prescribed by Marxist ideology was missing – alienation from the means of production. However, the prevalence of alienation during the period of ‘developed socialism’ (the term applied to the Soviet system during the Brezhnev regime) is widely acknowledged today. The school became a veritable hothouse of alienation. A preoccupation with preparation to live in a totalitarian culture produced (or strengthened) the alienation of children from adults, of entire generations from traditional culture and spirituality, and of teachers from their work. Overcoming this alienation by promoting a wide variety of educational activities is, in our view, the most essential step in the democratization process. 138

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In educational literature of the socialist camp the term ‘alienation’ was used only in regard to bourgeois society.37 An analogous phenomenon in the socialist school was ‘disadaptation’ (desadaptatsiia). A negative attitude towards the school, sometimes bordering on ‘school phobia’, was quite vigorously studied by both educators and psychologists.38 However, the vast majority of explanations for this condition as well as recommendations on how to deal with it were purely psychological in nature. The problem was viewed as the result of ‘family difficulties, of frequent changes in the educational environment, and of the school’s mistakes’.39 In recent years some descriptive studies of alienation have appeared in Russian scholarly writing, but without the use of the term itself. Shalva Amonashvili’s blunt statement provides an example of such an approach: ‘For the students, a lack of motivation for learning, excessive homework, lowered selfesteem, and the suppression of independent thinking generate a feeling of hostility towards teachers and an aversion towards the school and school life. The fact is that schoolchildren don’t like school.’40 Moreover, there have been initial attempts to examine alienation from the perspective of interaction between a student and a teacher. Interaction that generates alienation has been characterized as functional: the analysis of empirical data . . . demonstrates that the functional character of interaction, resulting often in its formalization, persists everywhere. Typical for such interactions are mutual alienation of teachers and students and a consumerist or utilitarian attitude of students towards teachers and each other.41 Others have viewed the emergence of alienation as the result of the inability to construct a relationship of mutual agency between the teacher and the student, placing the blame for this situation on the non-constructive character of imposed activity.42 Our own experience and research has shown that relationships and types of interaction are important indicators of alienation, but that they are also largely rooted in the institutional character of the school and of today’s entire educational environment, including the socio-cultural status of childhood.43 The essential context for understanding alienation is the crisis of contemporary childhood resulting from the disintegration of traditional forms of adult mediation.44 We have also discovered that it is in adolescence that alienation manifests itself distinctly for the first time, and that the school as an institution is too aggressive in dealing with age-appropriate problems of maturation. This aggressiveness does not stem from the teacher’s orientation, but rather from the traditional structure of adolescent education. In order to combat this aggressiveness we have suggested new models of school structure for adolescents.45 One would hope that the Russian tradition of a genuinely collaborative 139

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humanistic pedagogy and the tendency to rely on cultural–historical psychology would enable Russian scholars to construct new theoretical frameworks and practical methods for overcoming alienation.

Teaching democracy: new courses Efforts at teaching democracy began somewhat later. They consisted of a modification of curricula and the production of new textbooks. Timid attempts to write new texts for the humanities and to create new educational disciplines for the promotion and strengthening of democratic values began in 1991. Previously, regardless of all of the astounding social and cultural transformations that were taking place under Gorbachev, millions of teachers continued both to teach and to control their students’ knowledge according to textbooks approved by the Communist Party. The process of changing curricula and textbooks has been exceptionally difficult. Suffice it to say that when the Soros International Fund’s ‘Cultural Initiative’ announced its programme of support for writing and publishing new textbooks (‘The Transformation of Humanitarian Education in Russia’), only two proposals were submitted for textbooks on jurisprudence. A.F. Nikitin, V.M. Obukhov and Ia.V. Sokolov, among others, began to develop new curricula on human rights. However, as aptly noted in I.F. Akhmetova’s review of these works, ‘neither [internationally accepted criteria] for educating students in the spirit of respect for human rights in a civilized democratic society nor the actual experience of foreign countries were given their due’.46 Textbooks meeting these needs have only recently appeared, and their methodological apparatus leaves much to be desired. The essential drawback lies in their failure to make legal issues relevant to students’ lives. Studies by specialists in St Petersburg provide an example of a rather formal approach to problems of legal education.47 They argue that the components of a law-governed culture are knowledge of the law and of the legislative process with an emphasis upon law-abiding behaviour; knowledge of one’s rights; and a readiness to act purposefully and in a ‘legally literate’ manner. We recall here John Dewey’s insistence on the fundamental tenet of democracy – that citizens must be the subjects of the law (i.e., its agents) and not its objects and victims. Such an approach also encourages a discussion of the rights and obligations of children outside of the school. Significantly, this programme does not treat children’s rights in a dynamic manner (i.e., it does not adapt rights and privileges according to the age of pupils and their consequent ability to implement them). Common to all of the proposals of this kind is the implicit acceptance of the traditional school structure, which ignores institutional conditions necessary for the actual exercise of rights. Vigorous work has begun on the creation of new courses in political science and sociology. Here, however, a narrowly didactic point of view dominates. 140

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The author typically tries to pack into a slim volume as much material as possible, paying no heed to the proper conditions and especially the institutional framework for such instruction. For example, a recent study on teaching political science pointed to the need for dialogue and discussion, for interpersonal relations between a teacher and a student in the educational process. However, according to the author, ‘the effectiveness of educational control over the students’ activity in teaching political science was chiefly predicated upon the selection of content and on the choice of tools for the activation and control of students’ cognitive activity’.48 This narrow point of view is not surprising because it rests on the assumption that ‘the formation of civic values must be based on a mastery of the basic theories of political science and on the independent implementation of its concepts’.49 This understanding of civic consciousness corresponds to a limited understanding of subjectivity or agency (sub”ektnost’). Without an awareness of the assumptions of this approach, the following statement would sound simply comical: ‘The introduction of score-card testing promotes the transformation of the student from the object of the educational process into its active subject.’50 Neither institutional support nor an atmosphere of trust and exploration are necessary in such teaching. Frustrated by difficulties, some educational leaders decided simply to translate western materials into Russian. This hasty work led to texts that were naive and often useless. Numerous textbooks, whose publication was sponsored by western ‘benefactors’, offer examples of primitive propaganda. These include a collection of pamphlets under the title, ‘A Practical Course in Democracy’, where trivial information about American democracy and theoretical constructs current in the early twentieth century are offered for the enlightenment of teachers and students alike.51 An example of a more successful attempt is the textbook, Democracy: State and Society, recommended by the Ministry of Education for general secondary schools, lyceums, and gymnasiums, authored by Canadian and Rus-sian specialists, and structurally grounded in the most recent methodologies. The text provides numerous discussion questions, self-testing, witty illustrations, and logical and elegant narrative. However, it also illustrates the many unsolved problems in the teaching of democracy. First, it offers students only one model of democracy: ‘The most important feature, the essence of democracy, is the right to personal freedom and respect for the individual.’52 The textbook addresses issues of government and policy rather than how people live in a democratic society. This approach is evident in A.G. Asmolov’s introduction: ‘The textbook . . . allows children to identify with its protagonists, which are the parliament, state leaders, and the president.’53 The book lacks a real-life context and avoids the debate over problems of an emerging Russian democracy. Numerous examples of the totalitarian Soviet regime’s failures are no substitute for a discussion of contemporary life or future alternatives. 141

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To be sure, some translations are useful, because they give teachers an understanding of the work of foreign colleagues. However, their use ‘as is’ contradicts the very spirit of today’s multicultural theory of education that insists on the importance of the national-cultural context. Finally, we want to point out that in spite of all of the attempts of our western colleagues to create ‘a teacher-proof’ textbook, there is ample evidence that an authoritarian educator, whether in Russia or abroad, can transform any text about democracy into a tedious tract on morality. Consequently, the desire on the part of Russia’s educational leaders to fill schools with new texts may not in the end have any tangible effect on the teaching of democracy. The genuine implementation of new courses requires both teacher retraining and appropriate institutional support. As our data have shown, the neglect of these requirements causes students to give a low rating to civic education courses. Why is it that democracy as an instructional subject does not generate active interest among students? ‘Teaching democracy’ can have a counterproductive effect. Superficial and routine misuse of the most meaningful ideas can turn them into meaningless verbiage. An adherence to the practice of the mere transmission of civic knowledge, to the moulding of convictions and values, will continue to reinforce the old paradigm of education, thereby hindering democratization. Some scholars have attempted to transcend the traditional framework and their efforts are cause for hope. Iurii Troitskii has devised an approach to the teaching of history involving the formation of opinions and of ‘historical thinking’.54 Troitskii shows that only such changes in instructional goals and methods can alter the position of the student in the educational process and modify the system of evaluation, a process leading to the transformation of the very structure of the school. He suggests teaching without textbooks and relying on new types of educational materials. His innovation promises a systemic revamping of instruction in the social sciences and, consequently, of instruction in democracy. Other studies employ an instrumental approach to civic education. Encouraging here are attempts to transplant onto Russian soil, courses on the development of critical thinking and conflict resolution.55 Nevertheless, such attempts are rare and, in our opinion, while the need has been proven not just for courses, but for comprehensive educational programmes in educating for democracy, the Russian school continues to use new material to reproduce an educational model of the Soviet type. The main reason for the rejection of a fresh approach is not so much the lack of teacher skills as a rigid structure that renders the classroom unsuitable for the implementation of such programmes.

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In search of new upbringing (vospitanie) Broadly speaking, the nurturing of democratic values, convictions, relationships and aims that were part of the reform agenda from the outset, by itself constitutes a component of instruction in democracy. Reformers believed that ‘in formulating new tasks for education, our contemporary pedagogy must focus on the creation of a special curriculum and methods for the formation of a personality appropriate for a democratic culture’.56 However, the educational system has not evolved and teachers cling to a narrow understanding of the school’s functions. Only about one-third of teachers think that the school must provide for the socialization of students.57 This failure, along with an inadequate understanding of theory, helps to explain why democratically oriented, comprehensive educational curricula are a rarity. The Russian Ministry of Education has studied various available approaches.58 Of considerable importance is G.G. Prozumentova’s view of school as an intricately organized joint enterprise between children of various ages and teachers or adults in general.59 In this view the school is seen not in terms of the interaction of separate groups of children and adults, but of their shared activity. A special programme aimed at ‘education of students in the spirit of world cultures, mutual understanding and human rights’ is offered by Z.K. Shnekendorf.60 Its distinguishing feature is an attempt at a comprehensive approach in order to meaningfully connect extracurricular activity to instruction in the humanities and the arts. The author aptly stresses the importance of the ‘student–teacher’ relationship. One can agree completely with the statement that ‘the slide into paternalism or indoctrination’ can be avoided by ‘participation of students in activity meaningful to them and to their society’.61 However, this educational programme is not age-specific nor does it take into account the real social context of education or the key prerequisites for success. Furthermore, two of its proposals are too general and rather impractical: ‘the development of students’ national consciousness on the basis of their culture and language environment’ and ‘mastery of the achievements of world culture and of the system of humanistic values’.62 A.N. Tubel’skii emphasizes the importance of students’ experience in democratic behaviour by commenting on the different requirements in western and Russian societies for the formation of their citizens: ‘One can assume that, if for the western school it is sufficient to oversee its students’ understanding of democratic behaviour [in the context of western] historical-cultural tradition, then the Russian school must become at this stage the main institution promoting this very experience.’63

Nurturing practices Many teachers turn to self-government as a means to prepare schoolchildren for life under democracy. However, they tend to pay insufficient attention to

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specific features of self-government emerging in new socio-economic conditions.64 As a consequence – and as noted earlier – self-government based on the inclusion of students in school councils has been a failure. A superficial activity, understandably, cannot become a school of democracy for students, many of whom have been profoundly disappointed by their participation in the councils. Like the former committees of the Young Communist League, many councils provided schooling only in hypocrisy and incompetence. O.S. Gazman finds the reason for this turn of events in the common view of education as indoctrination. Here is a paradoxical situation. The orientation is towards a democratic, law-abiding, civic society. How can we do that without selfgovernment? And, suddenly, a complete failure of self-government in the school . . . What happened? I can say only one thing: it was predictable. Personally, I see it as positive . . . A new type of genuine societal self-government of children and adults will appear . . . Selfgovernment will emerge not as a result of decree from above, but from below, out of the children’s and adolescents’ own interests, their need to defend these interests and the rights of the school’s citizens. This form of self-government appears, I reiterate, when there are interests that unite the children in the school, and when the school is organized as a civic society.65 One of the founders of post-perestroika humanistic education, Gazman clearly rejects a political model of school democracy and relies instead on the idea of civic society and on the ‘natural’ activity of schoolchildren in a freely organized school structure. However, only the most general, humanistic requirements for the organization of such a school are to be found in his work66 and that of his followers.67 Student participation in school legislation and governance represented a new direction in the formation of a democratic and law-governed society in that institution. A.N. Tubel’skii first sought to help students understand the necessity of a system of laws and rules and to propose their own laws in his ‘School for Self-Determination’.68 Today this idea has been adopted by hundreds of schools. Despite the presence of these innovative approaches, the prevailing position has been one that rejects value-based education. According to sociological data, only 6 per cent of teachers consider education in the school to be an important factor ‘in the formation of students’ civic values’.69 Understandably, the refusal of the school to participate in value-based education is effective in its own way. Thus, according to T.P. Gurina, about 40 per cent of students in the senior grades do not have socially significant values, and passive consumerist attitudes are on the rise.70 Fear of indoctrination is another obstacle to using the school for socializa144

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tion or for political education. In our work with members of the Association for Innovative Schools we have often encountered the widespread belief that the school ‘should only teach’. Educators who support this view overlook the new historical context. An Australian scholar of Russian education has aptly observed that this rejection of value-based education takes place at precisely a time when ‘the new orthodoxy, which emerged during the transition to the market economy, is becoming more severe than Communist dogma, particularly because it is informally introduced into life’.71 And the school is a part of this culture; indeed sometimes it even promotes it, introducing all kinds of economic games and presenting the image of a manager or an entrepreneur as the new ideal. Recently, some schools have been taking a more active position regarding socialization of the young generation. The notion has emerged of using students’ extracurricular activities as a means of acquiring social experience in a democratic society. The aim of such a programme is ‘to help younger schoolchildren adapt to their environment in the least painful way; and to do so not by a process of trial and error, associated with hardship, but by acquiring the necessary knowledge and social experience in a timely fashion’.72 One can readily identify here a vivid expression of the ideology of adaptational, nonconflictual pedagogy. The above approach speaks to the notion that specially organized classes can substitute for real-life experience. However, nothing is said about conditions needed for the reinforcement and application of acquired abilities in other spheres. As a consequence, the educational achievements of this programme are best characterized as ‘they know how, they understand, they imagine’. Personal experience as a category is ignored. As some commentators have noted, such programmes have not discussed ways of genuinely including schoolchildren in social activity.73 Less ambitious, but perhaps more meaningful, are the rare programmes for schoolchildren where they actually go through internships. The schools of A.N. Tubel’skii and A.G. Kasprzhak offer their students such programmes.74 Often inspired by the best of motives but lacking models for imitation, many pedagogical teams turned once again to the methodology of direct political socialization provided by the Soviet school. Thus Krasnoiarsk School No. 100 recreated a school-wide Pioneer organization under the slogan ‘Be prepared to fight for the good of the homeland!’ A number of other schools formed analogous youth organizations. ‘Fresh’ dissertations on the subject have appeared, stating with the old fervour that under conditions of a multiparty system, a lack of control, and the sudden appearance of various ‘schools’ and sects and other forms of the alienation and corruption of our young people, it is necessary to have [in place] a unidirectional programme for the formation of the individual and of the individual’s political culture. Overall state policy 145

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should be directed towards the inculcation of scientific ideology in the consciousness of the masses and in the young people in particular and towards the upbringing of a consciously active individual.75 Gazman has noted critically of many teachers: They share at least two features – responsiveness to the government’s educational agenda, i.e., an eagerness to receive firm directives about what kind of person to bring up; and the desire to recreate the traditional normative model of education, operative in a society where established values, customs and traditions are passed on from generation to generation once and for all.76 Therefore, today we need practical examples of and also theoretical work on pedagogical mechanisms and conditions for socialization ‘in which a person acquires not only passive–adaptive, but also active–adaptive capabilities for dealing with the socio-political environment’.77

From disappointment to hope? It would be wrong to conclude that the difficulties and drawbacks described above signify complete failure of the reform of Russian education. Irreversible changes have taken place in the Russian school, securing its radical departure from the totalitarian Soviet school. However, even if not strictly totalitarian now, the Russian school has failed to become a system of joint public–state education for a democratic society. The former reformist minister Edward Dneprov writes: The generally technocratic character of Russian reforms and the new realities of the transitional period have resulted in the dwindling of these strategic priorities [of democratization] as well as of educational policy itself. Of the (reformist) educational policy only declarations [of intent] remain. Policy turned conservative and has been reduced to bureaucratic manoeuvre.78 It is not surprising, therefore, to see among educators, school directors and officials, a profound disillusionment with democratic slogans. For many of them, the word ‘democracy’ (as well as ‘humanism’) has become almost an empty catchphrase. Scholarly works calling for a return to the legacy of the Soviet school and criticizing democratization for its excessive individualism have re-emerged.79 The early 1990s featured a wave of research by young scholars on democratization, but recently this topic has become unfashionable and even unsavoury, testimony to the change in mood among educationalists. Some scholars have sought to resurrect the old ‘inventory-oriented com146

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prehensive’ taxonomy of school goals and to combine uncritically hackneyed democratic slogans with traditional (Soviet) notions of the ‘good’ citizen. Of particular theoretical interest are trends seeking to create a ‘patriotic state ideology aimed at the upbringing of a patriotic citizen of Russian society’.80 However, a radical rethinking of the former notions of patriotism, rather than a return to them, is needed. There are, for example, numerous sociological surveys that demonstrate the unpatriotic inclinations of young people who do not select patriotism as an important quality when polled. Yet in the same questionnaire they often respond that they would like a meaningful life for themselves and for their loved ones, and that they would like to live in a wellorganized society. Is this not a new formulation of patriotism when a person wants happiness, not for the homeland, but for himself and his loved ones in this homeland? It is not so much ideological disagreements (since everybody uses words such as ‘democracy’, ‘citizenship’ and ‘humanistic values’) but, rather, methodological differences that matter here. Therefore, when we speak of a conservative reaction, we are referring not so much to the return of former slogans and guidelines as to ineffective methods. One can certainly agree with critical reports that point to bewilderment and the atrophy of the psychological, pedagogical and moral orientation of a considerable number of educators.81 What are the methodological guidelines for a way out of this situation? Should we believe, as does B.T. Likhachev, for example, that controversial information which students receive is harmful and dangerous?82 Can we accept today, as part of basic educational reasoning, the notion that ‘as a part of the state the school cannot turn away from its destiny to exercise educational control over the younger generation’.83 These opinions demonstrate how earlier methodological notions bind innovative practices hand and foot, hindering their understanding in new institutional settings or in conjunction with other, even older, but revised ideas. Disillusionment with democratic slogans has led to a conservative reaction not only in theory but also in educational practice. A new version of the Russian Federation’s law, On Education, for example, has substantially curbed the rights of school councils and eliminated the election of directors. Many specialists and public figures agree that this change was a pragmatic move but clearly anti-democratic and centralizing, if not openly anti-reform.84 All mention of councils has virtually disappeared from directives and decrees at both the federal and local levels. With the help of new normative documents, education by choice, proclaimed as the major achievement of reform, has become a fiction for schools and even more so for the individual child. Sceptical voices about new approaches can increasingly be heard at the federal level and especially among regional and municipal departments of education. Innovators are now accused of being overly adventurous pipedreamers. Under the guise of talk about sober decisions and restoration of order, we see a profanation of such reformist ideas as joint public–state governance of education and 147

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the democratization of the educational process. This state of affairs is a consequence not just of nostalgia for the administrative-command system but of a blatant lack of clarity in conceptual frameworks for reform. We constantly encounter questions about the public–state system of governance: ‘Who is this representative public? Who elected it?’. Obviously, such questions stem from simplistic notions of democracy. They would be out of place in a thriving participatory democracy. The growing conservative reaction in education is vividly apparent in the area of educational standards. Standards are in fact being viewed in the framework of the former ideology both administratively, as a means of exercising total control over schools, and in terms of educational content, as a means of retaining the informational, skills-oriented character of instructional material and the dogmatic nature of education. The cutting edge of the new–old policy of standardization is directed against democratization, a sentiment reflected in the following remark: ‘The process of democratization of education cannot go unregulated, since processes that are generally positive can easily develop into something quite the opposite.’85 At the regional level, standards were immediately embraced as a means to make schools part of a unified system and as an opportunity to resurrect school inspections. As surveys of the directors of innovative and experimental schools show, many schools have ‘fallen prey’ to this fresh appetite for inspections. Despite reformist rhetoric, inspectors, as in the good old days, assess all schools with the same measuring stick. Innovation has become the privilege of selected schools, and this, naturally, closes the door to creativity for young, struggling kollektivy. Growing conservative tendencies among parents are especially alarming. If, according to our 1991 survey, more than 70 per cent of parents wanted their children to study in experimental programmes, in 1996 this indicator had fallen to 35 per cent. The innovative spirit has abated among teachers as well. Numerous publications on the ‘pedagogy of cooperation’, for example, point to an exhaustion of the already meagre supply of creative teachers. A survey of young teachers found that they are more inclined to work according to the old clichés, believing that order in the classroom is more important than a creative atmosphere. Certainly the state’s neglect of education, the chronic deficit in school financing, and arrears in teachers’ pay have not helped to promote democratic ideas among educators. One can agree that in a ‘considerably de-ideologized, somewhat humanized and slightly bureaucratized school’ educational philosophy has remained the same.86 The old, superficially touched-up paradigm of the ‘ordinary school’, although cosmetically altered, still remains the dominant one. Authors of attempts to genuinely renew the school, while numerous and differ148

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ent in scale, have not yet become aware of their own commonalities, joined forces, or found a unifying framework.’87 As P. Shchedrovitskii has argued, ‘the reform of education has a reactive rather than proactive character. There is no reform of education as of yet but only general social and cultural transformations which some people try to present as a reform of the structure of professional pedagogical activity or of the socio-cultural institutions that support it’.88 Are the disappointment and conservative reaction irreversible? Is it true that schools are moving backwards? Such a conclusion would be quite premature. The school cannot go backwards if society is not doing so. We tend to interpret what others consider as backward movement more as a slowing down of very turbulent change. Similar setbacks, and even reversals in educational reforms have been observed in other countries.89 As far as Russian reform is concerned, one can agree with Dneprov that ‘delays and partial setbacks in reforms are as natural at certain times as “jumping ahead” would be. Therefore one should not over-dramatize this phenomenon, but work with it.’90 Nevertheless, this slowdown is not a good sign. Contrary to Dneprov’s opinion, we link it not so much to ‘the [waning] political will of reformers’ as to the insufficient renewal of the school, to the inadequate theoretical underpinnings of reform efforts. Once again the school has lost its independent position in the process of change (i.e., its transformative quality), and become hostage to and a reflection of the state’s charge to education and of the moods prevalent in society. Global experience shows that in a variety of ways democratization of the educational system is a rather permanent tendency. Moreover, sociologists and philosophers of education have demonstrated that democratization of education augments its effectiveness. This means that conservative tendencies in Russian education must be overcome: first of all, by exposing the causes of the difficulties and failures encountered by reform and by demonstrating its new possibilities. Unlike critics who see only catastrophes, we suggest that the reason for many negative phenomena in Russian education is not that there is too much democracy but that democracy is inadequately understood.

Notes 1 This chapter is adapted from Isak D. Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokrasticheskogo obrazovaniia (Krasnoiarsk, 1998), Ch. 4. 2 John Dunstan, Paths to Excellence and the Soviet School (NFER, 1978); Izaak Wirszup, ‘The Soviet Challenge’, Educational Leadership 5 (38), (1981); Iris Rotberg, ‘Some Observations on the Reported Gap between American and Soviet Educational Standards’, American Education 1 (19), (1983). 3 The author identifies choice as the core of liberal ideology and expresses the view that equity as well as participation are central to genuinely democratic school reform in his book Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia, pp. 18–76.

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4 P.T. Frolov, Demokratizatsiia upravlenia shkoloi (Belgorod, 1972), p. 7. 5 V.V. Gripich, ‘Organizatsiia raboty soveta shkoly po demokratizatsii vnutrishkol’nogo upravleniia’, PhD dissertation, Leningrad, 1991, p. 103. 6 Demokratizatsiia narodnogo obrazovaniia: Opyt, problemy (Voronezh, 1990). 7 T.G. Veremeenko, ‘Demokratizatsiia i gumanizatsiia vnutrennego shkol’nogo upravleniia’, Demokratizatsiia i gumanizatsiia uchebno-vospitatel’nogo protsessa v shkolakh (Krasnoiarsk, 1991). 8 Demokratizatsiia narodnogo obrazovaniia. 9 V.I. Bochkarev, ‘Uchenicheskoe samoupravlenie – vazhnoe sredstvo preduprezhdeniia i preodoleniia otklonenii v povedenii podrostkov’, Vospitanie shkol’nikov 4 (1988). 10 V. Iu. Krichevskii, Demokratizatsiia shkol’noi zhizni (Moscow, 1991), p. 8. 11 The author was principal of the Univers experimental school in Krasnoiarsk from 1987 until 1999. The first university laboratory school in Russia (affiliated with Krasnoiarsk State University), the Univers school worked on development of democratic governance and on curriculum development based on the theories of Vygotskii. 12 S.M. Iusfin, ‘Dogovor kak sredstvo gumanizatsii otnoshenii v protsesse pedagogicheskoi podderzhki rebenka’, dissertation, Moscow, 1996, p. 126. 13 Gripich, Organizatsiia raboty soveta shkoly, p. 6. 14 V.I. Bochkarev, ‘Sto zabot shkol’nogo soveta’, Narodnoe obrazovanie 3–4 (1992). 15 V.I. Bochkarev and V. Opalikhin, ‘Shkol’noe samoupravlenie v voprosakh i otvetakh’, Vospitanie shkol’nikov 4 (1988), p. 22. 16 Krichevskii, Demokratizatsiia shkol’noi zhizni, p. 31. 17 E.D. Dneprov, Chetvertaia shkol’naia reforma v Rossii (Moscow, 1994). 18 E.D. Dneprov, Shkol’naia reforma mezhdu ‘vchera’ i ‘zavtra’ (Moscow, 1996), p. 84. 19 Dneprov, Shkol’naia reforma, p. 383. 20 D. Zaida, ‘Shkol’nye reformy v postkommunisticheskoi Rossii i vospitanie novykh tsennostei’, Magister 3 (1994), p. 46. 21 T.L. Kul’pina, ‘Osobennosti upravleniia shkoloi v usloviiakh ee perekhoda k innovatsionnomu tipu’, Innovatsionnaia shkola 2 (1995), p. 47. 22 Iu. Gromyko and V. Davydov, ‘Obrazovanie kak sredstvo formirovaniia i vyrashchivaniia praktiki obshchestvenno-regional’nogo razvitiia’, Rossiia 2010 2 (1994); S. Krasnov, ‘Upravlenie razvitiem obrazovatel’nykh system na osnove samoopredeleniia neformal’nykh grupp’, Novye tsennosti obrazovaniia 5 (1996). 23 N.P. Karpliuk, ‘Printsip demokratizatsii obshcheobrazovatel’noi shkoly i protsess ego osushchestvleniia na sovremennom etape’, dissertation abstract, Moscow, 1992. 24 I.D. Frumin and B.L. Khasan, ‘ “Epifenomeny” psikhologo-pedagogicheskogo eksperimenta kak predmet spetsial’nogo issledovaniia’, in Deiatel’nostnyi podkhod v obuchenii i formirovanii tvorcheskoi lichnosti (Ufa-Moscow, 1990). 25 A.N. Tubel’skii, ‘Formirovanie opyta demokraticheskogo povedeniia uchenikov i uchitelei’, Uchitel’, kotoryi rabotaet ne tak (Moscow, 1996), p. 283. 26 A.N. Tubel’skii, ‘Formirovanie opyta demokraticheskogo povedeniia’, p. 289. 27 See, for example, Demokratizatsiia i gumanizatsiia uchebno-vospoitatel’nogo protsessa v shkole (Krasnoiarsk, 1991); A.D. Karnyshev, ‘Sotsial’no-psikhologicheskie aspekty demokratizatsii shkoly’, Sovetskaia pedagogika 8 (1990); M.M. Potashnik, ‘Demokratizatsiia shkoly: otnosheniia “uchitel’-uchenik”’, Vospitanie shkol’nikov 1 (1991). 28 M.G. Bekker, ‘O nekotorykh putiakh demokratizatsii obucheniia v shkole’, Demokratizatsiia i gumanizatsiia uchebno-vospitatel’nogo protsessa v shkolakh (Krasnoiarsk, 1991), p. 82. 29 E.M. Kolosova, ‘Demokratizatsiia obrazovaniia v sovetskoi shkole’, dissertation abstract, St Petersburg, 1993, p. 12.

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30 L.N. Emel’ianova, ‘Pedagogicheskie vozmozhnosti ispol’zovaniia situatsii vybora v uchebno-vospitatel’nom protsesse’, dissertation, Ekaterinburg, 1994. 31 A.G. Asmolov, Kul’turno-istoricheskaia psikhologiia i konstruirovanie mirov (Moscow/Voronezh, 1996). 32 I.D. Frumin, ‘Samoopredelenie starsheklassnika v letnei shkole’, dissertation abstract, Riga, 1990. 33 V.K. D’iachenko, Dialogi ob obuchenii (Krasnoiarsk, 1995). 34 I.A. Kostenchuk, ‘Dialog v pedagogicheskom obshchenii (o predmete pedagogicheskogo obshcheniia)’, Gumanizatsiia vospitaniia v sovremennykh usloviiakh (Moscow: 1995). 35 V.V. Davydov, Problemy razvivaiushchego obucheniia (Moscow, 1986). 36 S. Iu. Kurganov, Rebenok i vzroslyi v uchebnom dialoge (Moscow, 1989). 37 I.N. Gavrilenko, Otchuzhdenie lichnosti pri kapitalizme sredstvami obrazovaniia i vospitaniia (Kiev, 1986). 38 For a detailed overview, see A.P. Pstrong, ‘Profilaktika sotsial’noi dezadaptatsii uchashchikhsia’, Sovetskaia pedagogika 2 (1990). 39 Ibid., p. 44. 40 Sh.A. Amonashvili, Razmyshleniia o gumannoi pedagogike (Moscow: Izdatel’skii dom Shalvy Amonashvili, 1996), p. 27. 41 N.F. Radionova, ‘Pedagogicheskie osnovy vzaimodeistviia pedagogov i starshikh shkol’nikov v uchebno-vospitatel’nom protsesse’, dissertation, 1991, p. 6. 42 V.V. Gorshkova, Mezhsub”ektnye otnosheniia v pedagogicheskom protsesse (St Petersburg, 1992). 43 I.D. Frumin and B.D. El’konin, ‘Obrazovatel’noe prostranstvo kak prostranstvo razvitiia’, Voporosy psikhologii 1 (1993). 44 B.D. El’konin, Vvedenie v psikhologiiu razvitiia (Moscow, 1992). 45 V.V. Bashev and I.D. Frumin, ‘V poiskakh podrostkovoi shkoly’ Psikhologicheskaia nauka i obrazovanie 1 (1997). 46 I.F. Akhmetova, ‘Kontseptual’nye podkhody k prepodavaniiu prav cheloveka v srednei shkole zarubezhnykh stran’, dissertation abstract, Moscow, 1995, p. 9. 47 Sistema pravovogo obrazovaniia v shkole. Kontseptsii i uchebnye programmy (St Petersburg, 1995). 48 Iu. Asef, ‘Pedagogicheskoe rukovodstvo deiatel’nost’iu uchashchikhsia v protsesse prepodavaniia voprosov politologii kursa “chelovek i obshchestvo”’, dissertation abstract, St Petersburg, 1994, p. 11. 49 Ibid., p. 11. 50 Ibid., p. 13. 51 S. Lindemann, Prakticheskii kurs demokratii (Novosibirsk, 1995). 52 Demokratiia: Gosudarstvo i obshchestvo. Uchebnoe posobie (Moscow, 1995), p. 11. 53 Ibid., p. 3. 54 Iu. L. Troitskii, ‘Innovatsionnyi standart istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, Diskurs 1 (1996), p. 102. 55 E.A. Khodos, ‘Stanovlenie kriticheskogo myshleniia’, Pedagogika razvitiia (Krasnoiarsk, 1997); P.A. Sergomanov and S.M. Iuskin, Razreshenie konfliktov i vedenie peregovorov v shkole. Posobie dlia uchitelei (Moscow, 1998). 56 O.S. Gazman, ‘Demokratiia i vospitanie’, Pedagogika nashikh dnei (Krasnoiarsk, 1989), p. 170. 57 See, for example, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 49 (1992). 58 B. Pershutkin, ‘O novykh podkhodakh k poniatiiu “vospitanie”’, Vospitanie shkol’nikov 6 (1994), pp. 3–4, 6. 59 Kontseptsiia federal’nykh komponentov gosudarstvennogo obrazovatel’nogo standarta: materialy dlia obsuzhdeniia (Moscow: Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, 1994).

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60 Z.K. Shnekendorf, ‘Vospitanie uchashchikhsia v dukhe kul’tury mira vzaimoponimaniia, prav cheloveka’, Pedagogika 2 (1997), p. 43. 61 Ibid., p. 45. 62 Ibid. 63 Tubel’skii, ‘Formirovanie opyta demokraticheskogo povedeniia’, p. 283. 64 See, for example, N.G. Protasova, ‘Uchenicheskoe samoupravlenie kak faktor podgotovki starsheklassnikov k zhizni v usloviiakh sotsial’noi demokratii’, dissertation abstract, Kiev, 1990; G.B. Zhanburinina, ‘Uchenicheskoe samoupravlenie’, dissertation abstract, Kazan, 1992. 65 O.S. Gazman, ‘Poteri i obreteniia v vospitanii posle desiati let perestroiki’, Vospitanie i pedagogicheskaia podderzhka detei v obrazovanii (Moscow, 1996), p. 20. 66 Gazman, ‘Demokratiia i vospitanie’; Gazman, ‘Poteri i obreteniia v vospitanii’; O.S. Gazman, Novye tsennosti obrazovaniia (Moscow, 1995). 67 N. Ivanova and T. Frolova, ‘Pedagogicheskii smysl pomoshchi i podderzhki’, Vospitanie i pedagogicheskaia podderzhka detei v obrazovanii (Moscow, 1996); Iusfin, Dogovor kak sredstvo gumanizatsii otnoshenii v protsesse pedagogicheskoi podderzhki rebenka; N. Mikhailova and S. Iusfin, ‘Dogovornoe obshchestvo’, Novye tsennosti obrazovaniia 5 (1996). 68 Tubel’skii, ‘Formirovanie opyta demokraticheskogo povedeniia’. 69 G.A. Lovetskii and V.L. Sudarenko, ‘Osobennosti stanovleniia grazhdanstvennosti u rossiiskikh shkol’nikov’, Mir cheloveka 2 (1996). 70 T.P. Gurina, ‘Predstavleniia starsheklassnikov o tsennostiakh’, Pedagogika 4 (1995). 71 D. Zaida, ‘Shkol’nye reformy’, p. 49 (translated from the Russian). 72 Programma kursa ‘Sotsial’naia praktika’ (St Petersburg, 1996), p. 4. 73 V.V. Rogachev, ‘Pedagogicheskie usloviia vkliucheniia starsheklassnikov v sotsial’nuiu deiatel’nost’, dissertation abstract, Iaroslavl’, 1994. 74 M.E. Kukushkin, ‘Sotsial’nye stazhirovki v starshei shkole’, Uchitel’, kotoryi rabotaet ne tak (Moscow, 1996). 75 A.M. Korabukhin, ‘Narodnoe obrazovanie kak ob’ektivnyi factor razvitiia molodezhi i formirovaniia ee politcheskoi kul’tury’, dissertation abstract, Iaroslavl’, 1995, p. 25. 76 Gazman, ‘Poteri i obreteniia v vospitanii’, p. 9. 77 A.V. Ol’shanskii, ‘Politicheskaia psikhologiia: stanovlenie novoi nauki’, Magistr 2 (1994), p. 17. 78 Dneprov, Shkol’naia reforma, p. 22. 79 B.T. Likhachev, ‘Obrazovanie: ideologiia i politika’, Pedagogika 4 (1995). 80 G.N. Filonov, ‘Obrazovanie i ideologiia’, Pedagogika 6 (1995), p. 118. 81 Filonov, ‘Obrazovanie i ideologiia’, p. 27. 82 Likhachev, ‘Obrazovanie’. 83 Ibid., p. 42. 84 Dneprov, Shkol’naia reforma, p. 108. 85 Kontseptsiia, p. 3. 86 A.A. Pinskii, ‘Predislovie’, in Vospitanie k svobode. Pedagogika Rudol’fa Shtainera (Moscow, 1993), p, 38. 87 Ibid., p. 40. 88 P.G. Shchedrovitskii, Zhizn’ vzaimy (Moscow, 1996), p. 33. 89 M. Kirst, Who Controls our Schools? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987); M.A.Vinovskis, ‘An Analysis of the Concept and Uses of Systemic Educational Reform’, American Educational Research Journal 1 (33) (1996). 90 Dneprov, Shkol’naia reforma, p. 40.

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6 DE MOGRAP HIC CHA NG E AN D THE FATE OF RUSSIA’S SC HO OLS The impact of population shifts on educational practice and policy1 Stephen T. Kerr

Introduction As a social institution, schooling is remarkably resilient, yet in many ways quite conservative. In Russia, its resiliency has been demonstrated over the past 15 years under repeated attempts at reform of the system itself, its curriculum, its materials, the ways its teachers work, and its cost. In spite of these multiple reform efforts, what still happens from day to day in many Russian schools looks quite similar to what happened in Soviet schools a generation ago – the system has managed to preserve many aspects of its operation in a form remarkably consistent with the patterns laid down and carefully prescribed by Stalin’s Ministry of Education. Now, forces may be arrayed that have the power to shake a system that the best efforts of reformers, ministers, and international consultants could not. In 1993, on an extended trip to Russia to visit new types of educational institutions that were then emerging in the early post-Soviet era, I visited Ekaterinburg. There, on a late October morning, I attended a special meeting that had been called by a city administrator responsible for education. Those invited included representatives of all the city agencies responsible for aspects of the development and education of young children – teachers and school directors, but also psychologists, social workers, and representatives of the medical profession. One incident at the meeting stands out in sharp relief in my memory of the event: The city official who had called the meeting asked each of those present to estimate the percentage of children unable to make regular and reasonable progress in school owing to incapacitating physical, mental, or other conditions. Accustomed to US educational statistics which suggest that somewhere between 5 per cent and 20 per cent of children would 153

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fall into such ‘special education’ categories, depending on definitions, I was shocked to hear my Russian colleagues cite figures in the range of 50 per cent to 70 per cent. They provided some brief explanations, but the figures remained in my consciousness as indicators of difficult times to come for the Russian educational system. More recently, the realization has begun to grow both in Russia and abroad that the country faces a future much more difficult than simple bad economics might predict. In fact, a confluence of factors at the moment provides what may be the most serious threat that Russia’s educational system and younger generation have ever had to face. Three sets of phenomena are converging and interacting: 1 2 3

a legacy of compromised health from the Soviet era a series of general demographic trends moving in undesirable directions, and a set of frightful social pathologies.

Together, these do not bode well for the schools, teachers, and students of Russia. Ultimately the impact of these forces on the already troubled school system may pose serious threats to Russia’s survival as a major world economic and scientific power. The strategy here is first to review the variety of negative trends in health, demographics, and social conditions. Next, we will look at how these trends have had and are having an impact on the work that teachers and students do in schools. Finally, we will look towards the future and try to discern how these patterns may develop further, and what ultimate impact they may have on the Russian educational system. The data we will examine here come from various sources – mostly Russian, but a few western; some official government statistics, some sociological and other studies, some journalistic reports. Most of the data address national trends, but some regional figures are included where relevant (e.g., to address the ecological situation in and around Chernobyl following the nuclear disaster there in 1986).

The health of Russia’s population Russians now suffer from more diseases, and die from these diseases in greater numbers and at earlier ages than do citizens of other developed nations. Table 6.1 illustrates the differences. In the USA, during 1998, there were 364 cases of German measles reported, at a rate of 0.13 per 100,000 population;2 Russia, in the year 2000, reported 391,588 cases of German measles, at a rate of 1471.9 per 100,000.3 The contrast is powerful, striking, and typical. In Russia, infants (up to the age of one year) die at a rate of 1,696 per 100,000 births;4 the comparable US figure is 719.8.5 154

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Table 6.1 Death rate (deaths per 100,000 population) – selected causes Condition Heart and circulatory diseases Cancer Motor vehicle accidents Alcoholism/cirrhosis Pneumonia Suicide Murder All causes

Russia (1997)1 751.1 201.8 21.5 19.1 63.7 37.6 23.9 1,376.0

USA (1998)2 268.2 200.3 16.1 9.3 41.7 11.3 6.8 864.7

Source: 1 National vital statistics reports, 48, 24 July 2000, (Hyattsville, MD: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, 2000), p. 5. 2 Sotsial’noe polozhenie i uroven’ zhizni naseleniia Rossii, 1998 (Moscow: Goskomstat, 1998), p. 316.

Rates of infant mortality around Russia vary considerably, from 11 of every 1,000 children born in Mordovia and St Petersburg, to 24 in Tomsk Oblast, to over 30 in some more remote parts of the country.6 Infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, influenza, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases) spread rapidly under conditions of social distress and crowding. The rate of increase in reported cases of HIV/AIDS in just the past year suggests that Russia may be ‘in the first stages of an epidemic’.7 Serious influenza epidemics, while not necessarily killing large numbers of Russians outright, none the less likely contribute significantly to the rise of deaths from other causes during winter months.8 In Iaroslavl’ Oblast in 1996, the average preschool pupil lost two and a half weeks (17 days) in school to sickness, principally influenza and upper respiratory tract infections.9 Drugresistant strains of tuberculosis have appeared, spread rapidly, and have wreaked havoc in Russia’s prisons and hospitals in recent years,10 and children have been especially affected, with their rates of infection 1.5 times higher in 1997 than in 1990.11 The number of special schools for children affected with tuberculosis increased from 533 in 1992 (serving 29,200 students) to 858 in 1998 (serving 46,000 students).12 Some progress that was made in reducing the rates (or at least rates of increase) of such illnesses among children in the mid1990s under the government’s ‘Children of Russia’ programme appears to have dissipated in the last few years. Authorities observe increasing numbers of children underweight at birth, and those experiencing illness due to lack of essential vitamins and microelements in their diet.13 Different regions of the country are affected differently by the problem of worsening health, with poor regions and those with a heritage of environmental problems being especially hard-hit; in the Far East, for example, some 653 out of every 1,000 inhabitants are hit annually by intestinal infections, while only 287 of 1,000 experience such attacks in the Central–Black Earth region.14 155

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In the heavily industrialized regions of the former USSR, problems with air, soil, and water pollution have taken an especially heavy toll on children. In a recent survey among schoolchildren in Irkutsk, doctors found that the average child’s medical records listed 5–8 illnesses, with not a single child in completely good health. Rates of illness among urban children in the Oblast were reckoned to be four times higher than among those in rural areas.15 In Tomsk Oblast during the period of 1991–97, the health of children fared worse than that of adults.16 In Novosibirsk in 1997, preschool children accounted for 63 per cent of the cases of influenza observed.17 Orel Oblast witnessed gradual increases in the period from 1995 to 1999 of children with various degrees of serious health impairment to roughly 67 per cent of all children.18 According to one survey in Tiumen’ Oblast, a large majority (83.5 per cent) of Russians did not perceive themselves to be well.19 One factor that clearly contributes to the existence and deepening of health problems is the quality (or lack thereof) of the country’s health care system. Russia spends about $11 billion on its entire health care system annually,20 in comparison with an expenditure of roughly $1.5 trillion in the USA, a hundredfold-plus difference. Similar constrictions operate at the level of services for children, leading to deficits in vaccinations, maternal health care, and suicide prevention.21 The system itself suffers from problems of uncoordinated administration, an inability to finance equipment and medicines, and poor planning.22 The situation is not helped by relatively low levels of general health knowledge among the population, including knowledge about relevant childhood illnesses such as diphtheria and pediculosis (lice infestations).23 Even when vaccinations are available, they are not always effective – of those who contracted whooping cough in Novosibirsk Oblast in 1997, nearly 20 per cent had been vaccinated at some earlier time.24 The general warning sounded by these overall indicators of health for the fate of Russia’s young people is amplified when we consider four specific health factors which affect young people (and sometimes teachers): drug and alcohol abuse; poor quality nutrition; sexually transmitted diseases and complications of abortion; and psychological disturbances. Drug and alcohol abuse Alcohol has always been a major presence on the Russian scene. What has changed in recent years is the volume of consumption, and the age at which serious drinking starts. Alcohol poisoning, as noted above, is a serious problem in the overall national health picture, and deaths increased in the year 2000 at a rate 43 per cent faster than in 1999.25 Children increasingly see alcohol and drugs as a form of recreation,26 and one estimate suggests that the incidence of alcohol-related psychoses among children has grown by more than fifteen times during the 1990s.27 Alcohol may contribute to the problems of children in more indirect ways: women report themselves less attracted to 156

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alcohol-dependent men, and those men may be both less able to conceive children due to alcoholism and more likely to create marital problems that will lead to divorce and thus lowered living standards for any resulting children. Drug use has also grown rapidly among the population at large and among teenagers in particular. The numbers of registered narcotics abusers increased three-fold from 1993 to1998 (from 26 to 83 per 100,000 population) and of those hospitalized by more than four times.28 One estimate indicates that between 25 per cent and 33 per cent of young people are regularly using drugs.29 Some researchers see a transition occurring in youth culture from one centred around abuse of alcohol to one focused on heroin and drug use, and worry that the newer users come from relatively well-off families, including 75 per cent from families where both parents are present, and where parents are professionals – engineers, teachers, scientists, and so on.30 Data from 1998 indicate that 6,522 children below the age of 14 were treated for ‘serious narcotic addictions’.31 Drug addiction is seen as especially worrisome, since it is often coincident with earlier ages of initiation of sexual activity, and exposure to HIV/AIDS (whether through sexual or intravenous routes). Nutrition and the quality of food Russian food is notoriously low in vitamins, especially Vitamin C and calcium, and the reduced diet forced on many Russians because of straitened economic conditions has led to deficits in protein consumption.32 Scientists regularly express concern about the monotony of young peoples’ diets: minimal consumption of meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables leads to reduced levels of B vitamins for 10–15 per cent of the population and to growing problems with anaemia.33 Lack of iodine in children’s diets has become a special worry following the Chernobyl catastrophe, and some 75 per cent of children are said to suffer risk of early thyroid disease as a result.34 Sexually transmitted diseases and the problems of abortion Russia currently has about 430,000 people already infected with HIV, a number still considerably lower than the 1–2 million in the USA. But in Russia, the number is growing faster – at up to 1,000 new cases per week; one expert predicted that Russia would have ‘millions’ of active AIDS cases by 2003.35 The 57,000 Russians registered with active AIDS include 951 children under the age of 14,36 the majority of whom are likely street prostitutes from large cities. In general, the number of infections with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among Russians aged 0–17 grew from 17,558 cases in 1990 to 45,393 cases in 1996.37 Rates of infection from syphilis and gonorrhoea are also high and increasing rapidly – between 1990 and 1998, the number of syphilis cases among those aged 18–19 increased 47 times; for those aged 15–17, 55 times; and for those under the age of 15, 87 times.38 157

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The rapid spread of HIV/AIDS and STDs among young people can be partly attributed to rapidly changing patterns of sexual behaviour. Initial age for sexual activity among Russian teenagers trended down sharply between 1972 and 1995; whereas only 39 per cent of those aged 18 and below were sexually active in 1972, by 1995 that number reached 65 per cent. Russian youth also express approval for a wider variety of sexual practices, and have more sexual partners, than before. Urban young people and students are relatively more likely (67 per cent) to use contraception as part of their initial sexual encounters, but the numbers decrease in the smaller centres.39 A problem with contraception generally has been the tendency of Russian women to consider abortion as their primary method for controlling reproduction. In 1999, Russia registered 181 abortions for every 100 live births, a figure that has actually declined from 293 in 1968 but that exceeds the rate of West Germany by 15 times.40 Russian women also resort to abortion more regularly throughout their life spans (in comparison with women from western Europe, who use this method primarily under the age of 20 or over the age of 35); the high rate of abortions is connected directly with the relatively high level of maternal perinatal death in Russia – a quarter of all such deaths are directly attributable to abortion.41 As a method of birth control, abortion leaves much to be desired, since it tends to increase both fertility problems and problems with later births.42 While some experts have suggested that abortions be restricted in order to improve both women’s health and the reproductive potential of the country, the majority still seem to feel that any restrictions would be counterproductive.43 Yet another aspect of changing sexual mores that may be affecting Russia’s population is the bourgeoning export of female sex workers. One estimate suggests that up to 500,000 women have taken this path, leading not only to problems for themselves (many are naive and are in fact tricked into submitting to what amounts to sexual slavery), but also to the removal of their reproductive potential from the Russian population.44 In all, the problems of STDs and continued reliance on abortion as a means of contraception have meant that the possibility of teenagers enjoying both general physical and sexual health over the long term are lessening, the chances for normal fertility among Russian women are shrinking, and the health risks to newborn children are increasing. The consequences of these various influences for Russia’s young people constitute a cause for concern. Mental health In addition to problems with substance abuse and STDs, Russia’s young people face additional problems on a front that was almost invisible under the USSR: psychological illness. The number of schools for children with psychological problems has increased from 59 in 1993 to 105 in 1998, and the number of students served there from 10,400 to 17,300; students placed in special 158

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classes but accommodated in regular schools grew from 117,300 to 190,000 over the same period.45 More schools have the services of a school psychologist available now than ever before, and they deal increasingly with a variety of problems caused by stress and confusion in a rapidly changing society.46 Concern about children’s psychological health is a regular feature in discussions of general health issues, and at conferences. The school psychologist’s difficult lot is not made easier by the lack of a supportive legal structure, adequate tests, and materials for diagnostic work.47 The stresses of a changing society express themselves variously in adolescent psychology. At one extreme, suicide among young Russian males aged 15–24 exceeded 50 per 100,000 population, the highest rate in the former USSR.48 At the other end of the scale, Russia’s teachers and policy makers worry about the pressures being exerted on children’s mental health by undiminished (or, at some special schools, increasing) amounts of homework and required extracurricular activity.49

Changes in Russia’s demographic profile The overall demographic situation in Russia at the moment and for the foreseeable future is described simply, if crudely, in terms of a ratio: the number of births over the number of deaths. If the result is greater than one, the population is growing; if it is less than one, the population is declining. Russia’s population has been in decline for the past eight years. In 1992, there were 148.7 million Russians; in October 2000, there were 145 million.50 Some demographers refer to the situation as ‘the Russian cross’ – the point in time (1992) when the graph lines of rising deaths and dropping births actually intersected.51 The overall decline is about 750,000 per year. In recent years, many of the arguments among the demographers have revolved around how optimistic or pessimistic they should be about forecasting the future – in other words, is it more likely that death rates themselves (as opposed to actual numbers of deaths) will continue to increase, or will they level off ? According to the most favourable predictions (increased births and declining deaths, accompanied by some in-migration), the population will dip and then grow back to 143.7 million by 2015; but with a continued drop in births and deaths exacerbated by newly virulent diseases and increasing social pathologies, the number could be as low as 128 million. Life expectancy for males has fallen to 59.6 years, significantly below that in other developed nations.52 The situation clearly has implications for various aspects of the nation’s social fabric: the armed forces depend on cadres of incoming recruits of certain sizes; the economy demands a certain number of workers; a decline in the number of young people overall leads to an ‘aging’ of the population precisely at a time when working potential is most needed to rebuild and renovate the country.53 For children and schools, the decline in overall population means more competition from other economic sectors for those who might otherwise 159

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become teachers; premature deaths of males mean more children will grow up in single-parent families, with accompanying stresses. In addition to this general picture of the demographic situation, there are two specific questions that need to be examined with regard to the future of education. One – family structure – pertains specifically to the fate of young people and their ability to make adequate progress in school; the other – the continuing internal migration of people from rural areas to the cities – has implications for the likelihood of the nation being able to offer and support education universally throughout the land. Family structure The various factors noted above – declining birth rates, increased likelihood of complications at or immediately after birth, male mortality and abandonment, economic and social problems – have led many women to reduce the number of children that they otherwise might have borne. The earlier age for engaging in sexual activity means that more children are being born out of wedlock, with concomitant lowered chances for them to receive needed support during early childhood and education.54 In fact, some researchers note that the changes, illustrating as they do the possibility of greater freedom of choice for women and the removal of earlier restrictive norms, may ultimately be a good thing on an individual level.55 But the reduction of social services and support systems make the general prospect difficult for society as a whole. The problem noted above of continued reliance on abortions as a means of contraception, combined with earlier pregnancies, large numbers of premature births and pregnancies among teenagers, all contribute to and exacerbate the problems of childbearing and child-raising in contemporary Russia. Divorce also plays a role. The number of divorces has actually declined somewhat from the early and mid-1990s, when the rate reached 680,000 per year in 1994. But even at the level of 532,500 per year (1999), there are several hundred thousand children affected by divorce annually.56 In conditions where mothers are almost universally employed (and where economic conditions make it difficult for a woman to actually use the three years she is legally allowed to take off after the birth of a child), where women’s salaries are still typically far lower than those of men, and where availability of day care has recently decreased, the situation places large burdens on women. This becomes especially problematic when divorce is coupled with difficulties in paying child support, a rampant trend among husbands who are in a lower income bracket or are unemployed.57 Another phenomenon of the 1990s – child abandonment – is especially troubling, for it suggests a further weakening of family bonds and a willingness of parents to discard the most basic of all familial responsibilities. Statistics show that more than 12,000 children were placed by parents or committed by city officials to children’s homes (doma rebenka) in 1997. If orphans 160

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are included, nearly 597,000 children were in some form of children’s home or foster care in 1997, an increase from 460,000 in 1993.58 An especially distressing part of this equation is the fact that a relatively large number of those abandoned suffer from some form of physical or mental handicap. While a few such institutions have closed on the initiative of local authorities who have created mechanisms for increasing the number of adoptions and foster care arrangements,59 the majority of these children continue to live under conditions that offer little hope for the future. Migration Migration to, from, and within the Russian Federation constitutes another factor which has serious implications for the ability of the educational system to maintain its operations under current conditions. Two specific issues are relevant here – migration of educated Russians outside the country, and internal migration, principally from rural to urban areas. Both of these tendencies are driven by economic realities, and people’s sense that they will find a better life if they move to a less troubled region. While the numbers have decreased somewhat since the early 1990s, the number of citizens emigrating to countries outside the CIS and the Baltic states continues at around 80,000 per year.60 Many of these are the country’s most educated citizens – scientists, scholars, physicians, and teachers.61 Their loss means that the country has that much less cultural capital on which to draw for the tasks of internal reconstruction. When they leave, their typically low salaries (in comparison to what can be earned in the private sector) and intellectual lifestyles are often not attractive to many of those who remain and make them difficult to replace. Their departure may also, over time, lead to a situation in which the traditionally ‘high’ level of the curriculum becomes difficult to sustain. Migration within Russia is another aspect of the country’s shifting demographic situation. Here, the issue is one of migration from rural areas and small towns into cities, with consequent threats to the sustainability of rural schools. Figures show that the rural population has shrunk at a rate of 3–4 per cent per year over the past six years; the urban population, while also shrinking, declined less rapidly, at a rate of 1–3 per cent per year.62 The major line of internal, economically motivated migration over the past decade has been from eastern Siberia and the Far East towards the European north and centre of Russia.63 The number of rural schools has decreased annually from 48,800 in 1992 to 46,400 in 1998, while the number of city schools increased slightly, from 21,400 to 22,600, over the same period.64 One could argue that what started in Russia in the early 1990s parallels the process by which small rural schools in the US were rapidly consolidated into larger schools and school districts in the early decades of the twentieth century. However, without the facilities to provide transport to more remote consolidated schools, these 161

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changes must be seen by many rural Russian parents as yet another impetus to abandon the countryside for the uncertain pleasures of the city. None of these emigration factors, by themselves, are liable to be fatal to the education system, but taken together, they place additional pressure on an already weakened part of the social infrastructure.

The social pathologies of contemporary Russian life Most of the phenomena to be discussed in this section have already been alluded to in some way above – poverty and homelessness, environmental pollution, psychological stress, crime, and a climate of rapidly evolving personal values. These factors are closely interrelated with the demographic and health conditions discussed earlier, and it would be difficult to tease out precise causal relationships. Whether causative or merely co-linear, these features of the current Russian scene do influence the ways in which students and teachers work in schools, and the opportunities that schools have to seriously address the problems of the surrounding society. We will examine here the issues of poverty, pollution, stress, crime, and media effects on children, and begin with a look at some general evaluations of the quality of life in Russia today. Overall quality of life The theme is not entirely a new one; in the early 1990s, sociologists were already examining sets of figures on crime, pollution, and other indicators of a stressed society and culture. Morozova estimated then that 3 per cent of milk and meat were contaminated by pesticides, and that over 30 million people lived in circumstances that were ecologically dangerous or risky.65 She used the term ‘extinction’ (vymiranie) to describe the potential of the situation, a term that has also been used (not always without controversy) by others. More recently, the notion of ‘quality of life’ and related ideas have made their way into the Russian sociological and statistical literature. One analysis connecting some of the health and social indicators listed above found that higher birth rates are associated with a higher level of ‘human development’ (an umbrella term used by Russian sociologists and economists to indicate the combined effects of education, economics, and health).66 Education figures in many of these summary indicators of quality of life.67 Homelessness and poverty There is some evidence that the number of ‘vagabond’ children is on the increase, and that there may be as many as 5 million of them.68 Of those children eventually discharged from orphanages or children’s homes, it is estimated that around 30 per cent become homeless. It is interesting to recall in this con162

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text the work of Anton Makarenko in a very similar situation in the 1920s, when millions of ‘besprizornye deti’ (homeless children) roamed the cities and countryside, often organized into criminal gangs. Makarenko’s initial pedagogical work was with such children, and with trying to create a setting in which they could develop in at least a somewhat normal way. While increasing numbers of charitable organizations exist in Russia to address the question of homelessness, they are often poorly organized and under-funded, and often elicit hostility and suspicion from local authorities. Environmental pollution The consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe continue to reverberate in the consciousness of Russians, who are forced, daily, to address the implications for their own lives. A study conducted in Briansk Oblast, the region most heavily polluted by Chernobyl, found that residents were experiencing higher rates of thyroid illness, and problems with respiratory, nervous, and circulatory systems. The rate of endocrine system disorders among children in the region reached 68.5 per 1,000 in 1998, in comparison with an all-Russia average of 25.6.69 Several of the ‘closed cities’ of the former Soviet military–industrial complex have severe problems with radioactivity from prior accidents there.70 Many children in Ekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk) were negatively affected by the vaccine given to their pregnant mothers during an anthrax outbreak in 1979. The overall range of pollutants is large, as is the range of polluting industries and practices: soil pollution from toxic discharges by industry; factory discharges into water sources; soil erosion and spoilage from poor farming practices; forest fires, etc. Unfortunately, little progress is being made in controlling any of these processes.71 One estimate of the overall effects of air pollution on health suggests that, while the risk of death from pollution is not as great as that from the most serious diseases (heart attack, stroke, cancer), it does rise to the same levels as chronic bronchitis, suicide, murder, accidents, and several other causes of death.72 Stress and the environment A number of indicators point to increasing psychological stress on the Russian population. The number of suicides, at over 40 per 100,000 population, exceeds that in all other European countries except for Lithuania. Among young people, the rate of suicide is lower – about 22 in 1999, but still high in comparison with many other countries.73 Characteristics of those who commit suicide include low social status, unemployment, entry into the army or prison (or recent release), or pensioner status. Some conclude that it is not so much particular social indicators that predict suicide as a change in one’s status – away from a known and safe position towards an unknown one.74 163

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Other factors promoting stress are less easily quantifiable, but still take their toll. Uncertainty about one’s work, the state of the national economy (and possible resulting inflation), the possibility of finding better housing (for those still living in communal apartments or substandard housing), concern about medical conditions and the affordability of health care for one’s children or for aging parents – all these can increase the stress on children and families in ways that may make children’s success at school more difficult to support. Crime Young people engage in criminal activity today in Russia at a much higher rate than was the case in the Soviet Union. In 1999, nearly 11 per cent of all crimes were committed by 14–17-year-olds, and among 1,000 children of this age group, 183 will have committed a crime of some type.75 Those in the age groups 14–15 and 16–17 committed a disproportionate share of all crimes. Girls, in sharp contrast to the situation a few years earlier, were implicated in nearly 40 per cent of these crimes. Even younger children – those 13 and under – were charged with some 319,332 crimes. Many of the crimes in which teenagers are involved have a sexual element – every sixth rape was committed by a teenager, and every third gang rape was committed either by teenagers or with their participation.76 Figures from Samara Oblast, often cited as one of Russia’s more progressive regions, provide a vivid example of how these trends play out at the local level. For the year 1996, there were 16 crimes for every 1,000 teenagers (ages 14–17), and that group was responsible for 10 per cent of all the crimes committed. Of these young people, 38 per cent grew up in single-parent families, and 5 per cent in an orphanage or children’s home; both of these figures have been on the increase in recent years. Of those eventually convicted, most (65 per cent) had only a secondary or incomplete secondary education. As one observer noted, ‘Society must become interested at a gut level (krovno) that its future citizens have more chances to raise their intellectual level.’77 The media and children In the west, there has emerged a consensus over the past thirty years that repeated viewing of televised violence and erotica does in fact have an influence on the way in which young children come to view the world. The connections are hard to quantify in a way that would allow straightforward predictive assessments, but they do exist: those who watch large amounts of television violence, for example, and who live in environments where violence is otherwise a normative form of behaviour, and whose exposure to televised violence is not mediated by a parent or older sibling, are more likely themselves to engage in violent behaviour. Similarly, such media exposure often 164

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leads to a more cynical view of the world in general, and of interactions with other people in particular. A Russian study of 116 broadcast hours examined the presence and content of televised violence and sexual episodes. The authors found that the average broadcast hour contained 4.2 episodes of force or sexual content. Given that the average Russian teenager spends at least two hours per day watching television, this suggests exposure to at least sixteen such acts daily. While there is a somewhat higher incidence of such material on late-night TV (5.2 incidents/hour), the levels were almost as high during the morning (3.1) and day (4.6) when younger children are more likely to be watching. The authors were especially concerned by the fact that the frequency of such acts also rises at the weekends, another high viewing time, and by the variety of ‘formerly taboo’ social behaviour shown – fighting, beatings, insults, and ‘group aggression’, as well as natural catastrophes and accidents.78 On one level, the jaded western observer might be tempted to say to those Russians concerned about the behaviour and future prospects for their children, ‘Welcome to the club! This is how we’ve been living for the past 50 years ourselves!’ But doing so, however much it might allow us to dismiss these trends as ‘natural’ and ‘inevitable’, would also require that we overlook the distinctive nature of the Russian social experience over the past century, how that experience found concrete representation in the formation and practices of the Russian system of education, and what some deeper implications of these trends may be both for Russian education and for the country’s future.

On the brink: Russia’s schools, students, and teachers face social decay When we examine the trends in health, population demographics, and general social conditions noted above and try to assess their implications for Russia’s schools and teachers, we are faced with a quandary: While the problems seem frightening, in some cases even desperately appalling (health conditions stand out especially), for the most part schools continue to operate, teachers continue coming to class and doing their work, school directors and other administrators continue to try to keep their institutions running, the students continue to attend and carry out their assignments. So, the question may be, if the conditions are so bad, why isn’t the situation worse? That is, if the conditions of health, demographics, and social rot are actually affecting Russian schools in a very negative way, is there actually evidence that the system, its work and its participants (students, teachers, directors) are actively suffering? And if they are not now, will they in future? These are the issues we will attempt to address here through a brief review of the current situation for the schools themselves, the teachers who work there, and the students who learn, and on whom the country’s future ultimately depends.

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Schools: facing a troubled reality While the schools generally continue to function in Russia, there are some places where the strains are showing quite clearly. One of these is rural schools. As noted above, many rural schools have closed recently, and the large numbers that remain are viewed as being a burden on the system. One estimate suggests that as much as one-third of the $1.5 billion currently being spent to maintain the complete network of rural schools could be saved through some relatively simple restructuring and consolidation.79 Of all the country’s general secondary schools, over 70 per cent are in rural areas; they employ 41 per cent of the teachers, but they enrol only 29 per cent of the students. The quality of education in rural schools is generally considered to be poor, due to lack of supplies and antiquated facilities. As one expert noted, the students in these schools are effectively ‘left out of the educational system’.80 Lack of continuing investment in school facilities generally means that facilities are often in poor repair, and need basic remodelling. The widely broadcast revelations of Politburo Member Fedor Ligachev at the 1988 Plenum of the CPSU concerning crumbling schools that lacked running water, sanitation, and heating, have not been addressed significantly in the intervening years. Some 37 per cent of school buildings (housing 43 per cent of all students) still need capital repairs, and 7 per cent of schools (with 7 per cent of the students) were considered unsafe – several schools in Siberia burned down in 2002–03, leading to substantial loss of life. Only 193,000 computers were available for student use in all schools – roughly 1 for every 100 students (in the US, the ratio is about 1:3).81 Budget limitations do not promise much relief in the foreseeable future. School curricula and operations may also need to adapt to the changing ethnic make-up of Russian society, new consciousness among ethnic groups, and the movement of ethnic Russians back into the Russian Federation from other parts of the former USSR, bringing with them elements of those other cultures. While bi- or multi-culturalism has not been a major feature of the post-Soviet educational scene, there may need to be more attention focused here as groups increasingly intermingle, and as groups that initially sought to carve out ‘their own place’ in the curriculum of a region’s schools gradually realize that their economic survival and future are more likely to be tied to fostering close connections with the Russian majority, or perhaps in working with that majority to create a new curricular consensus about the place of various ethnic groups within the Russian Federation as a whole.82 The condition of children’s health interacts with the day-to-day operation of schools in ways that are now only a memory for most American school administrators. Large numbers of children sick with highly infectious diseases like influenza and measles, combined with the greater susceptibility of nominally well children to infection due to poor diets and contaminated environments,

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lead to a fairly high rate of school closures during the academic year for ‘epidemiological quarantine’. Such closures have occurred regularly over the past two years in many major Russian cities – Nizhnyi Novgorod, Astrakhan, Omsk, Ekaterinburg, Vologda, Ulianovsk, Khabarovsk, Syktyvkar, Cheliabinsk, and Simferopol. Lengths of closures ranged from a few days to two weeks or more. Children’s health, and how to improve it in the context of the schools, is a growing priority for educational leaders at various levels. A conference arranged by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education in early 2001 was to consider possibilities and make recommendations as to how to address the issue for preschool institutions.83 At the local level, teachers increasingly see health as a major curricular and practical issue for their work, and express the need for better curricular resources to deal with it.84 Ultimately, the work of the schools needs to be supported and guaranteed in order to provide for the country’s long-term survival. At the upper levels, this is expressed through concerns for the ‘brain drain’ of skilled scientists and researchers out of state-funded institutions for work in private firms or abroad.85At the level of the school, authorities have issued warnings that schoolchildren are less and less prepared for work in higher education – one estimate suggested only 40 per cent of ninth-graders are equipped for further study at required levels, and that today only a few students sitting for entrance exams at prestigious universities could solve problems that 20–30 years ago were easily dealt with by all. Freedom brings new responsibilities for those entrusted with the operation of an educational system, responsibilities that are not always easy to discharge. In considering this overall picture, some experts suggest that what is needed is a ‘conservative–evolutionary’ approach, one designed to preserve the best of the past but also allow for experimentation with needed reforms and new approaches.86 Students: into the ‘risk zone’ As noted above, students are increasingly enticed by the possibilities of drugs, alcohol, crime, early sexual involvement, and increasingly explicit media offerings. They are also threatened by health and environmental risks, a weakening family structure, and the stress that comes from living in a constantly changing society. Is it reasonable to expect them to be able to cope? One clear indicator of the future is the life plans of students living in rural areas. Put simply, they would rather live and work in the city. A study among young people in Penza Oblast revealed that 59 per cent of students would prefer to live in the city, and only 8 per cent in the country (the remaining 33 per cent were undecided). An even smaller percentage – 7 per cent – indicated they would like to work in agriculture.87 The personal values that young people bring with them through the educational system and into higher education are also changing under the influences noted above. A more economically oriented model of values now seems to 167

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predominate, with more tolerance towards corruption and acceptance of criminal behaviour, and a world-view in which conflict and interpersonal difficulties are seen as normal.88 One significant study, already cited above, looks at children’s changing situation and values, including sex, drugs and alcohol, crime, and familial stress. The last area is a subject of special concern, since young people now seem not to expect familial stability, and interpret positive spousal relationships largely in terms of sexual harmony rather than psychological compatibility. This last finding seems puzzling, for these same young people also have relatively little real information about the nature of sexual relationships, and act mostly on the basis of ‘street smarts’ regarding sex rather than on the basis of any real discussion in schools.89 Teachers: will they continue to serve? An important question to ask with regard to Russia’s teachers is ‘Why would they continue to work under such conditions?’ Part of the answer has to do with the strength and depth of their traditions – this is still a far more ‘honourable profession’ than it is considered to be in the US, and one often handed down through generations. Also, the options, especially for rural teachers or those in economically depressed regions, are few, and a teacher’s salary, if meagre and often paid two to three months late, is more secure than it was a few years ago. Teachers working in rural areas suffer under special circumstances. One plaintive comment on a rural teacher’s lot appeared in the journal Direktor shkoly (‘School principal’), and noted such problems as having to feed the cows and other animals before school, rounding up local unemployed workers and bribing them with vodka to cut wood for the school stove, finding the money to buy the wood to replace rotted floor boards, and consulting with parents and the school librarian about the unimaginably high costs of new textbooks. All is not stolid suffering in silence; there are in fact some signs of more open stress among teachers. One example is teacher strikes, which in 1998 involved 7,695 schools and 252,000 teachers around the country.90 Teacher shortages have also occurred in some areas, with an overall shortage during the 2000–01 school year estimated at 50,000 teachers.91 Surveys of teachers’ attitudes show them to be wary of the worsening conditions in education and science – only 10 per cent would wish their own children to become teachers, seeing it as a ‘unprestigious’ profession, and most are very pessimistic about the abilities of the government to solve either the problems of the schools or those of life in general.92 One interesting study of teachers’ values and professional orientation focused exclusively on those who work in kindergartens, the ‘upbringers’ (vospitateli). This is an especially interesting group to consider, since they, per168

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haps even more than teachers in regular schools, were always seen as distinctive under the Soviet system, and the true initiators of a child’s educational experience. In a survey of 270 kindergarten teachers conducted during 1998, Sobkin and Marich found that most were fairly content with their choice of profession, but that those in the middle of their careers, having from about 3 to 13 years of teaching experience, were least satisfied and most likely to consider an alternative career – about 19 per cent of those with 3–8 years’ experience, and 23 per cent of those with 9–13 years’ experience.93 This corresponds with patterns that have been observed in the west, where initial enthusiasm is gradually replaced by doubt and yearning for change, which in turn gradually changes to resignation to one’s fate. A further, more detailed factor analysis of the results showed that teachers’ values changed significantly throughout the course of their careers, and that certain features of their value structure seemed strong throughout – for example, a dissatisfaction with the marginalization of their work, low pay, and low social status, and the general lack of adequate facilities, materials, experts, medical staff, etc. Further, their interest in deep and pedagogically interesting reforms in the structure and practice of their work seemed to run far beyond the opportunities provided for them in their real day-to-day work settings, suggesting that the administrative superstructure of the educational system, as currently constituted, may simply be incapable of using the potential that does exist. Teachers do indeed appear ready to become ‘subjects’ of their own professional activity, but are frustrated by situations that deny them that chance.94

At the heart of the maelstrom: can the schools build a new social order? The current picture of Russian education is composed of sick children, increasingly affected by drugs and alcohol, eating poor food, living lives troubled by premature sexual activity, and displaying increasing signs of psychological harm from these influences; families coming apart, and a fearful sense among many people, young and old, that they need to abandon their rural homes and move to the city to ensure economic survival; a social surround that offers young people a virulent set of social pathologies – homelessness, stress, crime, and violent, hypersexualized media; schools that are closing in the countryside, teachers who are leaving for other work or dissatisfied with the work they have. What does this suggest for the future of Russian education, and for the future of Russia? There are some basic and commonsensical answers: sick children cannot learn, or cannot learn well. As long as disastrous health conditions prevail in Russia, the schools will not be able to pull out of their downward spiral. Wonderful equipment or even sound buildings are not absolutely essential, but health is as close to a sine qua non for education as we are likely to find. Likewise, stability, in the sense of knowing where one is living, that one has a place 169

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to return to at night, and that there are people there who will not abuse or hurt one, are probably also near the top in importance. As the society matures, and more people enter the middle class (which is happening, if slowly), perhaps these conditions can re-emerge for more of Russia’s schoolchildren. It is more difficult to see a clear solution to the problem of the move from the country to the city; the economic realities of life there are more attractive. But the problem in Russia’s hinterlands is that the infrastructure has not been developed that would allow consolidation on the same scale or in the same ways as occurred in the US in the first part of the twentieth century – good roads, buses, and administrative experience in creating and managing new kinds of schools are all in short supply. To develop this sort of infrastructure will be a test. The problems with alternative ‘lifestyles’ (widely available recreational drugs, abuse of alcohol, brutalized depictions of sex, violence portrayed through the media, etc.) are especially troubling for Russia, since it was so isolated from those influences – excepting alcohol – for so long. The schools were accustomed to committed students who took their work seriously, and who were not otherwise easily distracted. Now, all the influences of western popular culture are at Russia’s gates, and at the gates of its schoolhouses. Can the schools, by themselves, or with parents’ help, recreate the old culture of serious purpose and intellectual rigour? It will be an interesting test of one culture against another. Teachers are also part of this equation. To date, they have remained remarkably placid, if occasionally restless. But they have willingly put up with conditions no western teacher would stand for more than a day or two: schools without central heating in –60°F weather, warmed by a single coal or wood stove, with layers of ice on the walls, and students and teachers working in their heaviest coats. Yet, they continue to work, and have not yet found the political will or social voice to alter their particular lot significantly. Without its schools, Russia will continue to decline, and will ultimately lose that distinctive culture of learning that it developed at such high cost under the Soviet regime, and preserved in remarkably good shape until the past few years. This has serious implications for Russia’s standing as a world power, and as a contributor to (not merely a consumer of) world culture. Ultimately, change may require that the Russian government (at all levels) really begin to take education seriously, and not merely throw it the scraps of the leftovers. The changes which have occurred in Russian lifestyles over the past fifteen years may, in due course, force the Russian government to give a higher priority to education and to finance it accordingly.

Notes 1 This chapter was originally prepared for presentation at the conference of the Comparative and International Education Society in Washington, DC, in March

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2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

2001. Data of the kinds on which this chapter is based are necessarily ephemeral – they change with time, sometimes rapidly. Have the basic directions outlined here changed since this chapter was first written? There have indeed been some shifts, but not in a positive direction. For example, slower rates of in-migration from the former Soviet republics have further increased the net decline in the population. Interfax reported in late 2001 that there had been 75,000 new cases of AIDS registered during the period January–November 2001. High rates of teenage pregnancy, births to single mothers generally, and to teenage single mothers in particular continue to increase. Recent evidence suggests that these patterns are ever more strongly associated with the deepening divide between the poorest of Russia’s citizens and the middle and upper classes (see S.M. Massey, Russia’s maternal and infant health crisis: Socio-economic implications and the path forward. Policy Brief. East–West Institute, 2002. Available online at: http://psp.iews.org). Environmental problems continue, as do the threats to clean drinking water, for example. Mortality among working-aged males continues at a high rate. On two smaller, brighter notes: (1) there has been some progress in controlling MDR tuberculosis via intensive drug treatment campaigns; and (2) there has been some progress in reducing the high levels of abortion via increased availability of other forms of contraception (see Julie DaVanzo and Clifford Grammich, Dire demographics: Population trends in the Russian federation. http://www.rand.org/cgi-bin/Abstracts/e-getabby doc.pl?MR-1273-WFHF/DLPF/RF(ReportMR-1273WFHF/DLPF/RF) (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2001). National Vital Statistics Reports, 48 (24 July 2000), (Hyattsville, MD: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, 2000). Operativnaia statisticheskaia informatsiia (Moscow: Federal’nyi tsentr gossanepidnadzora, Ministerstvo zdravookhraneniia RF, 2000). Available online at: http:// www.fcgsen.ru/statinf. B. Brui, I. Zbarskaia, and A. Volkov, ‘O sovremennom sostoianii i prognoze smertnosti naseleniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Voprosy statistiki 3 (1997), p. 57. National Vital Statistics Reports, 48, p. 89. O sovremennom sostoianii smertnosti naseleniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii (1997). Doklad komissii po voprosam zhenshchin, sem’i i demografii pri Prezidente Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Available online at: http://vivovoco.nns.ru/VV/NO_COMM/ DEMOGOV.HTM. The Progress of Nations (New York: UNICEF, 2000). E. Andreev and V. Biriukov, ‘Vliianie epidemii grippa na smertnost’ naseleniia Rossii’, Voprosy statistiki 2 (1998), pp. 73–7. Sostoianie zdorov’ia naseleniia i ekologicheskaia obstanovka (Iaroslavl’: Analiticheskii tsentr, 1996). Available online at: http://www.nns.ru/provintsii/yarosl5/yarmy 23.html. Murray Feshbach, ‘Russia’s Population Meltdown’, The Wilson Quarterly 25 (2001); A. Zuger, ‘Russia Has Few Weapons as Infectious Diseases Surge’, New York Times, 5 December 2000. Naselenie Rossii 1997 (Moscow: Tsentr demografii i ekologii cheloveka, RAN, 1998). Rossiiskii statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Moscow: Goskomstat Rossii, 1999), p. 185. V. Shkol’nikov, ‘Zdorov’e naseleniia Rossii’, Voprosy statistiki 3 (1997), p. 72. Figures from 1996. Naselenie Rossii 1999 (Moscow: Tsentr demografii i ekologii cheloveka, RAN, 2000). Irkutsk: V oblasti prakticheski net zdorovykh detei (2000). Available online at: http: //demoscope.ru/newsp160.html. With rates of illness among those aged 0–14 increasing by 48 per cent and among

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22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

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adolescents aged from 15–17 by 110 per cent; O sostoianii zdorov’ia naseleniia i sanitarno-epidemiologicheskom blagopoluchii Novosibirskoi oblasti v 1997 godu (Novosibirsk, 1998). Ibid. E.N. Pereverzeva, Sostoianie zdorov’ia shkol’nikov oblasti za period 1995–99 gg. [Orlovskaia Oblast] (1999). Available online at: http://www.valley.ru/~san/gdp1.htm. A.V. Gubin, ‘Sostoianie zdorov’ia naseleniia Tiumenskoi oblasti’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 5 (1999), pp. 93–5. Naselenie Rossii 1999, pp. 100–2. Mark Field and Judyth Twigg (eds), Russia’s Torn Safety Net: Health and Social Welfare during the Transition (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000); V. Voloshin, ‘Pomogite pediatram material’no’, Available online at: http://vesti.ru/health/2000/ 02/04/pediatr/. ‘Russia’s health care emergency’, New York Times, 2 January 2001; M. Wines and A. Zuger, ‘In Russia, the Ill and Infirm Include Health Care Itself’, New York Times, 4 December 2000. E. Pervysheva and I. Gorshkova, ‘Otnoshenie naseleniia k immunizatsii protiv difterii’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 5 (1999), pp. 99–104; V.V. Khudobin and V.I. Zubkov, ‘Otsenka urovnia gigienicheskikh znanii naseleniia’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 5 (1999), pp. 102–4. O sostoianii zdorov’ia naseleniia i sanitarno-epidemiologicheskom blagopoluchii Novosibirskoi oblasti v 1997 godu (1998). ‘More Russians Drinking Themselves to Death’, Reuters, 24 November 2000. Cited on Johnson’s Russia List #4651, 25 November 2000. Available at: http://www. cdi.org/russia/johnson/4651.html. A. Demin and A. Demina, Novye dannye o zdorov’e nashikh detei (Moscow: Assotsiatsiia obshchestvennogo zdorov’ia, 2001). Available online at: http://www.glas net.ru/~hefrus/publications/bull07/01.html. A. Baranov, ‘Zdorov’e rossiiskikh detei’, Pedagogika 8 (1999), pp. 41–4. From 6 to 29 per 100,000; Sotsial’noe polozhenie i uroven’ zhizni naseleniia Rossii, 1998 (Moscow: Goskomstat, 1998), p. 310. ‘Deadly Youth Drugs Culture Flourishes in Post-Soviet Moral Vacuum’, Agence France Presse bulletin dated 18 December 2000, circulated on Johnson’s Russia List #4700, 20 December 2000. V. Popov and O. Kondrat’eva, ‘Narkotizatsiia v Rossii – shag do natsional’noi katastrofy’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 8 (1998), pp. 65–8. L. Miroshnichenko, V. Pelipas, and L. Rybakova, ‘Problemy antinarkoticheskoi profilaktiki v podrostkovoi srede’, Pedagogika 3 (2000), pp. 3–13. ‘Russian Food Expert Hits at Poor National Diet’, ITAR-TASS bulletin dated 8 December 2000, circulated on Johnson’s Russia List no. 4677, 9 December 2000. O sostoianii zdorov’ia i organizatsii pitaniia shkol’nikov (Moscow: Mossanepid, 2000). Available on-line at: http://www.mossanepid.ru/press/18092000.htm. A. Vasil’ev, ‘O nashem budushchem’, Guberniia 90 (1998). Available online at: http://www.karelia.ru/Karelia/NewsPapers/Guberniia/90/90–0.html. ‘AIDS expert forecasts millions of HIV cases in Russia by 2003’, RIA bulletin dated 28 November 2000, circulated on Johnson’s Russia List #4656, 28 November 2000. Inna Semionova, ‘HIV Infection is Spreading in Russia Faster than in Africa’, Pravda On-Line (21 December 2000). Available at: http://english.pravda. ru/main/2000/12/21/1594.html. The actual number of AIDS cases for 2002 and 2003 was estimated at between 1 and 2 million. Nicholas Eberstadt, ‘The Russian Federation at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century: Trapped in a Democratic Straitjacket’, NBR Analysis 15 (2), September 2004, p. 23. Rossiia: Epidsituatsiia po VICh/SPIDu prodolzhaet ukhudshat’sia (Moscow: Rossi-

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iskii federal’nyi tsentr po profilaktike i bor’be so SPIDom, 2000). Available online at: http://subscribe.ru/archive/science.health.sef/200009/26010517.html. V. Sobkin and N. Kuznetsova, Rossiiskii podrostok 90-kh: Dvizhenie v zonu riska (Moscow: UNESCO, Minobrazovanie RF, TsSO RAO, 1998). L. Kamsiuk, ‘Reproduktivnoe zdorov’e naseleniia Rossii’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 40 (October 1999). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. Only 22 per cent in Ivanovo; M. Denisenko and J-P. Della Zuanna, ‘Seksual’noe povedenie rossiiskoi molodezhi’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 36 (May 1999). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. ‘Pri odinakovoi rozhdaemosti v Rossii delaiut v 15 raz bol’she abortov na 100 rodov chem v Germanii’, Demoscop Weekly 3 (2001). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. E. Kvasha and T. Khar’kova, ‘Aborty v Rossii’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 48 (2000). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. L. Kamsiuk, ‘Reproduktivnoe zdorov’e naseleniia Rossii’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 40 (October 1999). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. V. Borisov, A. Sinel’nikov, and V. Arkhangel’skii, ‘Aborty i planirovanie sem’i v Rossii: Pravovye i nravstvennye aspekty’, Voprosy statistiki 3 (1997), pp. 75–81. J. Engel, ‘International Sexual Trafficking of Russian Girls as a Factor in Declining Population’, Moscow: MiraMed Institute bulletin dated 13 September 2000, circulated on Johnson’s Russia List #4510, 13 September 2000. Sotsial’noe polozhenie i uroven’ zhizni naseleniia Rossii, 1998 (Moscow: Goskomstat, 1998), p. 337; Rossiiskii statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Moscow: Goskomstat Rossii, 1999), p. 191. G. Morozova, ‘Degradatsiia natsii – Mif ili real’nost’?’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 1 (1994), p. 22–30; V. Braginskii, ‘Lishennye liubvi’, Zdorov’e detei 31–2 (2000). I. Vachkov, ‘ I snova o zdorov’e shkol’nikov’, Shkolnyi psikholog 5 (2001). Young People in Changing Societies: A Summary (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2000). M. Bogdanova, ‘Kto vyderzhit shkol’nye nagruzki?’, Zdorov’e detei 47–8 (2000). A. Germanovich, ‘Russian Population Declines’, Vedomosti/RIA bulletin dated 6 December 2000, circulated on Johnson’s Russia List #4673, 7 December 2000; ‘Osnovnye sotsial’no-ekonomicheskie pokazateli po Rossiiskoi Federatsii za 1996–2000 gg.’ Voprosy statistiki 12 (2000), pp. 31–42. Julie DaVanzo and David Adamson, ‘Russia’s Demographic “Crisis”: How Real Is It?’ RAND Corporation (July 1997). Available online at: http:www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP162. I. Zbarskaia, ‘Demograficheskaia situatsiia v Rossii na poroge XXI veka i neobkhodimost’ perepisi naseleniia’, Voprosy statistiki 4 (2000), pp. 5–8. B. Brui, E. Kupilina, N. Varshavskaia, and V. Chumarina, ‘O razvitii demograficheskikh protsessov v Rossiiskoi Federatsii v 1998 godu’, Voprosy statistiki 10 (1999), pp. 30–8; ‘Demograficheskoe starenie naseleniia rossiiskoi federatsii’, Voprosy statistiki 1 (2000), pp. 57–62. A. Baranov, ‘O nekotorykh faktorakh populiatsionnogo krizisa’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 7 (2000), pp. 116–19; ‘Obzor i otsenka tendentsii v oblasti zdorov’ia naselenia’ (12 November 1999). Moscow: Ministerstvo zdravookhraneniia RF. Available online at: http://www.owl.ru/win/docum/rf/population/zdrav.htm. E. Ivanova and A. Mikheeva, ‘Vnebrachnoe materinstvo v Rossii’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 28 (1998). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. ‘Kazhdyi god razvod v Rossii ostavliaet bez odnogo is roditelei sotni tysiach detei’, Demoscop Weekly 9 (2001). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru.

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57 ‘Otets kak kormilets’, Demoscop Weekly 9 (2001). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. 58 Sotsial’noe polozhenie i uroven’ zhizni naseleniia Rossii, 1998 (Moscow: Goskomstat, 1998). 59 G. Siun’kova, ‘Paradoksy opeki’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 2 (2000), p. 7. 60 Sotsial’noe polozhenie i uroven’ zhizni naseleniia Rossii, 1998. 61 Rakhmaninova and Varshavskaia examine the locations in Russia from which these emigrants left, and their analysis makes it clear that the majority of those leaving for countries outside the former USSR were from major scientific centres such as Moscow, St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Cheliabinsk, and so on. M. Rakhmaninova and N. Varshavskaia, ‘O migratsionnoi situatsii v Rossii’, Voprosy statistiki 10 (1998), pp. 78–81. 62 A. Avdeev, Gorodskoe i sel’skoe naselenie (1998). Available online at: http:// dmo.econ.msu.ru/demografiia. 63 E. Andreev, and M. Rakhmaninova,. ‘Vnutrenniaia migratsiia v Rossii: Proshloe i nastoiashchee’, Voprosy statistiki 5 (1999), pp. 53–63. 64 Rossiiskii statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Moscow: Goskomstat Rossii, 1999), p. 186. 65 G. Morozova, ‘Degradatsiia natsii – Mif ili real’nost’?’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 1 (1994), pp. 22–30. 66 A. Sagradov, ‘Rossiia i indeks chelovecheskogo razvitiia’, Naselenie i obshchestvo, 43 (2000). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. 67 See for example, I. Andreev, ‘Eshche raz ob obustroistve Rossii’, Vestnik rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk 71 (2001), pp. 39–44; V. Charina, ‘O model’nom nabore sotsial’ nykh indikatorov urovnia zhizni naseleniia’, Voprosy statistiki 8 (1998), pp. 15–19. 68 A. Zuger, ‘Russia has Few Weapons as Infectious Diseases Surge’, New York Times, 5 December 2000; E. Slutskii, ‘Besprizornost’ v Rossii: Vnov’ groznaia realnost’’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 3 (1998), pp. 117–21. 69 N. Zebolov and G. Bondarenko, ‘Chernobyl’skaia avariia i demograficheskie problemy v Brianskoi oblasti’, Voprosy statistiki 10 (1999), pp. 48–52. 70 G. Lappo and P. Polian, ‘Zakrytye goroda Rossii’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 16 (1997). Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. 71 V. Rodin, ‘O sostoianii okruzhaiushchei sredy v Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Voprosy statistiki 10 (1998), pp. 72–7. 72 B. Revich and A. Bykov, ‘Zagriaznenie vozdukha kak faktor smertnosti v gorodakh Rossii’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 22 (1997). Available online at: http:// demoscope.ru. 73 Deti v stranakh SNG, (Moscow: Statkomitet SNG, 2001). 74 Ia. Gulinskii and G. Rumiantsev, ‘Samoubiistva v Rossii’, Naselenie i obshchestvo 25 (1998), Available online at: http://demoscope.ru. 75 Deti v stranakh SNG. 76 Sobkin and Kuznetsova, Rossiiskii podrostok 90-kh. 77 N. Prozhivina, ‘Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskoe polozhenie detei v Samarskoi oblasti’, Voprosy statistiki 4 (1998), pp. 58–62. 78 Mass disorder, terrorist acts, vandalism; V. Sobkin, M. Khlebnikova and A. Gracheva, Nasilie i erotika na rossiiskom teleekrane: Opyt kontent-analiza televizionnykh transliatsii (Moscow: TsSO RAO, [1998]). 79 A. Matveeva, ‘Ekspert spros na gosudarstvo – Otkrytie obrazovaniia’, ISI Emerging Markets Data, (15 January 2001). 80 M. Gur’ianova, ‘Shkola rossiiskoi glubinki: Kak vyzhit’?’, Narodnoe obrazovanie 3 (2000), pp. 5–9. 81 L. Zharova, ‘Sostoianie obrazovaniia v Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Voprosy statistiki 1 (1999), pp. 55–9.

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82 M. Kuz’min, ‘Obrazovanie v usloviiakh polietnicheskoi i polikul’turnoi Rossii’. Pedagogika 6 (1999), pp. 3–11. 83 O. Reshetnikova, ‘Labirinty optimizatsii zdorov’ia’, Shkol’nyi psikholog 6 (2001). 84 Vologodskaia oblast’. Zdorov’e 21. Available online at http://www.vologda.ru/~avo/ Rus/Events/Health.htm. 85 L. Gokhberg, ‘Nauchnyi potentsial Rossii v zerkale statistiki’, Voprosy statistiki 11 (1998), pp. 18–31. 86 L. Kolesnikov and V. Turchenko, ‘Strategiia obrazovaniia v interesakh bezopasnosti strany’, Pedagogika 5 (1999), pp. 3–7. 87 N. Volkova, V. Korotnev, and M. Fedotova, ‘Proforientatsiia sel’skikh shkol’nikov’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 8 (1999), pp. 94–7. 88 V. Ol’shanskii, S. Klimova, and N. Volzhskaia, ‘Shkol’niki v izmeniaiushchemsia obshchestve’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 6 (1999), pp. 88–95. 89 Sobkin and Kuznetsova, Rossiiskii podrostok 90-kh. 90 L. Zharova, ‘Sostoianie obrazovaniia v Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Voprosy statistiki 1(1999), pp. 55–9. 91 F. Weir, ‘Russia’s Schools Struggle to Find a Fresh Slate’, Christian Science Monitor Bulletin, 1 September 2000, circulated on Johnson’s Russia List #4486, 1 September 2000. 92 L. Orlova, ‘O sotsial’nom samochuvstvii uchitelei Moskovskoi oblasti’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 8 (1998), pp. 88–94. 93 V. Sobkin and E. Marich, Vospitatel’ detskogo sada: Zhiznennye tsennosti i professional’nye orientatsii (Moscow: TsSO RAO, 2000), p. 128. 94 Ibid., pp. 137–62.

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7 T HE EDUC ATION O F RUS S IANSP EAKERS IN ES TONIA Kara D. Brown

Introduction While conducting research in Estonia in 1997, I interviewed a family struggling to decide where to send a daughter to elementary school. The father, a Belarussian who speaks Estonian fluently, favoured her enrolment in an Estonian kindergarten class. He believed that fluency in the national language, a skill that can be achieved most systematically through schooling in Estonian, would provide opportunities unavailable to monolingual Russian-speakers. The young girl’s mother, a Russian who does not speak Estonian well, felt differently. She believed that their daughter should understand her culture and be taught in Russian. The young girl disagreed with both of her parents. She wanted to learn English instead of Estonian so that she could travel one day to Santa Barbara, the city featured in her mother’s favourite soap opera. The dilemma faced by this family is shared by many minority parents in Estonia, who must ask themselves, ‘Where do I send my child to school?’ and ‘What impact will this choice have on my child’s future?’ It occurs when they must pick one educational track for their child: instruction in Russian or in Estonian. They base their decisions on the quality of education offered at Estonian and Russian schools, the opportunities for higher education and employment, and the desire to maintain their ethnic identity in an Estonian state. While non-Estonian parents struggle with issues of opportunity and maintaining ethnic identity, the Estonian government grapples with strategies to develop a civic identity and to guarantee minority rights. One of the primary goals of post-Communist education reform in Estonia is to create a school system that will aid in the integration of non-Estonians. In other words, the Estonian government wants to use education as a tool to transform Estonia’s minorities into groups that understand and identify with Estonian language, culture, and history. The Estonian government, while not requiring a homogenous identity, does want to promote a civic Estonian one, for which, it believes, Estonian-language skills are fundamental. In the early 1990s, the Estonian government passed legislation to protect and develop an Estonian-language environment: Estonian is the only official 176

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language in Estonia and the primary language used in business, government, higher education, and most media. The Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Schools (1993), which required the transfer of instruction in all secondary schools (grades 10–12) from Russian to Estonian by 2000, is an example of the ‘safeguarding’ language legislation passed in the early years of independence. While the laws passed since the mid- to late 1990s are less protective and older laws have been modified (e.g., the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Schools was amended in March 2002 to allow Russian schools to choose their language of instruction1), there is still a clear economic, educational, and professional need for Estonian-language skills. As a result of the socio-political Estonian-language environment that has been created and protected by these laws, many Russian-speakers recognize that Estonian-language skills are necessary for social mobility in post-Soviet Estonia. At the same time, there is still a place for Russian in independent Estonia; it is used as the main language, for example, in 14 per cent of Estonia’s public schools (primary and secondary combined; 3.3 per cent of schools are bilingual).2 Russian skills continue to be important to Russian-speakers, but more for reasons of cultural maintenance than economic incentive. Only one public institution in Estonia exists that has the capacity to develop Estonian-language skills among young Russian-speakers – the Russian-track schools. In fact, 26 per cent of all public school students at the primary and secondary level in Estonia study at Russian schools.3 Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools appear to have the general support of the three most important groups involved in Russian education in Estonia – Russianspeaking parents, Russian-speaking children, and the Estonian government. Given this apparent concurrence, why are Russian schools failing to provide adequate Estonian-language education to young Russian-speakers? The answer to this question is connected to issues of identity transformation and human resources. The first barrier is the tension between the Russian-speaking community and the Estonian government over strategies to improve the Estonian skills of Russian-school students. During the first years of post-Soviet independence, the Estonian government approached the Estonian-language problem as one that could be solved if Russian-speaking educators, school directors, students, and parents wanted it to change. When the government failed to see any substantial shift in the language programmes, coercive laws, such as the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Schools, were passed to establish deadlines that required Estonian instruction to improve, starting from grade one. The government failed, however, to justify these policies in a way that Russian-speakers and many Estonians could accept. As a result, the government’s legislation looked like an attempt to ‘Estonianize’ the Russian-speakers of Estonia and they, in turn, began to resent the government’s strategies for improving Estonian-language instruction. In the years 1998–2002, the Estonian government began to recognize that the slow improvement of young Russian-speakers’ Estonian skills stemmed 177

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not from a lack of will, but from the absence of resources. Many Russian schools in Estonia – especially those located in the predominantly Russianspeaking communities in the north and north-eastern parts of Estonia (Russian-speakers constitute 43 per cent of the total population of Tallinn, 93 per cent of Narva, and 80 per cent of Kohtla-Järve)4 simply do not have the necessary materials and teachers needed to develop better Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools. In post-Soviet Estonia, Russian-speaking parents and their children are left with two unsatisfactory educational choices. One option, taken by few parents, is to enrol their children in Estonian schools.5 This ensures fluency in Estonian, but can lead to assimilation – an outcome many Russian-speakers do not want. Furthermore, recent research indicates that academic achievement in these mixed, ‘immersion’ classes is lower for both Estonian and Russian children.6 According to Heidi Uustalu, a teacher at a north-eastern Estonian school attended by many Russian students, these lower achievement levels are due to an inadequate immersion curriculum, poor teacher training, and a lack of supplementary language classes for Russian students.7 The second choice, taken by the majority of Russian-speaking parents, is enrolment in Russian schools. This option guarantees a child’s ability to speak Russian properly and immerses the student in Russian cultural traditions. However, enrolment in most Russian schools essentially relegates the child to an inferior position in Estonian society; the majority of Russian schools do not adequately develop students’ Estonian skills and without them a young person’s future educational and employment opportunities are limited. Even now, well over a decade after independence, there are substantial obstacles, but there are also many positive signs. Most auspicious is the fact that Russian-speaking parents, educators and directors have become actively involved in a grassroots movement to improve Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools. Russian-speaking and Estonian parents, children, teachers, and administrators have suggested the following ideas: begin Estonian instruction earlier (i.e., in kindergarten or first grade), have more classes taught in Estonian, and improve the quality of Estonian-language textbooks. Advocates of improved Estonian instruction are hoping that Russian schools can become institutions for the development of both Estonian- and Russian-language skills as well as cultural knowledge. Parents are opting to enrol their children in Russian schools, but they support and, in some regions, even demand better quality Estonian-language programmes in these schools.

Historical overview of Russian education in Estonia Estonia’s Russian schools have been entangled in governmental strategies to construct and destroy identities for most of the twentieth century. During the interwar period (1918–40), the Russian school in Estonia was a central institution both for the creation of an Estonian civic identity and the reproduction 178

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of Russian ethnic identity. The interwar Estonian government mandated Estonian language and civics courses in order to develop Russian-school students’ Estonian-language skills, their allegiance to the Estonian state, and their understanding of Estonian culture and history. The Estonian Ministry of Education also emphasized the importance of Estonian-language classes in minority schools. In Russian schools during the interwar period Estonian was taught as the compulsory first foreign language. According to the 1930 official curriculum, the purpose of Estonian-language classes was: to raise citizens who could be useful to the homeland . . . By the end of secondary school, students in non-Estonian, general secondary schools should be able to be so far [along in their Estonian-language studies] that it would be possible to express themselves in the state language orally and in writing without difficulty, to be able to understand the spoken language of an educated person, to read Estonian literature, and to continue their education in our homeland’s institutions of higher education.8 The Estonian-related segment of a minority school’s curriculum was a crucial element in the government’s attempt to prepare minority students for work and life in Estonian society. The attempt to cultivate a civic identity among minority students is reflected in the 1921 book Kodanikuõpetus (Citizenship Education), written by Estonian judge Richard Rägo. Rägo maintained that through civics classes, and especially ‘through citizen learning [programmes], the youth are given an elementary understanding of the governing social and state order and a citizen’s rights and responsibilities’.9 The Estonian interwar government was not only interested in cultivating an Estonian civic identity, but was also committed to protecting the rights of national minorities to develop their own language and culture. The Estonian government’s interest in minority rights is reflected in Articles 12 and 20 to 23 of the Estonian Constitution (1920), which guarantee Estonia’s minorities the right to establish their own schools and to study in their mother tongue.10 In these minority schools, Estonian-language courses were mandatory. The Estonian government further protected the rights of minorities with the Law on National Minorities (1925), which allowed all minority groups of more than 3,000 members to establish ‘cultural self-government . . . [and to] preserve [their] ethnic identities, and develop cultural and educational institutions’.11 The Russians, who constituted Estonia’s largest minority group during the interwar period (8.5 per cent of the total population in 1934), did not apply for cultural autonomy since they were already an influential and powerful majority in the border districts where they were concentrated.12 Estonia’s German and Jewish minorities, who comprised 1.5 per cent and 0.04 per cent of the total population respectively, were the only two minority groups that applied for cultural autonomy.13 179

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During the Soviet period, the mission of Russian schools changed and the promotion of the Estonian language and culture was no longer a priority. From 1940 until 1991 (with the exception of 1941–43, during Nazi occupation of Estonia), the Soviet government used Russian schools, like Estonian schools, to propagate Soviet ideals and to ensure that students spoke Russian fluently. After the Soviet occupation of Estonia during World War II, the Soviet government made three important changes in the Estonian school system. First, it closed all minority schools except for the Russian ones. Thus, in place of the diverse educational options offered in both the public and private sphere during the interwar period, a two-track educational system was implemented – one track with instruction in Estonian and the other track in Russian. After the closure of minority schools, most minority students in Estonia, except for the Finns, were channelled into Russian, not Estonian, schools.14 Second, the Soviet government significantly expanded the Russian school network in Estonia to serve the swelling Russian-speaking population there. In the 1929/30 academic year, 866 out of 15,982 secondary students (5.4 per cent) were instructed in Russian; and in 1990/91, 80,519 out of 218,807 students (37 per cent) studied in Russian schools.15 As Table 7.1 indicates, the number of Russian students has dropped in the post-Soviet period. The increase in the number of Russian-instructed students was primarily a result of the immigration of an ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking population to Estonia during the Soviet occupation. During the Soviet period, the largest numbers of immigrants were from Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia; by 1919, the percentage of the eponymous group (Estonians) slipped from 88.1 per cent (1934)16 to 61.5 per cent (1989),17 while eastern Slav immigrants represented 35 per cent of the population in Estonia. As a result of Soviet-era immigration, regions of Estonia that were primarily home to Estonians in the interwar period developed into Russian-speaking centres (e.g., the Russian population of Narva in north-eastern Estonia grew from 29 per cent in 193418 to 85 per cent in 198919) and quickly changed the educational landscape. Third, the Soviet government created a curriculum for all Estonian schools that emphasized the Russian language. Whereas all the public schools during the interwar period shared more or less the same curriculum, after 1944, Russian and Estonian schools had different programmes of study. One of the most significant differences in curricula concerned language requirements. In Estonian schools, particular emphasis and time were dedicated to the study of Russian. By the 1981–82 academic year, the total number of hours spent on language learning in all the classes combined in Estonian schools was fortyone hours a week for Russian and sixty-six for Estonian. In Russian schools, however, the Estonian-language portion of the curricula received scant attention: the total number of hours (for all classes combined) dedicated to the Estonian language was only sixteen hours a week, while Russian-language classes were allotted seventy-two hours.20 180

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Table 7.1 Number of students by language of instruction: 1990–2002 Academic year

Estonian

Russian

1990/1991 1991/1992 1992/1993 1993/1994 1994/ 1995 1995/1996 1996/1997 1997/1998 1998/1999 1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002

138,288 137,274 137,133 138,996 142,151 145,276 148,316 151,478 153,848 154,747 154,499 153,304

80,519 79,691 73,058 70,020 70,224 69,286 67,345 66,023 63,729 61,094 57,685 54,308

Source: Haridus Ministeerium, ‘Üldharidus’, www.hm.ee.

Russian-language instruction for Estonian-track students was ideologically and financially supported by the state and party. In the late 1970s, the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist Party called on teachers to ‘teach their pupils to love the Russian language’21 and facilitated this mandate by making additional funds available for Russian instruction in Estonian schools. According to a 1979 ESSR Council of Ministers decree, Russian teachers’ salaries were increased and Russian-language classes were divided into smaller parallel sections. Hence, the Russian school during the Soviet period was a critical component of the system of privileges, allowing the Russian-speaking minority to survive in Estonia without knowing the Estonian language, history or culture. For the majority of russophones who lived in Estonia during the Soviet period, the quality or even the existence of an Estonian-language programme in their schools was of marginal concern. The Soviet Ministry of Education never required that Russian-speakers living in Estonia attain any degree of fluency in Estonian: the standard of Estonian-language teaching in Russian schools was low and the opportunities for gaining a solid command of Estonian were scarce. In addition, there was no prestige associated with Estonian-language learning. Mart Rannut, director of the Estonian National Language Board in Tallinn, claims that Estonian was not a priority in Russian or Estonian schools because it was considered by the Soviet central government to be ‘a language with no future’.22 In short, there was no incentive or real possibility for a Russian-school student to develop his or her Estonian skills; with Russian as the state language, one could easily be educated and find work without knowing Estonian. The shift in the curriculum of Russian schools during the Soviet period away from the interwar emphasis on the development of Estonian skills has 181

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had a lasting impact on Russian-speakers and Russian schools in post-Soviet Estonia. First, Estonia’s Russian-speaking population lacks an Estonianlanguage base: in 1989, only 13.7 per cent of Estonia’s Russian population considered themselves to be fluent in Estonian.23 Second, as a result of Soviet policies towards Estonian-language learning, Estonia’s Russian schools lack the necessary human and material resources needed in the post-Soviet period for implementing high quality Estonian programmes. For fifty years weak Estonian-language programmes were not subjected to criticism, teachers were hired with no training in teaching Estonian as a foreign language, and the study of Estonian began late in the curriculum.

Russian education in post-Soviet Estonia In post-Soviet Estonia, Russian schools have once again become institutions for the development of an Estonian civic identity. As in the interwar period, the government has been emphasizing the importance of developing Estonianlanguage skills. Although post-Soviet Russian schools are charged with a similar mission to their interwar predecessors, the socio-political environment in Estonia has changed significantly since 1940, making the effectiveness of Estonian-language programmes a more urgent priority. In this section, I provide an overview of the forces driving both the government and Russian-speakers to seek improved Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools. In post-Soviet Estonia, both the Estonian government and Russian-speakers are interested in the improvement of Russian school students’ Estonianlanguage skills. The reasons for the government’s support of Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools are manifold. First, the Estonian government seeks to facilitate the integration of Russian-speakers into Estonian society and to cultivate an Estonian civic identity. According to Estonian social scientists working on a government-sponsored research team, integration is: a process, within which non-Estonians residing in Estonia will join the local society’s affairs as full-fledged participants. Integration means a gradual disappearance of those barriers which are currently preventing many non-Estonians from becoming competitive in the Estonian labour market, benefiting from educational opportunities, and participating in the local culture and in political affairs. These barriers are primarily linked to the command of the Estonian language, knowledge of the local culture and legal status, as well as fears and prejudices caused by the rapid changes in society. Integration is not a change of ethnic identity; integration is not a loss of something, but the acquisition of new qualities necessary for survival in a modern Estonia.24 The successful integration of the country’s minorities will also help the Estonian government to gain favour in the international arena. Prominent 182

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international groups are interested in supporting integration projects in the former Soviet Union and have been applying ‘constructive pressures’ on the Estonian government to integrate the country’s Russian-speaking community.25 Significant financial resources accompany this international interest; an overview of funding for projects related to the teaching of Estonian to nonEstonians reveals that during the years 1993–97, donor countries allocated 28.75 million kroons (2.05 million US dollars).26 The European Union (EU) alone dedicated 49.1 million kroons (3.16 million US dollars) through the PHARE programme to integration-related education programmes.27 For international organizations, however, integration of Russian-speakers cannot be carried out at the expense of the right to instruction in their mother tongue. Therefore, the Estonian government must strike a delicate balance between successful integration through Estonian-language learning and a guarantee of instruction in the mother-tongue – two processes closely monitored by supranational organizations and taken into consideration in Estonia’s accession to the EU. In June 2002, the Council of Europe (CE) emphasized the importance of these two tasks in a statement to the Estonian government. According to the CE, although the government has paid increasing attention to the integration of persons belonging to national minorities . . . it is essential that the provisions aimed at increasing knowledge of the Estonian language are coupled with improved guarantees for persons belonging to national minorities to receive instruction in or of their language.28 Second, improving the Estonian skills of the country’s largest minority group is also crucial to the governmental strategy to protect the future of the Estonian language and the Estonian nation. In order to secure a place for Estonian in the Estonian state, the government has passed legislation that protects Estonian in specific spheres: political, educational, and economic. Within the political sphere, language skills are crucial for gaining Estonian citizenship through naturalization. According to the 1995 Law on Citizenship, for example, an applicant must pass a language exam requiring him or her to speak Estonian ‘at a minimum conversational level’.29 Estonian skills are also required for public higher education institutions in Estonia. The language of instruction at all state universities is predominantly Estonian, and the possibilities of studying in Russian are limited. Currently, there are two options for Russian-speaking university freshmen – either they can begin their studies immediately with students who speak Estonian, or for the first two years they can study with other Russian speakers. If the students choose the latter, they will have to enrol in the university’s intensive Estonianlanguage programme and by the end of the second year will be required to take all classes in Estonian.30 The third sphere in which Estonian skills are beneficial is the economy. The 183

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current professional environment in Estonia demands that applicants be able to speak Estonian. Many employers rely upon the state language exam, which is graded on a scale of A–F (with F being the highest), to evaluate the applicant’s level of spoken and written Estonian. The job profile of Russian-speakers attests to the link between Estonian-language skills and job opportunities. In a recent survey of Russian-speakers in Estonia, those who could speak Estonian had better jobs with a higher status.31 Therefore, even if Russian-speaking applicants are highly educated and well qualified, their chances for employment are reduced if they cannot speak Estonian. The post-Soviet political and economic environment in Estonia has shaped Russian-speakers’ attitudes towards learning Estonian. For the first time in over fifty years russophones have a personal stake in learning Estonian. Their eagerness to learn Estonian is reflected in a 1996 poll which revealed that 90 per cent of Russian-speaking parents wanted their children to speak Estonian well or at least adequately.32 Estonian-language skills are especially important for Russian-speakers among the younger generation. In a 1997 poll of university and secondary school Russian-speaking students, 91.9 per cent of the students claimed that Estonian language was ‘a very important subject’ (väga tähtis õppeaine).33 Most of the Russian-speakers know that in an independent Estonia not speaking the official state language limits possibilities and jeopardizes their future. According to newspaper polls and personal interviews, many Russianspeakers consider Estonian-language learning to be crucial for securing job opportunities in Estonia. In a 1997 poll of non-Estonian students at Tallinn Technical University, acquiring a job was cited as the chief motivation.34 Additional evidence of Russian-speakers’ support for Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools is provided by the active and voluntary involvement of Russian-speaking parents, educators, and school directors in grassroots efforts to create more effective language classes. Since Estonia regained its independence in 1991, Estonia’s Russian-speaking community has become self-reliant and creative concerning the language education of its children. Russian-speaking parents, although lacking any national or local umbrella organization (there are no parent–teacher associations), have had much success in implementing change in Russian schools. For example, Russian-speaking parents at two of the five Russian schools in Tartu changed their schools’ curriculum through their demand that Estonian be taught from the first grade instead of the third. Educators have also become more innovative. Despite fifty years of subservience to the central Ministry of Education in Moscow and working within a system that did not encourage alternative or innovative ideas, Russian and Estonian educators have also become involved in the grassroots movement. These teachers have discovered a variety of new ways to strengthen Estonianlanguage and culture programmes in Russian schools, such as Estonian immersion classes, extracurricular Estonian-language classes, and summer language camps.35 184

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The extracurricular programmes for language enhancement are the most popular and innovative of the grassroots programmes in Estonia. These outof-school language programmes exist to supplement, not replace, the more formal in-school ones. Several international organizations have also become interested in funding after-school programmes and summer language camps, as a result of the important role they could play in integration and language learning.36 After-school and summer programmes are especially popular with the north-eastern Russian schools, several of which have cultivated relationships with rural Estonian communities.37 One such summer language programme (suvekeelelaager) for Sillamäe Oldtown School No. 9 students was held at a farm in Kadrina. Kristi Tamm, an Estonian-language teacher in Sillamäe, explained the important role of the Kadrina farm experience in her students’ language education: ‘These children are ninth grade students at the Sillamäe Oldtown School No. 9, who are preparing for their state exam in Estonian . . . They wanted to continue to study at Estonian high schools and sought extra education.’38 In addition to the summer language camps, Saturday language programmes (laupäevagümnaasium) have also become popular. The benefit of Saturday programmes is that they are usually held in a convenient location and are inexpensive to attend. Moreover, the weekend programmes also introduce Russian-speaking children to Estonian society through visits to nearby Estonian communities. One such weekend programme has been organized in the Mustvee Russian School, which has run a Saturday Estonian-language programme for over five years. Students, in return for a 300-kroon annual fee, receive four hours of language experience every weekend and have guided field trips around Estonia.39 Changes in attitudes and approaches at the grass roots level (in Russian schools) are mirrored by changes ‘from above’. Over the last four years, the Estonian government has developed a new approach to language-education policy. Central to its move away from coercive policies has been its modification of the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Schools. First, in January 1998, the Ministry of Education extended the deadline for implementing the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Schools from 2000 to 2007. Then, in April 2000, the Estonian parliament defined an Estonian-language school (which is exactly what the government wanted the Russian Upper Secondary Schools to become) as a secondary school with 60 per cent of its curriculum in Estonian. The school could then decide which language to use for the remaining 40 per cent of the curriculum.40 Finally, in March 2002, the government decided to drop the law completely and allow schools to decide their own language of instruction. In addition to the revision of the 1993 law, the government also decided in May 2000 to grant Estonian citizenship to any non-Estonian who passed the final state Estonian-language exam in school and wanted to become an Estonian citizen.41 In addition to the changes in legislation, the government has formed research 185

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and strategy groups, and the ministry has clarified specific approaches to Estonian-language reform. The first two groups were formed in 1996: VERA was founded by the Estonian government to examine the challenges and possibilities of Russian school reform, focusing on how specific actors (e.g., parents, teachers, pupils, national minority leaders) influenced Russian school life;42 the Estonian Language Strategy Centre (Eesti Keelestrateegia Keskus), funded by the European Union’s PHARE programme, was founded in order to ‘develop a comprehensive strategic plan for learning Estonian-as-a-foreignlanguage in Estonia and enhance coordination of current and future language learning efforts’.43 Both VERA and the Language Strategy Centre provide research that helps the Ministry of Education to create more informed education policies.

Obstacles Despite the interest of both Russian-speakers and the Estonian state in the improvement of Estonian programmes in Russian schools, significant obstacles block the development of effective language classes. The first obstacle has been the Estonian government’s general failure to justify the benefits of coercive education policies, such as the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Schools in terms that Russian-speakers can accept. As noted above, many Russian-speakers interpreted the law as an attempt to ‘Estonianize’ them. In response to the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Education, one reporter for the Russian newspaper Estoniia, wrote to deny us national self-consciousness, our own national mentality, the opportunity to wear the dress of a foreign nationality and with it accept a different value system, world view, foreign system of thinking, a different language, and image of life. What is this? An attempt to erase memory? What will happen to this youth in the future?44 The Estonian Russian-speakers’ reaction to the government’s coercive legislation is linked to issues of identity. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian-speakers have been stripped of their Soviet identity, have witnessed the demotion of their native language from its former status as state language, and have suddenly found themselves a minority in an independent country. As a result of all these changes, many Russian-speakers are simultaneously defensive, proud, and confused. Russian schools are one of the few institutions remaining in Estonia that represent and ensure the continuity of the Russian language and culture in Estonia. Socio-linguist Joshua Fishman explains the importance of the symbolic value of minority schools: Disadvantaged populations are particularly dependent on this symbolism [of national language] since they lack the full array of other 186

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public symbols that advantaged populations display. The use of the disadvantaged language in the school is a symbolic statement in and of itself. It says, ‘We are here. We exist. We remain faithful to ourselves.’ The use of the disadvantaged language in the schools is a statement of public legitimacy on behalf of populations that possess few other symbolic entrées into the public realm.45 The concerns of Russian-speakers are articulated by organizations and political parties that claim to represent their interests in Estonia. These organizations have concentrated their education-related activities primarily on proposing legislation and on challenging the laws that have already been passed.46 Two Russian-oriented parties, the Estonian United People’s Party (Eesti Ühendatud Rahvapartei) and the Russian Party in Estonia (Vene Erakond Eestis), have been especially active in the Estonian-language–Russian school reform debate. In the mid-1990s, the head of the Estonian parliament’s Russian faction, Sergei Isakov, was a leading figure in the effort to abrogate the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Education from 1993. Isakov disagreed with the Ministry of Education’s decision to make the Russian school an analogue of the Estonian school and argued that Estonia’s Russian schools should continue to offer Russian history, geography, language, music, and literature. According to Isakov, what should change in Russian schools is the number of hours of Estonian-language learning.47 Sergei Ivanov of the Estonian United People’s Party argues that given the existence of concentrated Russian-speaking neighbourhoods in Estonia, especially in the north-east, instruction in Estonian is not feasible. Ivanov argued, This is utopia [the idea] that everyone [in Lasnamäe] will begin to speak Estonian. They won’t begin to speak it because there the conditions don’t exist. Even in 10 or 15 years people in Narva will not begin to speak Estonian. It has to be accepted that Russian is spoken in Estonia and the use of Russian should be regulated.48 In addition to offending the local Russian-speaking population, the Estonian government’s coercive legislation has also sparked criticism from the Russian government. Since 1991, Moscow has repeatedly justified involvement in Estonia’s school reform debate by accusing the Estonian government of infringing upon the rights of ethnic Russians. The Russian government’s criticism focuses on the ‘injustices’ of the current school reform in Estonia. For example, at a 1996 press conference, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs Anatolii Chekhoev argued, The long-term strategy of emasculating and downgrading education in Russian schools in Estonia has already begun. Rigid control is being established over school programmes. This retards the development of 187

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most pupils. In the absence in Estonia of Russian cultural autonomy it is difficult to uphold and protect the Russian language, education in the Russian language, Russian national culture. The Estonian authorities do not want to integrate Russians into Estonian society. On the contrary, they want to either assimilate them or drive them out of Estonia.49 Estonian and Russian educators and former officials of the Ministry of Education also rebuked the Estonian government for its Russian school policies, especially the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Schools. One of the most vocal critics in this group was Peeter Kreitzberg, a Professor of Pedagogy at Tartu University and former minister of education, who argued that the law should be amended or nullified. In Kreitzberg’s opinion, the transfer of instruction from Russian to Estonia signified essentially the ‘Estonianization’ (eestistamine) of Russian-speaking students and is, furthermore, unrealistic. Kreitzberg asserts that ‘No one is able to make clear what the Estonian state or Estonian culture gains with the forcible Estonianization of non-Estonian schools.’50 The second and more intractable set of obstacles blocking the development of higher quality Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools is the lack of qualified Estonian-language teachers, the shortage of textbooks, and, in many parts of the country, the absence of an Estonian-language environment. The lack of qualified Estonian-language teachers in Russian schools is an especially pressing problem. Since competent language teachers are the basis of Estonian programmes in Russian schools, untrained and incompetent teachers can jeopardize the effectiveness of any educational reform. Currently, teachers of Estonian as a Foreign Language are the least well qualified in the country. In 1993, only 39.7 per cent of these teachers had pedagogical training and only 5 per cent had professional pedagogical education in their subject.51 The general lack of Estonian skills among Estonian-language teachers was reflected in the results of the Estonian Language Inspection Board’s May 1999 review. The board evaluated the Estonian language ability of 250 Estonianlanguage teachers in Ida-Virumaa (north-eastern Estonia) and found that 59 (23.6 per cent) had inadequate language skills.52 An additional problem is the general shortage of teachers and the difficulties associated with attracting skilled teachers to the regions that are most in need. This problem is especially acute given the increasing demand in Russian schools for Estonian-language courses. In 1993, Estonia only had 50 per cent of the teachers required to teach Estonian and a shortage of skilled Estonianspeaking teachers in other fields.53 Given the low teacher salaries, which in the 2001/02 academic year began at 3,000 kroons a month (187 US dollars) for newly qualified teachers, it is difficult to attract students to this profession. The Estonian-teacher shortage is most acute in the predominantly Russianspeaking areas of north-eastern Estonia. In post-Soviet Estonia, the areas 188

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that have the greatest need for Estonian-language teachers have been experiencing the most difficulty in attracting and retaining skilled language teachers. Kersti Kaldma, head of curriculum in the department of elementary and secondary education at the Ministry of Education, claims that ‘The biggest problem is that we don’t have enough teachers who want to . . . live and teach in the north-eastern part of Estonia — there are not enough Estonians teaching Estonian to Russian-speakers.’54 The Estonian-language teacher shortage has resulted in an uneven expansion of Estonian-language programmes among Russian schools. Only a few Russian schools had Estonian-language programmes during the Soviet period, but in the post-Communist period the majority of Russian schools have them. The language programmes offered in different regions of Estonia, however, vary greatly. The greatest disparities can be found between the Estonian classes found in north-eastern Russian schools and those in Tartu and Tallinn. According to statistics from 1997, 62 per cent of all Russian schools taught Estonian in conformity with government guidelines; 17 per cent of schools offered Estonian from the first grade (according to government regulations, Estonian courses must begin to be taught in the third grade), and 8 per cent of schools taught two subjects in Estonian (e.g., Estonian language and Estonian literature).55 For some schools, the shortage of Estonian-language teachers means that an Estonian-language programme cannot be offered at all. In the 1997/98 school year, 12 per cent of Russianschool students did not study Estonian.56 In Narva, some Estonian-language classes are reportedly conducted in Russian.57 Furthermore, in some regions of Estonia, especially in Ida-Virumaa, English-language instruction is better organized than Estonian-language courses.58 The second obstacle complicating efforts to improve Estonian-language programmes is the compact settlement of Russian-speakers in predominantly Russian-language environments, in the north-eastern region and in the capital. During the 2001/02 academic year, the majority of Russian-school pupils were studying in two areas: in Ida-Virumaa County, where 36 per cent of Estonia’s Russian-speaking children study, and in Tallinn, where 44 per cent of Estonia’s russophones attend school.59 The Russian-speaking communities are concentrated in urban neighbourhoods (e.g., Narva, Sillamäe, and Mustamae, a section of Tallinn) that are disconnected from the Estonian-language environment. With low intermarriage rates between Russian-speakers and Estonians, the chances are slim that children living in these neighbourhoods will hear a native Estonian speaker in their home or on the streets. Furthermore, this Russian-language environment does not allow students to practise what they learn in schools. One researcher who examined social stress in IdaVirumaa County stated: ‘A realistic opportunity to communicate with Estonians on a daily basis does not exist in Narva and this makes it more difficult to study the language. It increases the feeling of alienation – alienation from Estonia as a state, as well as from its goals.’60 189

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Conclusion Despite the many educational debates in post-Communist Estonia, there is little disagreement about one issue – Russian schools are failing to provide students with the necessary skills for life in a society dominated by the Estonian language. Triin Vihalemm, a member of the Sociology Department at Tartu University, argues that ‘the Russian school does not prepare its students to participate in Estonian society – through language instruction, civics classes, [or] cultural courses’.61 Despite the consensus on the inadequacy of Estonianlanguage programmes in Russian schools, there remains significant disagreement about ways to improve these programmes. Why has it been so difficult to reach an agreement on ways to improve Estonian-language instruction? One answer is the lack of consensus over policy strategies. This is partially a consequence of conflicting viewpoints and partially a result of the Ministry of Education’s inconsistent strategies for developing Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools. Another factor contributing to the latter problem is the lack of continuity of leadership in the Ministry of Education. Since 1991, there has been a rapid turnover of education ministers. In total, nine people have served as Minister of Education, each with a different approach towards the teaching of non-Estonians.62 Another explanation is that Russian schools in post-Soviet Estonia have been entangled in the politics of language and identity transformation. From 1991 until 1998, the Estonian government attempted to develop an Estonian civic identity among Russian-speakers by passing coercive legislation on Estonian-language education. Russian-speakers, who had already recognized the market value of Estonian skills, resented the government’s legislation and interpreted it as an attempt to assimilate them. Since 1998, there has been a reconciliation of sorts between the Estonian government and Russianspeakers on the issue of Estonian-language programmes in Russian schools. Both groups now agree that rewarding students and schools that perform well on Estonian-language exams is a more productive strategy for language reform than intimidating schools into making reforms for which they lack the necessary resources. Despite improved relations between the Estonian government and Russianspeakers, significant obstacles frustrate attempts to develop better Estonianlanguage programmes in Russian schools. The shortage of Estonian-language teachers and the absence of an Estonian-language environment in many Russian neighbourhoods are problems that are not easily solved. The situation is most complicated in north-eastern Estonia, which is predominantly Russianspeaking. An economic and educational crisis exists there that is unparalleled in other parts of the country; not only are few jobs available in the region, but graduates lack the language skills that would permit them to improve their socio-economic status. The best hope for reform seems to lie in a cooperative, mutually favourable strategy that draws on the resources and energies of the

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two groups most invested in bringing high-quality Estonian-language instruction to Russian-speakers: the Estonian government and grassroots groups of Estonia’s Russian-speaking communities.

Notes 1 Estonian Foreign Ministry, ‘Estonia Passes Amendment Leaving Russian Classes in High Schools After 2007’, Estonian Review: 25–31 March 2002, www.vm.ee/eng/ kat–137/1729.html#domestic. 2 This figure is from the 2002/03 academic year. Eesti Vabariigi Haridusministeerium, ‘Üldharidus statiistika’, www.hm.ee. 3 This figure is from the 2001/02 academic year. Eesti Vabariigi Haridusministeerium, ‘Üldharidus statiistika’, www.hm.ee. 4 Statistical Office of Estonia (ESA), online statistical database from the 2000 Population Census, www.stat.ee. 5 Only 1 in 25,000 Russian-speaking students are enrolled in Estonian schools. Jüri Valge, ‘Eesti keel teise keelena uldhariduskooolis’, Haridus 4 (1998), p. 9. 6 Heidi Uustalu, ‘Uputusmeetod Ida-Virumaal’, Haridus 2 (2002), p. 35. 7 Ibid., pp. 35–6. 8 Urve Läänemets, Hariduse sisu ja õppekavade arengust Eestis (Tallinn: Jaan Tõnissoni Instituut, 1995), p. 60. 9 Jaan Tõnisson Instituut, Kodanikuõpetusest ja õppekavadest (Tallinn, 1996), p. 43. 10 Information Department of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Baltic States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 37. 11 Statement by Deputy Speaker of the Estonian Parliament, Tunne Kelam, at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 30 June 1993: quoted in Staff of Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Human Rights and Democratization in Estonia (Washington, DC: Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1993), p. 4. 12 Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Dependence, trans. Gerald Onn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 140. 13 Information Department of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Baltic States, p. 36. 14 Vestnik statistiki 6 (1991), p. 76. 15 Eesti Vabariigi Haridusministeerium, ‘Üldharidus statiistika’, www.hm.ee. 16 Riigi Statistika Keskburoo, Rahvastiku koostis ja korteriolud (Tallinn, 1934), p. 47. 17 Eesti Vabariigi Riikliik Statistikaamet, Eesti Vabariigi maakondade, linnade ja alevite rahvastik 1989, vol. 1 (Tallinn, 1990), p. 32. 18 Riigi Statistika Keskburoo, Rahvastiku koostis, p. 47. 19 E.V. Riiklik Statistikaamet, Eesti Vabariigi maakondade, p. 32. 20 Toivo U. Raun, Estonia and the Estonians (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1991), p. 212. By the end of the 1970s, Estonian kindergartens were being ordered to use Russian for half a day. Rein Taagepera, Return to Independence (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), p. 100. 21 Mart Rannut, quoting the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Estonian CP. Mart Rannut, ‘Beyond Linguistic Policy: The Soviet Union versus Estonia’, ROLIG-papir 48 (1991), p. 47. ERIC, ED 352803. 22 Ibid. 23 Estonian Ministry of Education, ‘Estonian Language Training: Policy, Priorities, Programmes and Past Assistance’, 4 September 1996 (Tallinn, Estonia), p. 1.

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24 Mati Heidmets, Krista Loogma, Tiia Raudma, Katrin Toomel and Linnar Viik (eds), Estonian Human Development Report 1998 (Tallinn, 1998), p. 51. 25 Open Society Institute/EU Accession Monitoring Progress, Monitoring the EU Accession Process: Minority Protection (Budapest: CEU Press, 2001), p. 177. 26 Donor countries and organizations include the US, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the UN, the European Union, and many non-governmental agencies such as the Soros Open Estonia Foundation. Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Linguistic Environment Needs to Be Changed’, p. 5. 27 European Union PHARE Estonian Language Training Programme, www.meis.ee/ eng/programme_information.htm. 28 Council of Europe, ‘Appendix 2, Resolution ResCMN (2002)8 on the Implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by Estonia’, http://cm/coe/int/stat/E/Decisions/2002/799/d04–1cx2.htm#TopOfPage, accessed 14 July 2002. 29 Estonian Foreign Ministry, ‘Citizenship Statistics’, Estonia Today, 19 March 1998, www.vm.ee/eng/estoday/1998/03cits.html. 30 Liudmila Poliakova, ‘Kuda poiti uchit’sia’, Estoniia, 30 May 1995, p. 4. 31 David D. Laitin, ‘National Revival and Competitive Assimilation in Estonia’, Post-Soviet Affairs 12 (1996), p. 36. 32 Open Estonia Foundation, ‘Estonia’s Experiment – The Possibilities to Integrate Non-Citizens into the Estonian Society’ (Tallinn, 1997), www.oef.org.ee/integrenglish/two.html. 33 Valmar Kokkota, ‘Mitte-eestlaste lapsed tahavad riigikeelt õppida’, Sõnumileht 9 (September 1997), p. 21. 34 Ibid. 35 Kara Brown, ‘Learning to Integrate’ (MA thesis), chapter 4, Indiana University, December 2000. 36 The European Union-funded PHARE programme donated 50,000 kroons to support fifty 10–17-year-old children from Narva to attend a language camp on Saaremaa. Marko Mägi, ‘Narvlased kaebavad Leisi keelelaagri olme üle’, Postimees 10 (July 1999), p. 5 (web edition). http://www.postimees.ee/leht/99/07/10/ uudised.shtm. 37 For example, Gennadi Bessan, director of the Kohtla-Järve Vahtra Basic School, recommended in a 1998 interview that language camps (keeleõppe-laagrid) be organized in areas where there are few residents of ethnic Russian origin. ‘Aasta 2007 pole enam mägede taga’, Haridus 5 (1998), pp. 4–7. 38 Ülo Tikk, ‘Loobumine kartulikasvatusest keeleõppetalu kasuks’, Õpetajate Leht 18 (June 1999), p. 8 (web edition), http://greta.cs.ioc.ee/~opleht/Arhiiv/99Jun18/ elustenesest.html. 39 Raimu Hanson, ‘Mustvee vene lapsed õpivad innukalt eesti keelt’, Postimees – Jõgevamaa 13 (May 1994), p. 7. 40 Argi Ideon, ‘Vene koolide sundeestistamine leevenes’, Postimees 4 (April 2000), p. 1. http://www.postimees.ee/htbin/1art-a?/00/04/05/esi.htmXesimene. 41 ‘Lopueksam vordub eesti keele tasemeeksamiga’, Postimees 31 (May 2000), p. 3. 42 Larissa Vasilchenko, ‘O problemakh i perspektivakh russkoiazychnogo obrazovaniia v Estonii’, unpublished paper, Riga, 1998, p. 1. 43 Estonian Ministry of Education. ‘Estonian Language Training: Policy, Priorities, Programmes and Past Assistance’, 4 September 1996 (Tallinn), p. 3. 44 Liudmila Poliakova, ‘Pered vyborom’, Estoniia, 26 May 1994, p. 3. 45 Joshua Fishman, ‘Minority Mother Tongues in Education’, Prospects 14 (1984), p. 54. 46 These organizations’ opposition to the education law falls within their much broader programme of protest against what they believe to be the Estonian

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47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62

government’s infringement of the rights of the Russian-speaking minority. The leader of Estonia’s Russian Party (Eesti Vene Erakond), Nikolai Maspanov, however, believes that by the year 2007 Estonia will have two state languages (Estonian and Russian), so this transition to Estonian-only education will not come into effect. Heikki Talving, ‘Sergei Ivanov and Sergei Isakov’, Laupäevaleht, 2 May 1998, p. 7; Toomas Mattson, ‘Venekeelse gümnaasiumihariduse saatus selgub uuel aastal’, Postimees, 18 (December 1996), p. 2. Urmas Paet, ‘Eesti vana poliitik Ivanov soovib kiiremate integratsiooni’, Postimees 8 (January 1998), p. 2 (web edition), http://www.postimees.ee/leht/98/01/08/uudised.htm#kolmas. Official Kremlin International News Broadcast, ‘Press Conference with State Duma CIS Committee Officials Regarding the Upcoming Election in Estonia and the Position of Russian Speaking People’, 27 September 1996, LEXIS–NEXIS, p. 3. Peeter Kreitzberg, ‘Voti peitub eesti keele oskuses’, Postimees 18 (May 1999), p. 7. Estonian Human Development Report 1995 (Tallinn, 1995), p. 36. Elo Odres, ‘Umbkeelsed eesti keele opetajad jaavad toota’, Postimees 7 (June 1999), p. 4. Peeter Kreitzberg and S. Priimagi, ‘Educational Transition in Estonia, 1987–1996’, in Paul Beresford-Hill (ed), Education and Privatization in Eastern Europe and the Baltic Republics (UK: Triangle Books, 1998), p. 56. Odres, ‘Umbkeelsed eesti keele opetajad jaavad toota’, p. 4. L. Vasilchenko, ‘O problemakh i perspektivakh russkoiazychnogo obrazovaniia v Estonii’, unpublished paper, Riga, 1998, p. 3. Eesti Haridusministeerium, ‘Opilased’, www.ee/HM/yldharidus/index.html. Kersti Kaldma, ‘Narvast – objektiivselt ja subjekttiivselt’, Opetajate Leht, 17 April 1993, p. 6. Kadri Valner, ‘Positiivselt vene koolist’, Sonumileht, 23 December 1998, p. 1. Estonian Ministry of Education, ‘Üldharidus’, www.hm.ee, 20 July 2002. Tallinn Pedagogical University Institute of International and Social Sciences, Estonian Human Development Report 2001 (Tallinn, 2001), p. 51. Triin Vihalemm, ‘Vene noorte sotsialiseerumise võimalikud teed: eesti koolis õppivate vene laste näide’, paper presented at the conference ‘Ethnic Minorities in Estonia – Their Current Problems and Future’, Mustvee, Estonia, 21–22 November 1997, http://www.jogevamv.ee/vihalemm.htm, p. 1. The turnover is a result in part of the change of governments. The eight ministers of education and culture have been Rein Loik (1990–92, 1996–97), Peeter Olesk (1992–95), Peeter Kreitzberg (1995), Paul-Eerik Rummo (1992–94), Jaak Aaviksoo (1995–96), Mait Klaasen (1997–99), Tõnis Lukas (1999–2002), Mailis Rand (2002–03) and from 2003, Toivo Maimets. Priit Vare, ‘Meie ministrid’, Eesti Ekspress, 7 August 1998, p. A16.

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Part II THE T E ACH E R , T HE T E X T B O O K A ND ED U CAT IO NAL P R AC TI C E

8 T EAC HERS IN RU S S IA State, community and profession Ben Eklof and Scott Seregny1

Introduction ‘Well, what do we do with the children (A kuda detei devat)?’ This was the response of a St Petersburg teacher in 1999, to the puzzled query of an American teacher: Why, if teachers hadn’t been paid in months, or were paid ‘in kind’ with cemetery plots, or reportedly even toilet bowls, condoms or other items, did they continue to show up at work? In fact, as the post-Soviet economy underwent, after 1991, an economic collapse that some say makes the Great Depression pale by comparison, schools increasingly assumed the functions of ‘social havens’ extending a small measure of stability and welfare to the nation’s children. And teachers, despite arrears in salaries, second jobs, unavailability of housing, mostly remained at their posts. As an OECD report (1998) put it: ‘Teachers work under very difficult conditions. Their salaries and social status . . . in most cases are not conducive to the long-term health of the profession . . . Given [the] discouraging context, Russian teachers’ strong commitment to their students and their profession is remarkable.’2 But where will the children go? That statement encapsulates a selfperception widespread among Russia’s 1.7 million teachers that they are cultural missionaries with a moral responsibility for the younger generations, as much as they are professionals providing a service by contract; as Russians put it, ‘postol’ko, poskol’ko’, that is, with reciprocal obligations. And yet the authors of this chapter, who have both spent a good part of their careers thinking about the Russian teaching profession in a historical context, suspect that the story may be more complex than that. The emergence and evolution of the professions in Russia occurred in ways quite distinctive to that country. This history has left a profound imprint on teachers. Moreover, some developments at work today, such as feminization, declining salaries relative to other sectors, low prestige, and flight were observable in the late Soviet era. And yet, the past decade or so has also surely wrought its own effect upon the nation’s 197

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schools and teachers. Below, we seek to sort out what is old and what is new in the situation, identity and public behaviour of teachers. Although we will touch upon teachers’ training and their performance, our emphasis is upon their interactions with community and state. Our observations are based upon the archives, secondary literature and periodical press of the tsarist period, secondary literature of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras,3 and the current press.4

Teachers and the state Sociologists of the professions have long recognized teaching as one of the least autonomous and most bureaucratized of professions (indeed, a ‘semiprofession’), distinct from law or medicine. Much of this has to do with teachers’ ambiguous but decisive relationship to the rise of modern European states and state intervention into the field of popular education. The transformation of teaching from a part-time ‘craft’, lacking in formal qualifications, to a full-time profession was directly connected to the establishment of statesponsored mass education systems designed to discipline, integrate and transform populations to meet the imperatives of economic development and nation-building. State support for élite secondary schooling, which usually predated initiatives in primary schooling, aimed above all to create a cadre of trained state servants imbued with the ethos of nation and empire. The development of the teaching profession in Russia broadly followed patterns earlier evident in western and central Europe.5 A central argument of this chapter is that teachers in Russia, as elsewhere, have repeatedly sought the protection and support of the central state in order to free themselves from local interests and escape the material uncertainties of local school financing, even at the cost of bureaucratization and loss of autonomy. Russian teachers have consistently identified with strong and effective state power, in no small measure because the history of the twentieth century has taught them that its absence has jeopardized their material security, professional authority and position in the community. While European states became intimately involved in élite secondary education as early as the seventeenth century, intervention in primary schooling was a nineteenth-century development. Government involvement came first in the area of teacher training, and by century’s end the majority of schoolteachers in France, Germany and Britain were trained in normal schools imparting a specific curriculum and professional socialization. From the 1860s, the Russian government began to establish normal schools on Prussian models – teachers’ seminaries to train primary schoolteachers and teachers’ institutes to staff advanced primary schools in cities – but generally Russia lagged behind in this regard and the state did not achieve a monopoly over teacher training until after World War II. A large proportion of the recruits who entered the profession during the first two major school expansions – 1895–1914 and 1930–40 – did not study in state normal schools. Instead, they came from a 198

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variety of secondary or advanced primary schools, often not having completed their studies. Training was important in that it facilitated the state’s ability to construct a discourse that connected the teacher’s work to the mission of ‘civilizing the people’ and nation-building. Potentially, such rhetoric held great appeal for teachers in terms of status-enhancement and identity. Bismarck’s famous statement about the contribution of Prussian teachers to the German wars of unification would be paraphrased by tsarist ministers of education, Stalinist officials in the 1930s and more recently Putin. The state also assumed a crucial role in guaranteeing teachers material status which in turn was vitally connected to their identity as respected figures (notables) in local communities. Dependence on local interests for salary and other perquisites was a longstanding grievance of teachers everywhere. In Russia, zemstvos (rural institutions of self-government) and municipal governments began to take over these responsibilities from local communities in the 1890s, but the financially weak central government moved to guarantee teachers a minimum salary only in 1908. It was much later, in the mid-1930s, that the Soviet state centralized financing, a key to protecting teachers from local interests and enhancing their authority in local communities (see below). This corresponded under Stalin with state support for a more traditional, teacher-centred or ‘frontal’ pedagogy that held great appeal for teachers who, along with parents, had resisted the experimentation of the 1920s. Therefore, despite the grave uncertainties generated by Stalin’s reign, most teachers – including the pre-1917 cohort, those who entered the profession in the 1920s and those who flooded into schools in the 1930s – came to an accommodation with a Stalinist state that offered material security, a measure of authority in the classroom and community, even if at the price of political obedience and severe limits on professional autonomy.6 The combination of state financing, state control, and state reinforcement of the authority of teachers (in relations with both pupils and parents) continued in the post-Stalin era and is well depicted in the secondary literature.7 At the same time, by the late 1970s, several developments were undermining the state–teacher pact. First, the wages of teachers were steadily declining relative to other occupations. Second, teacher training institutions were especially under-funded in an education system whose financing was also decreasing (as a proportion of national income). Third, conditions in the classroom were relentlessly deteriorating as a result of overcrowding, an exhausting and unrealistic curriculum (mnogopredmetnost’) and growing problems with discipline in vocational and technical schools (professional’no-tekhnicheskie uchilishcha or PTUs), but also in many general education schools.8 A common result was flight from the profession. Even before perestroika, as many as 10 per cent of graduates of teacher training institutions failed to show up for their mandatory three-year teaching assignment (raspredelenie) after completing their state funded training. Among those who stayed, many felt abandoned by the 199

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state in the early perestroika period; in particular, as William Husband noted, history teachers felt betrayed when Gorbachev in 1987 proclaimed that they should ‘tell the truth’ in their classrooms. One can imagine their response: ‘Excuse me, that is fine for you to say. But how do we admit to our pupils that we have been lying to them until now? It is not you, Mr. Gorbachev, who has to admit dishonesty to a group of adolescents . . .’.9 But the real abandonment came in the 1990s. The Law on Education of 1992 shifted control over the schools to the regional and local (‘municipal’) level in the name of democracy, choice, and diversification, or variativnost’. Along with this came the devolution of financial responsibility to regional authorities. This meant that the federal component of the teacher’s salary (to be determined by the Uniform Salary Scale (edinaia tarifnaia setka) established in 1993) would be included in block transfers to the regions, and much of what was designated for teachers ‘disappeared’ en route. In other words, money sent from Moscow never made it to the school. Of course, the reforms introduced by Minister Edward Dneprov (1990–92)10 were meant to emancipate teachers from a rigidly hierarchical, centralized and standardized system, thereby allowing them to alter their own classroom practices from directive to inquiry-based models. But how were these reforms experienced by teachers? The combination of decentralization in education and national economic collapse11 was a lethal one that largely left teachers feeling stranded rather than liberated. To add insult to injury, in the later Yeltsin years, the central government seemed determined to further undercut teachers’ ability to survive by eliminating various salary supplements by which most teachers eked out a few extra rubles, and by cutting into pension benefits.12

Teachers and the community Throughout much of the history of public (in particular primary) schooling teachers have been the classic ‘insider–outsiders’. Teachers could be perceived as valued members of the community, but at other times as bearers of nontraditional values and as agents of an interventionist state. As the only educated outsider in Russian villages before World War II, the teacher could provide valuable services to the community in its increased confrontations with the world outside; and in specific situations like the revolution of 1905–7 teachers assumed influential roles in decoding information from the outside world, in articulating and defending popular interests (for social justice, political power as well as for democratization of education). Many teachers, regardless of their social origins, were even accepted by local people as ‘one of us’ (nash). Growing popular acceptance of the basic value of schooling constituted the essential background here, but many teachers also sought to carve out other roles as community activists outside of the classroom as a strategy to enhance their authority. Western Europe pointed the way;13 in France at the 200

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turn of the century a large proportion of male schoolteachers moonlighted as secretaries to the town mayor, a role that made them indispensable in village interaction with the outside world and the state.14 In Russia, however, there were limits to such extramural roles. The tsarist government, often predisposed to neutralize teachers’ influence out of conservative concerns for social and political stability, tried to thwart teacher involvement in peasant cooperatives and only with great reluctance, during World War I, supported teacher involvement in adult education programmes. During the 1920s teacher involvement in official literacy campaigns, which often carried an antireligious tone, promised to incur popular hostility at a time when the state was too weak to protect them. In general, teachers were rather passive during the revolution of 1917 and in the 1920s. The reasons seem fairly clear: extreme material devastation and insecurity engendered by the Great War, which continued on into the mid1920s; the accelerated feminization of the profession just before and after 1914 (men seemed to have an easier time adopting roles as community activists); massive military conscription of male teachers in 1914–15 (élite secondary teachers were exempt from the draft like other civil servants) and their replacement by less experienced and younger females. Nevertheless, growing popular acceptance of the utilitarian value of schooling benefited teachers in the long run. By 1900 most peasants in Russia accepted the necessity of at least minimal instruction for their children. World War I powerfully accelerated rural interest in basic schooling and adult literacy. Soldiers at the front urged their families at home to send their children to school and demand for access to schools accelerated in 1915 and 1916; soldiers’ wives flocked to adult literacy classes so that they could correspond with their husbands. Ironically, popular demand for schooling and adult education peaked at the very moment when the teaching profession was devastated by wartime inflation and massive turnover. Nevertheless, peasant interest in schooling meant that during the civil war many local communities supported teachers as valued ‘insiders’ at a time when the presence of both local and central government in the countryside had collapsed. Popular interest in primary and secondary education increased tremendously at the start of the 1930s with the onset of Stalinist industrialization and collectivization.15 The concomitant drive to achieve universal schooling, signalled by the party Central Committee’s decree of 1930, was arguably one of the few aspects of Stalinist revolution embraced by peasants since it promised the younger generation social and occupational mobility and offered them a ticket out of the collectivized and traumatized village. As a long-term trend, and coupled with the Soviet state’s new emphasis on order, discipline and teacher authority in schools, this development helped to solidify teachers’ status and prestige. The intervention of a strong central state during this period of upheaval improved teachers’ positions in another fundamental way, by protecting them 201

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against local officials and community élites. This had been a major issue in much of Europe during the nineteenth century when teachers fought to emancipate themselves from dependence upon local officials, élites and clergy. They appealed to central governments and in doing so met with considerable success since in the increasingly competitive international system of the late nineteenth century, states were increasingly keen to seize control of schooling as a central means to maximize their capacity to mobilize their populations and economic resources. In tsarist Russia the relatively weak and impecunious Ministry of Education was unable to provide teachers with adequate protection against local interests. During the early Soviet period teachers were especially vulnerable to local soviet officials, rank-and-file Communist and Komsomol activists who viewed teachers as ‘bourgeois’, since most had been trained before 1917 and many came from suspect social classes (for instance, a large percentage of women teachers were the offspring of clergy). Additionally, the national teachers’ union (VUS) had organized a series of strikes in late 1917–18 among urban teachers, in protest at the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power and this action left a strong residue of suspicion towards teachers in general. Ironically, Russian teachers, whom tsarist officials had often perceived as seditious by definition, now found themselves castigated as class enemies. As a result, teachers were subjected to sporadic harassment during the 1920s and heavy intimidation during the upheaval that ensued at the close of that decade. Rural teachers who did not openly support collectivization were dismissed by local officials, ‘dekulakized’ and expelled. One local soviet even proclaimed the ‘liquidation of teachers as a class!’ On the other hand, teachers incurred the violent wrath of peasants when they were perceived as supporters of the state’s assault on local communities. Some teachers were murdered at the height of collectivization. The chaos of 1928–32 highlighted teachers’ extreme vulnerability and the dilemmas inherent in their ‘insider– outsider’ position and it is not surprising that they looked to central authorities for protection and stabilization, and to the various measures outlined above which had the effect of improving teachers’ material status and authority. Among other measures, party and state emphasized the experience that older teachers (including the pre-1917 cohort which comprised one-quarter of teachers in 1932–33) brought to the profession. Teachers accepted with alacrity the ‘deal’16 offered by the Soviet state: political loyalty and lack of corporate autonomy in exchange for security and a measure of professional authority. Despite the profound differences between the Stalinist system and western European states, similar compromises had occurred earlier in France, Germany and elsewhere. The relationship between teacher and community described above changed profoundly, if gradually, in the decades following World War II. As Moshe Lewin has pointed out, during the Soviet era the most profound transformations occurring beneath the surface of politics were, in addition to industrialization, urbanization and the expansion of education.17 As primary 202

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and then secondary education became universal, teachers no longer held a virtual monopoly over a ‘commodity’ (i.e., formal knowledge); thus their status inevitably suffered. In addition, as the Soviet Union urbanized, the peasant community itself declined (a decline accelerated by Stalinism as well as by Brezhnev’s policy of reducing investments in ‘unpromising’ or besperspektivnye villages. Today, although some 70 per cent of schools are located in the countryside, fewer than 40 per cent of the country’s schoolchildren are enrolled in such schools. The desperate state of small rural schools is noteworthy, and letters from teachers serving in such schools fill national newspapers; yet for the majority of teachers today the community is really an urban or semi-urban neighbourhood, and to the degree that community exists at all, the teacher is as much an insider as any of the pupils or parents. In fact, we often read of ‘teacher dynasties’ or several generations of the same family teaching in the same school, and especially of teachers who have taken up work at the very same schools in which they themselves studied. At the same time, there is some evidence that teachers’ status within these altered, somewhat unstable, and sometimes polarized communities is often insecure. First, schools themselves seem to be vulnerable to the whims and caprices of local authorities, notables, and, as one school director in Voronezh region put it, anybody who was inclined to intervene (‘vsem, komu ne len’). This, as we have seen above, is hardly new. Second, with the rules that currently prevail concerning financing and admissions, teachers, along with directors, are now often forced to act as gatekeepers in admissions, and sorters within the school. Why is this the case and how does it work? Isak Froumin’s book hints at this process. The 1992 Law on Education allows parents to send their children to any public school, providing there is space. But if there are more prospective pupils than there is space, what are the rules? It seems that in many areas children from poorer families, children with disabilities, and problem children are often excluded. The reasons are simple: children with special needs are expensive; children from well-off families can contribute from their own pockets for textbooks, supplemental services, etc., and directors, avaricious or desperately trying to keep their schools afloat, will act accordingly. Likewise, teachers often side, by necessity as much as by conviction, with those parents who want to see classes divided into accelerated and average groups. Not all teachers support streaming, even if it is more efficient in a situation of extreme scarcity, but even those who resist are taking sides (with needier elements of the population) in the neighbourhood. Thus the teacher, no longer an outsider, is nevertheless implicated in the growing polarization of society into haves and have nots.18

Identity and professional cohesion By training, ambition and self-image, teachers in Russia, as in Europe as a whole, accepted the mission to ‘civilize’ workers and peasants. To accomplish 203

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this they aspired to a social status and image that set them apart from the ‘people’. While the majority of primary school teachers, especially men, came from humble social origins, all teachers aspired to a middle (or at least lower middle) class status for which their education, lifestyle and even dress supposedly outfitted them. Middle-class respectability, deportment, and notability, it was assumed, would enhance teachers’ authority in the community and facilitate their cultural mission as role models of modernity, sobriety, discipline and order. Most teachers, whether in tsarist or Soviet Russia, embraced this identity, as did the state. This professional identity was closely connected to teachers’ concerns about salaries, which they viewed as a marker of social status. Russian teachers before 1917 and Soviet teachers during the 1930s perennially complained that industrial workers or white-collar employees (sluzhashchie) earned higher incomes while performing less demanding or socially important roles. Aside from the obvious episodes when economic deprivation threatened the profession’s existence (1916–21, 1990s), low salaries raised important questions about professional identity: whether teachers would be able to maintain the requisite prestige within the community and whether the state (and wider society) really respected their singular contribution to the nation. Issues of salary and prestige are connected with the broader question of the teaching profession’s cohesion: on the one hand, gender differences and feminization, and on the other hand, the divide between teachers in élite secondary schools and those in primary schools. Feminization in primary schools accelerated with the rapid expansion of schools beginning in the 1890s and by World War I, 70 per cent of primary schoolteachers were women. In some cities like St Petersburg the proportion was even higher. As in other European countries, feminization was primarily a function of economics: women had fewer options for middle-class employment (either as civil servants or whitecollar employees) and would accept lower salaries than men, although the trend was also supported by assumptions that women’s purportedly innate nurturing qualities uniquely prepared them to instruct children. Some male teachers resented female competition; however, given the problems that female and male teachers shared, solidarity was more common (many teachers married other teachers and some of their children followed them into the profession).19 Nevertheless, feminization in the long-run coincided with a decline in the status of teaching; sociologists of the profession identify feminization as one of the salient characteristics of ‘semi-professions’. Still, one can argue that teachers’ status remained higher in twentieth-century Russia than in other parts of Europe where universal schooling and literacy had already been achieved and where teachers’ civilizing mission and unique contribution to transforming society had already been more or less accomplished. Teachers in Russian secondary schools before 1917 were overwhelmingly male. Trained in universities or other higher educational institutions, enjoying the status and perquisites of state service, and working in an exclusively urban 204

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milieu where they instructed élite children, Russia’s secondary teachers lived in a world apart from their more humble colleagues, especially those in rural schools. Their closer connection to the tsarist state and their greater distance from the popular classes imbued them with a more conservative ethos, in contrast to primary schoolteachers (both rural and urban) who were much more likely to link their own professional concerns (low pay, low status, absence of legal rights and corporate autonomy) to broader movements for fundamental political and social change. During the 1905 revolution, a highpoint of teachers’ political mobilization in twentieth-century Russia, teachers in secondary schools rejected the idea of joining primary schoolteachers in a broad All-Russian Teachers Union and instead formed their own less radical organization. Beginning in the 1930s, with the rapid expansion of mass secondary education, the sharp distinctions between primary and secondary schoolteachers began to collapse. Feminization of the secondary school contributed to this merger of identity; so, surely did the Bolshevik strategy of merging ranks and diffusing identity by establishing a professional trade union of ‘employees’ in education. The decline in teachers’ incomes relative to other occupations since the 1960s, a decline which has affected primary and secondary school teachers alike and which has accelerated throughout the 1990s, has probably further elided boundaries. Yet, differences in background and training persist in the post-Soviet period: primary school teachers typically have had a secondary, specialized education in a pedagogicheskoe uchilishche, now often renamed ‘colleges’ or kolledzhy;20 secondary school teachers typically graduate from institutes or universities. In fact, in terms of training, the Russian teaching profession seems to be a highly unstable cohort at this time. If we can believe the descriptions available in the scholarly literature, teacher training institutions in the late Soviet period were under-funded, dreary, rigidly structured places attracting less competitive students, primarily from blue-collar families;21 by the 1980s, pedvuzy (higher education teacher training institutions) had trouble filling all the available spaces, and up to 10 per cent of graduates failed to show up for their raspredelenie. Today, fully one-third of all graduates of Russian higher education institutions have received their degrees in pedagogy. Enhancing the quality of teacher training in pedagogical institutions was a high priority of the leaders of the perestroika era reform movement and some major restructuring was in fact achieved. Yet has all this contributed to a stronger sense of professional identity? We must take into account that competition for admission to pedvuzy comes not from the attractiveness of the profession, but from the fact that a far higher proportion of students have full stipends from the state. In fact, there is evidence that fewer than half of all pedvuz graduates ever teach. Even though no general shortage of teachers seems to have resulted from this attrition, in a few areas there are such acute shortages of teachers that the local authorities, 205

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desperate to fill slots, pay no heed to qualifications. Moreover, fully 12 per cent of all teachers are pensioners whose training, life experience and political views make them more conservative, and surely different in sensibilities from younger teachers of the post-Soviet era. In addition, teachers from St Petersburg, Moscow and a handful of other major cities clearly see themselves as different from teachers from the provinces, and especially from rural school teachers. Finally, rapid turnover and immigration (in Novgorod, more than 10 per cent of newly hired teachers each year are from Central Asia) work to further weaken the stability and cohesiveness of the profession.

Mobilization All European states, of course, preferred a politically quiescent and loyal teaching profession. Nevertheless in some countries, most notably imperial Germany, strong national unions took shape which effectively protected members’ interests and played an influential role in advancing education reforms. Most of these organizations supported ‘progressive’ reforms, in the sense of diminishing clerical influence in schools and secularizing the curriculum and, most importantly, in democratizing education by demolishing the barriers dividing primary schooling for the masses from élite secondary and university education in favour of a ‘ladder system’. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Russian teachers attempted to emulate their colleagues in the west. However, with the exception of the revolutionary hiatus of 1905, the autocracy offered little space for such professional organizations. With the monarchy’s collapse in 1917, a teaching profession that had been devastated by the wartime economy (in particular the mass of rural teachers) was in a poor position to take advantage of the new political freedom. This, coupled with deepening social polarization in 1917, rendered most teachers politically passive. Teachers’ trade unions in the Soviet era served largely as ‘transmission belts’ conveying the wishes of the authorities and enforcing discipline. Gradually, as post-Stalin Soviet society evolved, in some interpretations, into ‘interest groups’, the educators’ union became a voice conveying teachers’ economic and professional concerns, but the very notion of adversarial negotiations, not to mention job actions, was as foreign to this universe as was the notion of extending market or commercial relationships to the sphere of education. More often, dissatisfaction was expressed individually, by choosing the ‘exit option’, that is, flight from the profession, which had become a serious issue by the 1980s. All the more surprising then, as Isak Froumin has pointed out,22 that teachers (in the form of initiative Eureka groups in local communities) played a distinctive role in mobilizing the country for educational reform in the perestroika era. In fact, Froumin argues that in no other western country in recent decades have teachers, if only a minority of them, been such a major force for reform. The high point was reached, perhaps, with the formation of the Cre206

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ative Union of Teachers (1988), and ‘pedagogical innovators’ as a group were the main catalyst for the introduction of variativnost’ and decentralization as core concepts of perestroika in education.23 And yet the moment of political mobilization was a brief one. The Creative Union of Teachers has not been a major force nationally in the 1990s. Inside the schools, Froumin demonstrates, more than half of all teachers retrained to introduce democratic and humanistic approaches in the classroom soon returned to the old, top-down ways.24 Teachers naturally regress to old ways because individualization, inquiry-based teaching and new lesson plans all require resources, which simply are not there. And this absence of resources, along with personal impoverishment, partially explains teachers’ overwhelming political passivity in the 1990s. One might object, and rightly point out that since 1995 work stoppages and other dramatic actions (hunger strikes, kidnapping a school authority in Kostroma) have been a regular occurrence in Russia; in January 1997, teachers in 25 regions refused to return to work after the winter holiday, and three million children began classes five days late;25 in 1998 some 300,000 ‘protested’. Yet, given the scale of the impoverishment of both school and teacher (average salaries in education in 2000 were 975 rubles,26 across the country arrears in salary payments averaged one month), it is surprising how little, not how much, teachers have mobilized.

Teachers since the financial collapse of 1998 Since the financial collapse of 1998 the Russian economy has enjoyed several years of uninterrupted economic growth.27 Investments in education, measured both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP, have also increased. Under Minister of Education Filippov, and with the endorsement of the Duma as well as President Putin, a Modernization Programme28 has put forth a large-scale, integrated set of policies which, if enacted as planned by 2010, will fundamentally alter the way education is practised in Russia. How have the Modernization Programme, the unfolding dynamics of power relations between municipality, region, and ‘centre’, ongoing regional differentiation, health and social issues affected the daily lives of teachers? Is the collective profile of teachers changing? Has their training been altered to better fit the new environment? At present, teachers are still employees of local municipalities, and many believe this is at the root of their problems. Most municipalities have chaotic budgets, grossly inadequate tax bases; over 40 per cent of expenditures on education come from transferty (block grants) from regional or federal coffers, but much of the funding disappears en route. One solution enjoying widespread support is to make teachers civil servants, and legislation proposing just this was introduced in the Federation Council in 2002,29 but is unlikely to be enacted soon. Even a modest proposal included in early drafts of the 207

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Modernization Programme adopted by the government in 2001, mandating that by 2006 teachers’ salaries be equivalent to or exceed the country’s average income, was deleted in the final version. Another focus is the so-called Uniform Salary Scale introduced throughout the country in 1993 (and revised in 1995). This system set salaries for biudzhetniki (i.e., doctors, teachers, scientists) throughout the country on a scale of 1–18 with new teachers beginning at 7 (later, 8) and progressing to level 11 according to years employed, or position occupied, and higher levels pegged to a system of teacher appraisal.30 This ‘complex and ambitious measure’ was designed to provide equity and salary guarantees as well as incentives to innovate and upgrade one’s skills, but encountered serious ‘teething problems’ when introduced. Now, a proposal by the Ministry of Labour seeks to discard the ETS entirely, replacing it with ‘sectorally determined’ salary scales with different gradations in four categories: health, education, science and culture. Moreover, the proposal discards the uniformity principle, allowing salaries to take account of the radically different cost of living from region to region. There are also those who argue that further legislation is a waste of time; what is needed is strict enforcement of Article 54 of the Law on Education, stipulating that salaries be pegged at or above the average wage in the economy. In reality, teachers are cynical about promises to drastically improve their situation, and with reason. In December 1991, the government announced that the minimum salary for teachers would be increased by 1.89 times, and Vice-Premier Valentina Matvienko reported that salary increases were finally outpacing inflation. But soon after, reports started flooding in to the press that salaries had actually dipped, as regions and municipalities cut their supplemental payments in order to fund the surge in basic salaries. In the end, teachers in the biggest cohort (ranks 5–12 on the scale) received increases of 25 per cent rather than 89 per cent; those in the most senior ranks (14–18) actually saw their salaries drop in the capital cities.31 Early in 2003, as the debate over eliminating the Uniform Salary Scale heated up, Minister of Education Filippov conceded that whatever policies emanated from the centre, the country’s regions were too financially strapped to enact the two-to-threefold raises which teachers’ unions claimed were needed to pull teachers out of poverty. He noted that at present two-thirds of the regions were experiencing difficulty meeting their payrolls, which took up 75 per cent of their budgets, and ten to fifteen were chronically in arrears.32 Clearly, the legislation submitted to the Duma by Putin (17 December 2002), restoring central control over the country’s schools, would drastically change this situation. Already, since late in the year 2000, the Ministry of Education had been publicly tracking the timeliness of salary payments in the country’s regions, and beginning in 2002 the minister had to report weekly to Deputy Prime Minister Matvienko on the subject.33 How do teachers make do at present? A survey by sociologist Frants Sheregi addresses this question. According to his survey, one half of all teachers work 208

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on the side ‘to make life tolerable’. First, many (24 per cent) teach more than a full-time load (18 hours per week); another study concludes that the average teacher works a 150 per cent load. In addition, teachers receive supplementary payments for teaching-related tasks such as supervising a homeroom, correcting student notebooks, and maintaining classroom facilities. Others teach in more than one institution (7.8 per cent); some moonlight in commercial enterprises. More than 30 per cent (17 per cent of men, 32 per cent of women) regularly tutor students outside the classroom. Still, the minimum salary for a beginning teacher (eighth rank on the ETS) is only 600 rubles per month (the average is 800); with all these supplements it still falls far short of the average wage in the economy, and often even of minimum subsistence levels. For this reason, many teachers regard their salaries not as a living wage but as a contribution to the family budget. In 2000 the average base salary for teachers was 1,345 rubles or $48; this was 55 per cent of the average wage in the economy, and just over (106 per cent) the official subsistence minimum.34 From region to region, salaries as a percentage of the average wage in the economy, ranged from 25 per cent to 81 per cent; and as a percentage of the subsistence minimum, from 68 per cent to 272 per cent. Supplemental work added another one-third (or 405 rubles), and teachers added to their meagre budgets in the following way: house gardens (19.8 per cent); dacha gardens (36 per cent; this figure is one of many subtle indicators of just how difficult it is to quantify standard of living. How many families living below the poverty line in the west have summer cottages?); help from relatives (31 per cent) and other (5 per cent). In addition, two-thirds of all teachers live in their own apartments or houses, rather than renting privately, or sharing communal flats. This figure, much higher than the national average, indicates that in many areas municipalities are making a special effort to assure teachers decent housing.35 A glimpse of some family budgets will help us to visualize the daily life of teachers. Take Nina Ozherel’eva, who has been teaching in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow, for thirty-four years. In her telling, the years 1991 to 1995 were the most dismal of her life. She and her three children lived ‘literally, in semistarvation’. But now, this kindergarten teacher maintains, life is very different. Liudmila Ermachenkova, a teacher of English in the same district, receives a 660 ruble pension, but also earns over 5,000 rubles a month tutoring children. She concedes that she lives well, but adds that her husband, who quit teaching for business, is the primary breadwinner in the family. ‘If he hadn’t quit teaching, our situation would be different.’ And she adds that in the Moscow region, only part-time students and teachers about to retire will work for the school. ‘The Moscow area schoolteacher is as poor as a church mouse’ (zhivet kuda bolee skromnee).36 But how about the typical family with the average teacher’s income in Khimki? One is Galina Kovtun, mathematics teacher (twelfth rank) at a lyceum with 1,500 students and 114 teachers. Kovtun’s husband is retired from the military. Eight years ago they settled down in Khimki and when Galina started teaching, received a three-room apartment. Since then, however, 209

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they have had to be content with the furniture they dragged around during his military career; a new refrigerator is all they have been able to afford. The husband now earns 3,500 rubles a month (in addition to a military pension, a monthly ration of goods, and a one-month salary bonus each year). They have three children, the oldest of whom is attending a civil defence academy at government expense (‘they can’t afford a university’). Galina receives 2,300 rubles a month, but must pay 428 rubles (subsidized due to her husband’s military status) for their apartment. When asked what her family spent their disposable income on, she responded that food took the lion’s share: five kilograms of meat a month; chicken, inexpensive fish, dairy products (‘cottage cheese is too expensive’). In the winter they cannot afford fresh vegetables (‘except potatoes’) and live instead on canned vegetables from their garden. Apples and other fruit are an occasional luxury, ‘But we have plenty of suet’. New clothing has to be budgeted in advance, and only inexpensive cosmetics are affordable. Galina does not go to a hairdresser. Her family income, around 6,000 rubles a month, is obviously much more than the average salary for a teacher, but in per capita terms, her family is not far above the subsistence minimum. Her basic salary of 1,600 rubles exceeds the targeted national average of 1,300, but prices in the Moscow suburbs are higher than elsewhere. Are the Kovtuns poor? Their diet is limited, purchasing consumer durables is a stretch; at the same time their housing takes up less than 10 per cent of their income; medical care is free (if inadequate); both parents have job security; and their children have free access to education all the way up the ladder (and one child is enrolled in an art enrichment after-school programme for 35 rubles, or $1 a month).37 In Primor’e (the Pacific littoral), because of a spike in fees collected for maintenance and utilities from apartment residents, and a sharp rise in the cost of food, the vaunted salary increases promised in December 2001 were eradicated, and the minimum subsistence level was set at 2,500, well over the average base salary of the teacher. Raisa Shabanova, regional representative of the teachers’ national union told a correspondent of Uchitel’skaia gazeta: Here is the typical situation in Vladivostok; a senior female teacher, 14th rank, has a teaching load of 36 hours. With all the various supplements, her take-home pay is 6,200 rubles monthly . . . now consider her expenditures. She pays 1,500 for her apartment; transportation to and from work costs 1,200. Food takes up another 2,500. So it turns out that after food, there is nothing left; forget about boots, or new clothes! Or take a kindergarten teacher. Before she received 1,600 rubles; now it is 2,500. She lives alone with her child. Her tiny apartment costs her less – 400 rubles. Another 350 goes to the gymnasium for her daughter. On food, the bare minimum for two people is 2,000 rubles. The result is that this mother, just as before the salary increase, lives in perpetual debt. Finally, an elementary school 210

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teacher in Ussuriisk. Her teaching load is twenty hours . . . and in February she took home 2,852 rubles. Her daughter is a university student, and they live in a two room apartment, which burns up 1,571 rubles each month. Her transportation costs her only 210 rubles, since work is within walking distance. Her daughter’s studies take another 420 rubles; that leaves 551 rubles in her purse. Really, can you live on this money? The question, the correspondent concludes, is rhetorical. It is possible to survive on such a wage, but hardly possible to live a normal life.38 As before, the question of a salary commensurate not only with survival, but with a dignified existence remains.39 Because wages are so dismal, then, most teachers are forced to spend extraordinarily long hours working; undoubtedly this diminishes the quality of their labours.40 It also makes many look for work elsewhere; according to Russian sociologist Sheregi, 48 per cent of teachers surveyed said they had thought of changing careers in the past year. The feminization of the profession, already well advanced, has accelerated since 1998. Finally, the considerable sums the state invests in training teachers at pedagogical vuzy are partially squandered, for fewer than half of all graduates of such institutions take up careers in teaching41 and of those who do, many leave within the first three years. In the Sheregi survey, the proportion of those contemplating changing careers was much higher in the age cohort under thirty. Given these conditions, we would expect there to be a large shortfall of teachers in the schools. In 1995, Ministry of Education officials, noting that the country lacked 81,600 teachers, warned that by 2000 this shortage would reach 50 per cent of staff needed across the country. Yet in 1998, the shortfall was measured at only 2 per cent.42 Today, some cities and regions do have vacancies; in St Petersburg, for example, ‘the problem of finding teaching cadres is very acute . . . Petersburg schools are desperately short of foreignand Russian-language teachers . . . university graduates don’t want to live on the laughable salary . . . the situation, it would seem, is close to catastrophic.’43 In many other areas, language, Russian literature, and computer teachers are in short supply. Yet most other regions are experiencing no overall shortage of teachers, nor can one speak of turmoil stemming from exceptional turnover in the schools; more than one-third of all teachers have been in the classroom for twenty years or more. An explanation for this continued stability is elusive. Personal dedication plays a role, as do high unemployment levels in many provincial cities and in the villages; one-third of teachers explicitly say they stay on the job only for this reason. The teaching cohort is significantly augmented by those who stay on after reaching retirement age and by Russian immigrants from the ‘Near Abroad’, or former Soviet states (in some areas up to 15 per cent of all teachers are immigrants). Thus the social costs of the ‘transition period’ may 211

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actually alleviate any potential shortage: many aging teachers cannot afford to live on their pensions alone; many teachers who lived in, say, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan or Georgia are fleeing economic collapse, political turmoil, or hostility to Russians. Preferential access to housing may also help to attract and retain teachers. Finally, the onset of the expected population decline (the number of school-age children will decline from 20 million to 14 million by the end of this decade), by shrinking the size of schools across the country, may be reducing demand. For better or for worse, the outcome is that potential shortages of teachers are mostly averted, and the predicted overall shortage of teachers does not appear to have materialized. There is much talk in the press of restoring the old Soviet raspredelenie, but this reflects frustration at a wasted investment by the state more than a response to a major shortage. From his sociological survey of the teaching profession (see Table 8.1) Sheregi concludes that, except for the precipitous decline in the proportion of young men, the ‘rotation’ of the teaching profession, the mix of young and old, remains a healthy one.44 That only 5 per cent of teachers are over sixty years old suggests that western observers, in emphasizing the role of pensioners in the school system, have forgotten that in Russia women can retire at age 55; that is, pensioners are not necessarily ‘babushkas’.45 It may also be that the workload Russian teachers carry is not actually as crushing as it seems. The student–teacher ratio in Russia is much lower than in most countries (to the consternation of the World Bank), and, as Stephen Webber shows, the teaching hours they carry are comparable to the burden of teachers in France and Germany, and many fewer than the hours teachers in England bear.46 Still, teacher burn out and the low level of job satisfaction of teachers recorded in all surveys, the stress of making ends meet, compounded by the psychological, physical and societal impact of the post-Soviet transition upon families, and hence pupils, do not bode well for the classroom. Nor does the chronic problem of delays in salary payments (in 2000, 48 per cent of teachers experienced delays, averaging 1.4 months).47 And it cannot be denied that many students who enrol in teachers’ kolledzhy and universities, initially inspired by wonderful teachers they had met in adolescence, leave precisely when they encounter the reality of supporting a family on the meagre salary of a teacher: ‘those teachers who have already established a family by the end of their studies, have no clue how to support a family on 1,000 rubles a month. The situation looks especially desperate in the third year, after predpraktika (practicum). Future teachers look at the real salary they can expect to earn, and are not encouraged.’48 It is also a widespread perception that applicants to teacher training institutions are the weakest in their age cohort: ‘uma net, idi v pedvuz’, or, roughly, ‘those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’. Indeed, the level of competition for university level teacher training institutions is generally lower, and the ratio of applicants to admissions has been steadily declining since 1996, despite the opposite development in higher education as a whole. 212

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Table 8.1 Percentage of teachers by age and gender Age Under 30 31–50 Over 50

Male (1998) 32.2 44.6 23.2

Female (1998)

Male (2000)

28.2 54.1 17.7

10.2 55.9 33.9

Female (2000) 25.3 58.2 16.5

Source: Frants Sheregi, Sotsiologiia obrazovaniia, p. 426.

As for secondary level teacher training institutions, teachers there say with irony, ‘we get the best of the worst’. Nor do teachers entertain high hopes for the future. Although four in five belong to a union, fewer than one in ten believe that these unions can defend their interests. Trust in political parties runs at about the same level. Within Putin’s first year in office, those holding the hope that he would help teachers declined from one-third to one-fifth of all surveyed. Of the 60 per cent of teachers who felt that they needed better living quarters, more than seven in ten confessed that they had no idea how to achieve this goal. For young teachers, the future seems to hold little prospect of significant raises: in the year 2000 the average salary of a teacher aged 26–30 was 1,195 rubles; if 51 to 60 years old, that teacher earned 1,607 rubles.49 In other words, looking down the road, teachers can see little hope of significant material improvement as they age. Webber points out that the professional self esteem of teachers has been significantly enhanced by the new freedoms they enjoy in the classroom. The Soviet emphasis upon small work group solidarity (the kollektiv) and on regular peer evaluation typically fostered ‘open door’ classrooms, and perhaps a sense of community and sociability not always evident in the west, where isolation is a frequent complaint of teachers. A shared, uniform heritage creates ‘levels of commonality and continuity’ which are reinforced by the very low geographic mobility of Russian teachers; teachers often work at the same schools they attended when growing up, and ‘teacher dynasties’ are not uncommon. One study of St Petersburg teaching kolledzhy found that many pupils preparing for a career in teaching were from such dynasties.50 Geographic continuity is reinforced by what Webber calls ‘geological’ continuity; teachers trained in the 1970s or 1980s received fundamentally the same education as those trained in the 1930s. Thus there are strong vertical (generational) as well as horizontal bonds tying the profession together. But this solidarity has not led to sustained mobilization. Teachers, ‘the most active participants in strike actions’ of all sectors of the workforce, in reality have ‘little bargaining power’ and ‘no [recent] tradition of taking political action’.51 Job actions and hunger strikes have periodically swept across the country since 1998, but they remain episodic, largely disconnected, and ephemeral. There are indications, too, that such actions have actually been prompted and controlled by regional 213

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authorities for their own ends, in the ongoing tug of war over taxes and autonomy between centre and periphery under Yeltsin and Putin; in other words, that teacher mobilization has been manipulated for other ends. The plight of rural teachers (two-thirds of all teachers) merits special attention. One of the proclaimed priorities of the Ministry of Education is providing support to rural schools, which lack computers, and even basic amenities, and which are dwindling in size to the point that many are converting from basic secondary to elementary schools. In many villages teachers have fewer than ten pupils. The dismal roads and virtual absence of school buses make consolidation unfeasible, but such dwindling villages lack the resources to pay teachers, and at the macroeconomic level the per capita costs of maintaining a school system in which two-thirds of teachers work in ‘undersized’ (malokomplektnye) schools is of real concern. Yet letters from the countryside eloquently insist that without the rural school and teacher the village will die. What about teaching training? Has it responded to the demand for change? Today there are over 600 institutions training teachers, of which 160 are institutions of higher learning. What is new is that only half of this number are, strictly speaking, pedagogical institutions; the remainder are so-called ‘classical’ universities offering a degree in education. ‘Renewing’ teacher training is a priority of the Modernization Programme, and on 1 April 2003 the Ministry of Education, after soliciting public input, issued a decree promulgating a more elaborate Modernization Programme for Pedagogical Education.52 This ambitious document calls for bringing pedvuzy rapidly into the information age by a massive investment in computers in 2003. But aside from this and other obvious needs, such as providing education libraries with an adequate collection of current textbooks and teachers’ manuals, upgrading dilapidated facilities, and continuing to sponsor experimental and innovative methods,53 it is hard to know how teacher training institutions will best address the multiple, overlapping and sometimes contradictory demands now being placed upon them. The Modernization Programme itself will require substantial changes in teacher training as it is gradually implemented over the next few years. It includes implementation of standards throughout the country, introduction of standardized school leaving and (simultaneously) college entrance exams (already being used on an experimental basis in forty-nine regions); the introduction of new course curricula in all subjects as the full secondary education is extended to twelve years; as well as the new mandate to teach foreign languages and computer basics in elementary schools; and the restructuring of schools to allow for ‘profile’ or accelerated programmes in the last two years. But the Modernization of Pedagogical Education addresses additional, if overlapping, concerns. In its highly ambitious schedule for implementation, the document addresses no fewer than twenty-four existing shortcomings, with multiple measures to rectify each of them, primarily within 2003–04. Suffice it here to list some of the deficiencies brought forth in the ministry document: 214

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• •

• • • • •

• •

lack of fit between training in pedagogical institutions and needs of general education school; inadequacy of training of teachers for elementary schools, especially in issues of health, in vospitanie appropriate for current societal conditions, for working with the families of schoolchildren, and for rendering help to children in straitened circumstances; inadequate subject training for elementary school teachers; teacher illiteracy in the area of information technology; inadequate preparation for teaching foreign languages and informatics in elementary school; lack of continuity between pre-school and school education especially in in-service pre-school programmes; inadequate training of cadres for basic (grades 1–9) secondary schools, especially in the areas of children’s rights, in preventive health care, in methods of quantifying and evaluating performance; in teacher–parent relations, etc.; awareness of environmental education and the concepts of sustainable development; knowledge of the application of information technology to instructional ends.

The list continues, identifying extra-curricular education, profile education, training for rural schools, the aging of the profession, high turnover, the lack of fit between secondary school curricula and university admissions criteria; insufficient opportunities for teacher training internships, inadequate awareness of adolescent psychology, and so forth. Pedagogical institutions must also respond to the mandates of regional education authorities. Some have been implementing so-called modular, or individualized, programmes for future teachers (e.g. at St Petersburg State Pedagogical University); in Orel, new programmes have been drawn up for ‘undersized’ schools in rural areas; in Samara and elsewhere new approaches are being tried to finance in-service teaching training; and elsewhere travelling metodisty (or methodology specialists) are being sent out to the schools to provide refresher seminars, since in many rural areas teachers cannot afford to travel to provincial towns.54 Addressing the multiple needs of a diverse constituency, enhancing disciplinary rigour while simultaneously paying more attention to education psychology, persuading students to use their degrees to pursue careers in teaching (after all, improvements in key areas such as information sciences could have a backwash effect, that is, make students of pedvuzy more marketable in the private sector, hence result in a net loss for education) would be a challenging task in a stable, financially solvent environment, which this is not. What is remarkable, with all of the demands being placed on a teacher training system with a woefully antiquated infrastructure and a long tradition of neglect and subservience to higher authorities, is that in some places at least, genuine 215

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change rather than collapse seems to be on the agenda for teaching education in Russia.

Conclusion Teachers, while central to efforts to reform schools, often have the most to lose and least to gain: ‘those who advocate and develop change get more rewards than costs, and those who are expected to implement them experience many more costs than rewards’.55 Because of the costs, risks and dubious benefits of reforms, because of inadequate investment in in-service training, and because until recently teacher education itself was oriented to producing uchitelei–ispolnitel’ei or teacher–functionaries, rather than empowering teachers, or showing them how to create learning environments in the school, teachers often responded to reform by various diversionary tactics: ‘shallow coping’, lip service, adaptation and evasion. As Stephen Kerr notes elsewhere in this volume, the culture of the school is everywhere resistant to change, and perhaps more so in Russia. As Isak Froumin points out, also in this volume, even teachers who receive extensive in-service training in innovative methods usually return to old practices shortly after returning to their schools. Given the social instability of Russia in the past decade this might not be all bad; structure and stability are essential components of growth and learning. Webber writes of the remarkable resilience in adversity of the teaching profession, but wonders how much longer it can last. Yet the fragmentary evidence we have marshalled does not yet point to breakdown, either of the profession or of the micro-community of the school. Teachers tend to blame the local municipality or the region for their plight.56 The central authorities were the target of much hostility in the mid-1990s, but much less so now. Teachers apparently strongly favour turning over control of the schools to ‘the centre’ but only because they believe that their salaries and benefits will improve if they are made gossluzhashchie – employees of the state rather than the municipality.57 Most teachers now show little interest in the reform debate still ongoing in Moscow, and do not believe that its outcome will have an impact on their lives. The teacher’s inner world is of course, much harder to assess; pride at new freedoms and a continued sense of the cultural importance of their profession seems to coexist with bitter resentment at their impoverished living conditions, frustration and apprehension at the social ills surging through the school contingent, and combined embarrassment and anger that parents no longer respect them.58 Teachers have been active politically, and many teachers have left teaching to be involved in politics, but the teaching profession has not emerged as a political force. In fact, since the demise of the Creative Union of Teachers at the close of the perestroika era, the collective activities of teachers have declined, and events since 1998 have not changed that picture. To paraphrase Marx, teachers, like peasants, are like potatoes in a sack, without unifying bonds except their subjective identities. 216

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In this overview of Russian teachers in the twentieth century we have pointed out the ways in which the tsarist and Soviet experience has shaped the professional ethos of the Russian teaching profession, how relations between state, community and teacher have evolved over the twentieth century, and how the last decade must be understood as one both of disjuncture and of continuity in education history. We have concluded that in terms of agency, teachers were generally not the collective force one might expect, but that in the early perestroika period teachers weighed in heavily, if briefly, in favour of change in the schools. We have described coping, survival strategies, some of which involve illegal, ‘corrupt’ practices, but in no way do we render a judgement upon teachers, for as Stephen Kerr has demonstrated in his contribution to this volume, the burden they have carried as front-line ‘warriors’ in dealing with the country’s social ills has been a heavy one since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead, we should take off our academic caps and pay homage to a profession, nearly 2 million strong, which has endured great hardship, and demonstrated great courage and intelligence in the service of Russia’s next generation.

Notes 1 This chapter was revised after the death of Scott Seregny. The last section, covering the period after 1998, was written entirely by Ben Eklof; minor changes have been made elsewhere to the text. 2 OECD, Reviews of National Policies for Education: Russian Federation (Paris, 1998), p. 131. 3 Some works drawn from include Larry Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917–1933 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991); Ben Eklof (ed.), School and Society in Tsarist and Soviet Russia (London, Macmillan, 1993); idem, Russian Peasant Schools, 1861–1914 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986); Scott J. Seregny, Russian Teachers and Peasant Revolution: The Politics of Education in 1905 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995); E. Thomas Ewing, The Teachers of Stalinism: Policy, Practice and Power in Soviet Schools of the 1930s (New York: P. Lang, 2002); Christine Ruane, Gender, Class, and the Professionalization of Russian City Teachers, 1861–1914 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994); Allen Sinel, The Classroom and the Chancellery: State Educational Reform in Russia under Count Dmitry Tolstoi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1973); F.G. Panachin, Pedagogicheskoe obrazovanie v Rossii (Moscow, 1979). References to works in Russian can be found in E.D. Dneprov, Sovetskaia literatura po istorii shkoly i pedagogiki dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii, 1918–1977: bibliograficheskii ukazatel’ (Moscow, 1979) and Ocherki istorii shkoly i pedagogicheskoi mysli narodov SSSR: vtoraia polovina XIX veka (Moscow, 1976). 4 Very useful were the weekly teachers’ newspapers, Uchitel’skaia gazeta and Pervoe sentiabria, as well as the Ministry of Education’s web page (www.informika.ru) which makes available on a daily basis articles in Russian from the press, both capital city and provincial. 5 James C. Albisetti, ‘The Feminization of Teaching in the Nineteenth Century: A Comparative Perspective’, History of Education 22 (1993), pp. 253–63; Marjorie Lamberti, State, Society and the Elementary School in Imperial Germany (New

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6 7

8

9

10

11

12 13 14 15

16

York: Oxford, 1989); Anthony LaVopa. ‘Status and Ideology: Rural Schoolteachers in Pre-March and Revolutionary Prussia’, Journal of Social History (Spring 1979), pp. 430–56. Karl A. Schleunes, Schooling and Society: The Politics of Education in Prussia and Bavaria, 1750–1900 (Oxford: Berg, 1989). Peter V. Meyers, ‘Primary Schoolteachers in Nineteenth-Century France: A Study in Professionalization through Conflict’, History of Education Quarterly 1–2 (1985), pp. 21–40. Peter V. Meyers, ‘Professionalization and Societal Change: Rural Teachers in Nineteenth Century France’, Journal of Social History 9 (1976), pp. 542–58. On this see Ewing, The Teachers of Stalinism, and Larry Holmes, Stalin’s School: Moscow’s Model School No. 25, 1931–1937 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999). For example, see the excellent study by Susan Jacoby, Inside Soviet Schools (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974) for classroom atmosphere, and Hedrick Smith, The Russians (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), pp. 196–227, for a description of a parent–teacher meeting. For the observations of an insider who taught in the Soviet school system in the post-Stalin era, see Dora Shturman, The Soviet Secondary School (New York: Chapman and Hall, 1988). For a stimulating discussion of vocational and specialized education and the dilemmas of Soviet policy in the 1980s, see Dennis Soltys, Education for Decline: Soviet Vocational and Technical Schooling from Khrushchev to Gorbachev (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). William B. Husband, ‘Secondary School History Texts in the USSR: Revising the Soviet Past, 1985–1989’, Russian Review 4 (1991), pp. 458–80, esp. pp. 474–5; R.W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989). For these reforms, see Edward Dneprov, with Ben Eklof, Democracy in the Russian School: The Reform Movement in Russian Education Since 1984 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993); E.D. Dneprov, Shkol’naia reforma mezhdu ‘vchera’ i ‘zavtra’ (Moscow, 1996); and the excellent monograph by participant–observer Isak D. Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia (Krasnoiarsk, 1998). By far the best look into the impact of perestroika on Soviet schools is the work by James Muckle, Portrait of a Soviet School under Glasnost (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1990). This lethal combination was reminiscent of the NEP period, when in 1921, in the aftermath of revolution and a bloody civil war, the new Soviet state decentralized education and handed over responsibility for funding schools to the localities. For this period, see also Jeanne Sutherland, Schooling in the New Russia: Innovation and Change, 1984–1995 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995). The most egregious example was Decree No. 600, issued in 1999, which caused a furore among teachers before it was retracted. See the article by Scott Seregny, ‘Teachers’, in Encyclopedia of European Social History (ed. Peter Stearns, 2000), vol. 5, pp. 365–77. Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976), pp. 303–38. For the following, see, for example, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921–1934 (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). and idem, Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). The term ‘deal’ was used by Vera Dunham to describe the implicit social contract offered by Stalin to Russia’s emerging middle class; and also by Katerina Clark to depict the accommodation of Soviet writers to the regime; it is now the common currency of scholars who recognize that Stalinism was maintained not solely by coercion and terror.

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17 Moshe Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenomenom (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988). 18 Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia, pp. 234–46. 19 For a different perspective, see Ruane, Gender, Class and the Professionalization of Russian City Teachers, pp. 30–1 and 185–98. 20 Three years of general education and teacher training, usually after the nine years of general education. 21 Delbert H. Long and Roberta A. Long, Education of Teachers in Russia (Westport. CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), p. 66. See also StephenWebber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000), esp. chapters 5, 6 and 8. 22 See the chapter by Isak Froumin in this volume. 23 Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia, p. 221. 24 Ibid., pp. 245–6. 25 Sutherland, Schooling in the New Russia, pp. 160, 162, 165, 169, 172. 26 Argumenty i Fakty 15 (2000). 27 ‘Prognoz’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 1 (2002). The year 2003 was to have been one of maximum maturation of foreign debts, and of onset of population decline. 28 For the text of the Modernization Programme, see www.informika.ru/text/goscom/ curdoc.393.html#1; for an English language summary, see Khronika: Chronicle of Russian and Eurasian Education, vol. 9, nos 1–2 (2002): http://www.indiana.edu/ ~isre. 29 Uchitel’skaia gazeta 38 (2002). 30 See Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia, pp. 138–9 for refinements and categories of this system. 31 Vremia novostei 7 (17 January 2002). 32 Poisk, 24 February 2003. 33 Uchitel’skaia gazeta 15 (2002), p. 7. 34 www.edu.ru/portal/school_statistic. 35 Frants Sheregi, Sotsiologiia obrazovaniia: prikladnye issledovaniia (Moscow, 2001), pp. 424–40. I am grateful to Ms Anna Smolentseva for identifying and obtaining this book for me. 36 Uchitel’skaia gazeta 6 (2002). 37 A thorough and nuanced discussion of topics such as income inequality and child poverty, health, access and opportunity in education, foster care and institutionalized children from a comparative perspective can be found in A Decade of Transition (Unicef: The MONEE Project, Regional Monitoring Report no. 8. Florence, Italy, 2001). 38 Throughout the Gorbachev era, Russia’s burgeoning middle class expressed its aspirations to achieve living standards resembling those they believed prevailed in the west as a quest for a ‘normal’ life. This reflected a fundamental shift in mindset away from a point of reference in the past to one located outside the Soviet Union. This shift was first identified by John Bushnell in a seminal article, ‘The New Soviet Man Turns Pessimist’, in Stephen Cohen, Alexander Rabinowitch and Robert Sharlet (eds), The Soviet Union since Stalin (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1980), pp. 179–99. 39 ‘Na edu khavtaet, na sapogi net’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 15 (2002), p. 7. 40 See Webber for international comparisons of work load; Russian teachers have fewer hours and smaller classes. 41 One estimate puts the figure at 15–20 per cent: ‘Uchitel’ v avtoritete’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 11 (2002). 42 Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia, pp. 126–7. 43 ‘Luchshee iz . . . khudshego’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 48 (2002), p. 19.

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44 Sheregi, Sotsiologiia obrazovaniia, p. 425. Since only one-tenth of all teachers are men, the sharp decline in the proportion of young men scarcely affects the average age of all teachers. 45 The situation is different in higher education and scholarship, where almost half (47.4 per cent) are over 50 years old, only 10.6 per cent are under 29, the average age is 49 and one in every five scholars is over 60 years old. ‘Khronika raspada’, Poisk, 19 March 2003. 46 Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia, pp. 84–8. 47 Sheregi, Sotsiologiia obrazovaniia, p. 428. 48 ‘Luchshee iz . . . .khudshego’, p. 19. 49 Sheregi, Sotsiologiia obrazovaniia, p. 427. 50 ‘Luchshee iz . . . .khudshego’, p. 19. 51 Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia, pp. 92–3, 97–8. 52 ‘Programma modernizatsii pedagogicheskogo obrazovaniia’, www.ed.gov.ru/news 17/03/2003. The draft was sent out to fifty regional education offices, and the public response was extensive. Two complaints frequently mentioned were the inadequate training for teaching in small rural schools, and the inadequacy of teacher internships or practicums. Poisk, 27 February 2003. 53 There is much evidence accumulating that many pedagogical institutions have developed innovative programmes. 54 In a much-cited example, the educator Edward Nikitin noted cases of teachers gathering cranberries (Tver’), harvesting tobacco (Tambov) and tending hens (Rostov) in order to pay for their continuing studies: ‘Ne tol’ko o kliukve’, Poisk, 27 February 2003. 55 Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia, citing M. Fullan, p. 111. 56 Sheregi, Sotsiologiia obrazovaniia, pp. 438–40. 57 Uchitel’skaia gazeta 38 (2002). 58 Uchitel’skaia gazeta 11 (2002).

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9 CI V IC EDUCATIO N IN A C HANGING RU S S IA Janet G. Vaillant

The 1990s was a time of great instability, rapid change and intense struggle to decide the shape of the new Russia. It was also a time of growing inequality both in society and in access to good education, accompanied by a catastrophic collapse in financial support for all social services including education. Yet leading educators believed that education had a special role to play at this time. They pointed out that in a conservative society, the school replicates the main features of the existing society, transmitting experience, information and skills to the younger generation. In a time of change, schooling can serve as a transformative agent, preparing children to help create and live within a different type of society.1 They continue to believe that schools can teach new information and skills, how to operate in a market economy, for example, as well as new values and attitudes that will support a democratic civil society. The assumption is that values and behaviours promoted by schools may temporarily be discordant with those of society outside the school but can speed social change in a desirable direction. Much of the discussion has taken place under the rubric of civic education. Russian politicians, too, recognize that education has an important role to play in determining Russia’s future. They also urge attention to civic education, understanding the need to strengthen their own legitimacy, and recognizing that support is most secure when it comes from within.2 In November of 1994, Boris Yeltsin decreed that all Russian schoolchildren should study the Russian Constitution.3 Later he called for a new national idea to unite all the citizens of the Russian Federation. There is nothing extraordinary about a desire to bring up children in the spirit of a society’s traditions and laws. It has not taken the contemporary scholarship of Foucault or Bourdieu to recognize the role education plays in perpetuating or undermining social and political hierarchies. Aristotle pointed out that the best laws would have little effect unless the young were trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution. In the eighteenth century, Rousseau proposed the creation of a civic religion to unite 221

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his ideal society. The Soviet government found its version of civic religion in Marxism–Leninism and ensured that it permeated all levels of education. Despite widespread agreement that civic education is important, most countries find it difficult to establish its exact focus and boundaries, that is, to define it precisely. Unlike most subjects taught in schools where there is a body of content to be mastered, as in maths or history, civic education is delineated primarily in terms of its purpose: to create good citizens. Some believe that this is chiefly a matter of knowledge about existing political institutions, but others believe that knowledge alone is insufficient. Proposed new standards for civics and government published in the United States in 1994, and translated and distributed in Russian, illustrate the problem. The introduction suggests a wide perspective on civic education as that which creates skills, attitudes and behaviours suitable for a democratic society. It recognizes that many institutions – family, religious bodies, the media and community groups – play a part in civic education, but concludes that schools bear a special responsibility and should teach courses on politics and government. The standards then proposed, however, focus on the knowledge to be mastered in a single course about how the political system is supposed to work.4 When educators from the Council of Europe gathered to discuss how civic education should be adapted to support their goal of a common future, they defined the task broadly as involving ‘all those educational practices and courses whose purpose is the passing on and assimilation of the rules of individual and social life’.5 Similar conundrums of emphasis and definition have faced Russian educators as they try to establish a system of education for a democratic Russia.

Civic education in Soviet Russia After the Bolshevik Revolution, the new Soviet government set out to transform and extend education to serve their political and economic goals. After more than a decade of experimentation and debate about how best to do this, the Stalinist school was instituted in the 1930s.6 Stalin wrote that writers and teachers should serve as engineers of the soul. Schools were the advance troops in the campaign to create the new Soviet man and woman. Both the content and the style of teaching served this goal. Teachers in the Stalinist schools made little effort to distinguish the teaching of facts in history, social science or literature from the teaching of values, because all of the humanities and social sciences were considered vehicles for teaching Marxism–Leninism and legitimizing Communist Party rule. Every aspect of schooling was designed to shape the child into the good Soviet citizen. There was one right answer to every question in the social sciences. It was approved at the top of the hierarchy, and transmitted through the Ministry of Education to schools and teachers, and by teachers to pupils. Neither teacher nor student was asked to express an opinion. Authoritarian and controlling methods of pedagogy were supplemented by extracurricular organizations such as the Pioneers and Komsomol, where 222

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pupils participated in carefully orchestrated ways. The media, all social institutions and sometimes even the family reinforced the same attitudes and behaviours. What Soviet educators called vospitanie (upbringing or character education, the non-academic side of teaching), was as important and as explicitly organized as academic instruction. While the preparation of Soviet citizens varied somewhat over time, there was no question about the important role school was expected to play both in conveying information and in shaping ethics and behaviour. The basic principles of Soviet pedagogy required the persistent expression of Communist ideals in both classes and extracurricular activities.

Perestroika and glasnost in education Mikhail Gorbachev, general secretary of the Communist Party from 1985 to 1991, introduced the policies of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (giving voice to the truth). By the end of his tenure, the ideology on which Soviet civic education was based had been completely rejected. Educators joined journalists in calling for truth-telling, particularly in history. Restructuring history teaching was a top priority. School-leaving exams were cancelled in 1988, in recognition of the absurdity of testing students on the falsehoods they had been taught in schools. That same year, 1988, Gennadii Yagodin, then chairman of the State Committee on Public Education of the USSR, called for the ‘democratization and humanization’ of schools and proposed the reworking of the entire system of history and social studies education. In the spring of 1990, he ordered that a new course, ‘Mankind and Society’, be introduced that would support perestroika. It was to teach universal human values, support the ‘humanization of education’, help create democratic qualities in citizens, and prepare students to live within the parameters of a law-governed state.7 The course, extending over the last four years of secondary school (grades 8–11), would examine all aspects of social studies from psychology and ecology to history and economics. It was to provide knowledge, intellectual and social skills, and the ethical orientation suitable for citizens of a democratic society. General guidelines for the course were duly set in Moscow by the Ministry of Education and a number of groups set about writing the texts. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned from political office. Dissolution of the Soviet Union soon followed. The Soviet regime was declared a tragic mistake for Russia. This final blow deepened the confusion and psychological stress among all strata of Soviet society that had been building up since the beginning of perestroika. For the older generation, it implied that their entire lives had been spent in the service of a flawed ideal, and that their so-called accomplishments might have done more harm than good. Even for those who had been cynical and corrupt for years, it meant the collapse of a world in which they had learned to navigate. Gradual change no longer seemed possible. 223

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This period of great instability coincided with the term of radical reformer Edward Dneprov as minister of education of the Russian Federation. He took office with a definite agenda, namely to break the monopolistic, hierarchical control, characteristic of the Soviet era, by supporting diversity, choice and decentralization in education. The Law on Education drafted under his supervision and approved by the state Duma in July 1992, confirmed this policy in law. It allocated more responsibility for schools and curriculum to the regions and encouraged non-state and private schools. It placed new emphasis on serving the interests of the child as well as society. Education was to promote individual self-realization as well as economic and social progress. Those who framed the law, who made up part of the vanguard of systemic reform at that time, believed that providing the setting for individual self-definition and choice would prepare pupils to live in a democratic, law-governed society.8 Several years later, education officials defined their goals for what they now called civic education. Civic education should teach citizens to understand and accept the values of civil society, prepare them for playing an active role in building a state grounded in laws, give them the skills necessary to operate in a market economy, and help develop ‘a sense of belonging, first to a community . . . then to a geographic or cultural region, and finally to Russia as a whole’.9

Civic education for a law-governed democratic society New courses: mankind and society (Chelovek i obshchestvo) Yagodin’s call for a new, all-inclusive social studies course, ‘Mankind and Society’, that would promote the democratization and humanization of schools and teach ‘universal human values’, was a response to the challenge of perestroika which did not diverge significantly from Soviet tradition; that is, an all-encompassing solution would be provided from above. Government and law, the core subjects of civic education in many countries, would be included and integrated into a single, all-encompassing and integrated presentation of all the social sciences. The model for a total, consistent explanation was taken from Marxist social science, based on the assumption that such integration was possible. The task was, as one set of authors understood it, to create a new ideology – a new world view.10 Deputy Minister of Education Viktor Bolotov also spoke of ‘ideological’ education as an important task for history and the social sciences, but it was clear from the context that his concern was for what western educators would call civic education.11 Since those early years, Russian educators have learned to use the words civic education, or values education, rather than ideological instruction.12 Though most people were too self-conscious to say so openly, many Russians yearned to find a system of thinking that would be as all-encompassing and consistent as was the now-discredited Marxism–Leninism. A new social studies course was a first step.

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Working together, ministry officials and researchers at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (renamed the Russian Academy of Education in 1992) created thematic guides for the ambitious new course, and textbook authors set about formulating proposals, texts and teachers’ guides. The themes to be covered on politics and law included the historical origins of the state and law, definitions of the state, its functions, the role and function of law, the types and forms of state and of law, law and morality, and the idea and practice of a law-governed state. Proposals varied slightly. One promised to treat concepts such as political pluralism, the political status of the individual, and the organization of the present-day Russian Federation; another was more sociologically oriented, advocating sections on civil society. The proposed themes varied little and the chapter headings of the textbooks subsequently published are very similar, revealing the extent to which central ministry directives and approval were still driving the process. Directives from above about goals and themes for the course did not mean agreement on course content. No one had defined universal human values, or specified what democratization and humanization of education entailed. The sections on political life in one approved text, Mankind and Society, written by a team headed by V.I. Kuptsov, presented an overtly Marxist, and what might be termed in this context a strongly conservative, view. The text argues that the way in which a society is ruled depends on the level of social ownership and the means of production, that history shows that the largest role in the emergence of state and law is played by economics, and that ‘public power always serves primarily the interests of ruling circles’. The authors scoff at the idea that when people freely choose their leaders they always choose the best. They also explain that the socialist state provides the best conditions for crisis-free economic and technological development. They point out that contradictions between central Soviet and republic laws in the early 1990s led ‘to an artificial break in the economic, social and other links that had been laid down in society over many decades’. The break-up of the Soviet Union, students are assured, was the result of bad statecraft.13 Other texts took different approaches, in content, tone and style. A team led by L.N. Bogoliubov based at the Russian Academy of Education developed what has become the most widely used text. Its earliest editions combined heavy-handed Marxist interpretations of history with fresh approaches in its section on government. There it contrasted the ‘Leviathan state’, which concentrates all power in its hands, as did the fascist and Soviet states of the 1930s, with other, superior law-governed states where law and the constitution take priority over individual state acts.14 The text included exercises for students to discuss classic questions of freedom and responsibility, such as Cicero’s dictum, ‘We can be free only when we become slaves of the law’. Successive versions of Bogoliubov’s text rely less on Marxist history and the formal bureaucratic language typical of Soviet texts, while still arguing for the advantages of socialism. 225

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A third text set out to create a new ‘philosophical culture’.15 Its authors adopt a conversational tone in their introduction, but their text quickly becomes highly academic and intellectual. It includes excerpts from primary sources carefully chosen to acquaint students with the works of Russian and world philosophers. In a companion volume for teachers, the lead author, A.F. Malishevskii, argues that the goal of social studies and civic education should be the creation of a new philosophical culture in all young people regardless of their chosen future occupations. In his view, educators must break down the artificial barriers between scholarly disciplines and engage pupils with real problems in the real world. He assumes that teaching about political institutions cannot be separated from ‘concrete’ issues of philosophy and morality.16 His own text, however, fails to make these connections. The content of these textbooks confirms that general agreement on themes and ill-defined goals coexisted with very different authorial points of view. Each text reflects and supports an important political position in the early 1990s. The first authors clearly resist change and are critical of Gorbachev’s and Yeltsin’s policies; the second team recognizes the need for a new approach, but is reluctant to abandon the socialist ideal; while the third calls for total transformation but is incapable of following its own directives. Each text thus illustrates one of three typical responses by educators to the new political reality. After the onset of perestroika, some educators tried to continue as if little had happened, perhaps because they had believed in the Communist ideology and system or because they had made their careers within it, or perhaps out of rigidity of mind, or perhaps simply because life was difficult and they lacked the energy or courage to reinterpret views they had been teaching and preaching throughout their lives. Surprising as it may seem, many teachers and schools were still using the old Soviet-era texts and repeating the old formulae well into the 1990s. At the end of the decade, it was still common, particularly in poor schools and rural areas, to be using old textbooks that presented outdated material.17 The second response was perhaps the most common among those with access to new ideas and materials: an effort to make small adjustments to an old worldview that they still embraced in essence. This line paralleled the political position of Gorbachev himself, namely, that the socialist path was basically correct for Russia, but had been distorted by excess zeal, or a low level of general education or, most simplistically, by the evil genius of Stalin. The third and boldest response, suggested by Malishevskii’s call for teaching a new philosophical culture, reflected the view that there was a need to rethink the foundations of the ethical system upon which Soviet society, and the Soviet school, had been based. Those who adopted this approach in education were a distinct minority in the early 1990s, and seemed unsure how to put their beliefs into action.

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New courses: Civics (Grazhdanovedenie) The Education Ministry’s new curricular guidelines also called for a civics course for grade 9 to be called either Civics (grazhdanovedenie) or Politics and Law (Politika i pravo). The word grazhdanovedenie was new to the educational lexicon, coined to suggest a new task. It continued to sound strange to Russian ears for several years.18 The first materials published for the civics courses were authored by A.F. Nikitin and Ia.V. Sokolov. Together they had written the Soviet-era text for the same age level, The Bases of Soviet State and Law. Now they worked separately, Sokolov on civics, Nikitin on politics and law. Both found it difficult to break with the type of language and formalistic approach that had served them well in Soviet times. Writing in 1994 about his early efforts, Sokolov acknowledged that his first materials might have seemed to be new ideological indoctrination, but that his subsequent ones were not and followed ‘an integrated approach’ to the study of the problems of society.19 He was not totally successful in excising the hortatory and dogmatic tone that characterized most Soviet texts and most of their successors to this day.20 A.F. Nikitin’s civics text for the ninth grade was called Politics and the Law. He defined political concepts such as civil society, the citizen, and different types of government – monarchical, republican, authoritarian, democratic – and reflected upon laws and rights of various types, including the rights of the child. He introduced some examples from history, particularly Russian history, thereby making an effort to connect abstract principles with the Russian experience. In a later text for teachers, he provided excerpts from writings by Russian human rights activists in the 1980s and 1990s. His writing, too, betrays his origins as a Soviet-era textbook author, but he continues to work hard to develop a more accessible and conversational style.21 The course grazhdanovedenie, is now required for all schools in the federation in the eighth or ninth grade. Some regions have introduced it for younger children as well. New texts and supplementary materials have been written by other authors, but Nikitin and Sokolov continue to provide the most widely used texts. The official list of ministry-approved texts for 2001/02 offers a choice of seven different books.

International projects Several international projects on civic education in the 1990s were carried out jointly by Russian educators and western specialists.22 Although the number of participants in overseas seminars, exchanges and pilot projects was necessarily small, their impact was greatly increased by subsequent dissemination of the results at conferences and by the education press. Publication of the results of one of the first projects typifies both the strengths and weaknesses of international collaboration in the early 1990s. The materials include detailed guidelines and explanations for activities to

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encourage student participation and express individual views about political institutions, democracy and the role of the citizen. Such methods were often new to Russian teachers and many were eager to learn them. The text explains western theories about the relationship between democracy and social institutions, and underlines the importance of the existence of a civil society distinct from the government. Of the many historical examples presented, almost all are from the experience of the United States, with a few from French or English history (Italy and Ireland are mentioned as examples of the danger of failing to effect a complete separation of church and state). There is no attempt to connect the possibilities for democracy with the cultural or historical heritage of Russia, or to identify events promising for democracy in Russia’s past.23 These materials reflect outsiders’ assumptions about the applicability of their experience to that of Russia, as well as ignorance of Russia’s culture and current situation. The early international projects focused on political and legal subjects and introduced Russians to the vocabulary of international civic education experts. Russians were expected to work with foreign models of civic education, which in some cases had come under criticism in their countries of origin. The availability of financial support and possible trips abroad for those who followed western direction clearly influenced the agenda of participants, especially since the Russian government did not back up directives introducing civic education with concrete financial support. Educators on both sides faced additional problems of literal and conceptual translation. Just as civic education itself had required a new word, many concepts basic to western discussions of democracy and law needed considerable explication before they would make sense to Russian readers. None the less Russian authors such as Sokolov tried faithfully to use the terms in their new texts, which is probably why many teachers found his early grazhdanovedenie texts so abstract and difficult to use.24 Much was learned by Russian participants in these programmes, although it may not always have been what their international partners intended. The Russian teachers were good observers; many were interested in teaching techniques. However, a programme officer for one of the US granting organizations commented that US grantees, who organized seminars on human rights were having problems because Russian participants seemed more interested in studying new teaching methods than in learning about human rights.25 The interest of outsiders in developing civic education did not go unnoticed by Russian politicians. In June 1995, the Russian State Duma issued a decree, ‘On the Need to Adopt Extraordinary Measures to Guarantee Pupils of the Russian Federation Texts Produced in Russia and Written by Russian Authors’.26 It stated that foreign firms and citizens should not be allowed to define the content of Russian school texts. The decree singled out for particular criticism a popular history text by two Ukrainian authors, L.H. Zharova and I.A. Mishina on the period 1900–40. Response to this attack on outsiders 228

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was swift and sharp. Uchitel’skaia gazeta sounded the alarm, saying that the next step would be to investigate whether Russian authors had pure Russian blood. They found it odd that the Duma was concerned about the ethnic purity of authors but granted no money to publish desperately needed new texts.27 Aleksandr Asmolov, a deputy minister of education at the time, warned against evaluating texts by looking at authorial genealogies rather than the text itself. He answered what might have appeared to be an implied attack on international aid by expressing his gratitude for the help by all those, Russian or foreign, in the difficult economic situation that prevailed.28 A reaction against foreign aid in education, as well as against foreign involvement in other spheres of Russian life, corresponded with the political agenda of those who opposed the Yeltsin government and with a conservative backlash in the country at large. Civic education and education reform in general had reached a turning point by the mid-1990s. The western model of a course dedicated to civics did not appear to be sufficient. After publishing several ‘civics’ books, Anatolii Nikitin reflected that although much was being published in the name of civic education, no one really knew what this was, adding that whatever it was, it could not be covered in a single course. As if to answer his own question, he observed that without morality, law and politics merely provided an arena for bandit games.29 That same year, Simon Soloveichik, the much-respected chief editor of the independent newspaper Pervoe sentiabria, published an article entitled ‘Pedagogues Cast Off the Burden of Humanism’. There he lamented the fact that educators no longer spoke of the need to humanize schools, or to respect students as individuals. He recognized that the wave of basic, allencompassing reform in schools was passing.30 Limiting civic education to a single academic subject was in keeping with this trend.

The need for new approaches It was clear that Russian circumstances required another approach. In the west, too, educators were rethinking their ideas about civic education. New problems such as rising violence among young people and declining political participation called for fresh responses. Russian and foreign educators were shifting focus to what might be called ‘the iceberg problem’.31 Formal institutions make up the most noticeable and visible aspect of political life and can be likened to the tip of the iceberg. If they are to take on a life beyond the façade, however, they must be supported by a dense array of skills and abilities, expectations and restraints, among both leaders and citizens. In stable, conservative societies, schools transmit these qualities, often unconsciously, in ways that support the existing social and political order. Families and groups may benefit differentially from these arrangements, but no one questions their basic assumptions.32 Russia of the 1990s was undergoing rapid and disorienting change. The government had declared that the country should transform 229

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itself from a totalitarian to a democratic, market-oriented society. Politicians and educators urged schools to play a role in advancing towards this goal. They focused first on curriculum and imparting new information about political institutions – the visible tip of the iceberg. Educators assumed that providing information was sufficient to prepare pupils to live in a democratic, law-governed society, just as political reformers assumed that creating new political institutions, laws and a formally free press would lead to new behaviour in society at large. By 1995, it was clear that this was not the case, either in school or in society. What pupils learned from the media and experienced outside of schools highlighted the gap between school learning and reality, similar to that which the first Gorbachev reforms had sought to close. Pupils discovered that the institutions they learned about at school were being subverted by political and economic leaders. The society had created little social capital, the foundation of the iceberg, to support Russia’s formal democracy. Too many Russians lacked either the experience or the motivation to make the new political institutions work. Since the mid-1990s, Russian civic educators have begun to take different approaches, recognizing the need for pupils to learn skills that will enable them to be effective citizens. Some, for example, have advocated an interdisciplinary (mezhpredmetnyi) approach to civic education. The argument here is that all subjects, and particularly history, can be taught in ways that develop civic skills. The authors of the most commonly used civics, politics and law materials, Nikitin and Sokolov, have revised their materials to encourage classroom discussion by including questions about pupils’ own ideas and experience. Reform-minded writers of history materials include primary sources for analysis, and alternative interpretations of key events to stimulate discussion. Pupils are invited to consider the role of individuals in history, and to discuss choices made by individual leaders. These textbook writers have carried on a quiet campaign to undermine the assumptions of the dogmatic, determinist Marxist history that prevailed in the Soviet period and continued in the 1990s. The innovative materials are not yet widely available, but several are on the 2002/03 list of ministry-approved textbooks.33 They may point the way to the future. Optional courses on law and economics have been introduced for older students in specialized schools. The existing texts for these courses are academic and theoretical in approach, more appropriate for the pupil who seeks entrance into a specialized institute than as part of a general civics education. None the less the courses, like the institutes for which they prepare, are popular. A loan from the World Bank to the Russian government, administered by the Russian Foundation for Legal Reform, has supported the development of additional texts on law for grades 7–12. Written by Russian academics and textbook writers, these also are rather academic, but include exercises for pupils to make connections to their own experience. Two of these have been approved by the Ministry of Education.34 A group from St Petersburg has 230

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worked with a US organization called Street Law to adapt materials for Russian use. A similar collaboration between the Citizenship Foundation (UK) and a group from Rostov-on-Don has produced Passport for a Young Citizen (Pasport molodogo grazhdanina), designed to introduce young people to the law. The Open Society Institute has been active in this area, developing short pamphlets for students to read independently. Others seek to create a ‘lawgoverned space [pravovoe prostranstvo]’ within the school.35 For law, as for civics, there is now a choice of materials, but distribution is still limited as is training for teachers in using them. Teaching about the law poses a particular challenge. It represents an extreme case of a contradiction between what is taught in school about law and what pupils observe in the society around them. None the less there is evidence that knowing the law and their rights enables young people to defend themselves in their everyday encounters.36 Issues-based civic education is a relatively new addition to the Russian civic education repertory. Proponents of this approach engage students directly with current issues in their communities. The idea is to work with students to identify an important local issue, do the research necessary to discover the facts that bear on it, consider options for its solution and, if possible, take some practical step. In a variant of this, students or teachers prepare background briefing materials supporting three different possible solutions to a pressing current problem. A forum of students or adults is then organized for discussion. The goal of such projects is to demonstrate to pupils that although they cannot change everything, they can influence their surroundings in small ways.37 Groups that have not traditionally concerned themselves with the education of young people have also organized extracurricular activities to contribute to civics education. The human rights group Memorial has sponsored conferences for teachers on how to use games and role-play to encourage democratic attitudes. UNESCO and the Moscow International Fund co-sponsored a contest for both students and teachers for the best essay on the rights of man. In July 1997, the State Committee for Youth Affairs announced a competition for the best programme to foster a civic spirit and patriotism among young people. Such activities have become too numerous to track. Most important of all, teacher training and retraining has risen to the top of the reform agenda. There is now a broad array of excellent materials available. The challenges are to distribute materials more widely and train teachers to use them. The impoverishment of parents and the education sector as a whole, with the possible exception of the largest cities, makes it difficult to buy new books. The Soviet system of in-service training institutes for teachers has atrophied, lacking financial support and innovative leadership. As in the US and elsewhere, even when teachers want to use active methods of teaching, or create a democratic classroom, or even lead a class discussion, they do not always have the skills to do so effectively. Professional teachers groups, local and international seminars, and newly formed regional resource centres have 231

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joined the existing network of government-sponsored institutes to provide teacher training. Nearly half of the country’s teachers took part in some sort of in-service courses in 1995, although it is impossible to evaluate the quality or impact of such courses.38 Three institutions deserve special mention for their support of civic education and innovation. The newspaper Uchitel’skaia gazeta publishes a supplement on civic education, sponsors nation-wide civic education competitions (olimpiady) and, with the support of the American Federation of Teachers Civitas project, has organized an Association for Civic Education that offers occasional seminars for teachers. The reform-minded independent newspaper Pervoe sentiabria prints information for teachers and sponsors an annual conference in honour of the paper’s founder, Simon Soloveichik, where well-known educators lead seminars to introduce teachers to new types of pedagogies and schools. The Russian Association of Innovative Schools, together with the Eureka Open University, has organized federation-wide competitions and festivals at which innovative schools present their ideas to representatives from other schools. In 1999, 315 schools representing 57 regions of Russia entered this competition, double the number that had participated in 1996.39 Many of these schools are introducing new types of school organizations, new pedagogies that encourage new skills in children, and experimenting with new relationships with parents and their local communities. In recent years, the Russian Ministry of Education has begun to provide financial support for the civic education olimpiada and for the Russian Association of Innovative Schools, but the major initiative remains with the newspapers and professional organizations that have sprung up across the country. It is impossible to know what is actually going on in upwards of 32,000 schools of Russia, more than half of which are rural schools.40 Relatively small numbers are involved in innovative projects and their demonstration effect is difficult to trace. Estimates are that between 5 and 20 per cent of schools are involved in reform, though the meaning of ‘reform’ varies from change in a single course to much more ambitious plans. Polls indicate that change is slow. This has been the experience of all countries trying to introduce systemic reform in education. Teachers often find little incentive to take risks and try new things, especially if they do not fully understand what is being asked of them or have little support from school directors. This, too, is typical of school reform efforts elsewhere.41 In 1995 one poll found that 80 per cent of history teachers were continuing to teach the Marxist–Leninist interpretation of history, replete with class struggle and determinism.42 In 1995, teachers were still writing to the press saying they would like to teach about law but could find no materials with which to do so. By 2001 such materials did exist, but few teachers had been trained to use them. A 1996 poll in Ekaterinburg found considerable disagreement about the goal of civic education. Was it to give students the capability of orienting themselves in the existing 232

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society, or to change society, or to take part in the market economy?43 This disagreement mirrors what polls show to be widespread disagreement throughout Russian society about whether to go forward towards what passes for democracy in Russia, or to try to salvage some positive features of the Soviet period such as a rough equality and support for social services.

Civic education and vospitanie Reformers interested in civic education are no longer satisfied that new courses or even pedagogical changes that promote sophisticated intellectual skills are sufficient. For them, these projects do not address the most powerful way in which schools influence their pupils: the ‘hidden curriculum’ and the impact of school life as a whole. They question the values implied by the amount of time spent on different subjects and activities in the school, the hierarchy of power within the school and relationships between students, teachers, and school heads, as well as with parents and the community outside the school. They emphasize the importance of the tone of the school, respectfulness within the school, and the language that people use with one another.44 These questions refer back to the sphere of what Russians call vospitanie. Russian educators have long made an analytical distinction between obuchenie (instruction) and vospitanie, the non-academic aspect of school life. In Soviet times, vospitanie included many practices to ensure the requisite civic education. All of them were discarded in the period of perestroika. None the less, this intellectual tradition prepared civic educators to be sensitive to the importance of the non-academic side of school life. As they began to consider the realm of the hidden curriculum and vospitanie, their thinking intersected with that of an important group of innovators who had been working to reform the Russian school in the period prior to the onset of perestroika. Pioneers of Russian contemporary school reform began asking basic questions about the purpose and goals of education. They drew from a small humanistic stream in Soviet pedagogy preserved and developed in the work of A.S. Makarenko (1888–1939) and V.A. Sukhomlinskii (1918–70).45 This tradition, little known outside of Russia, has greatly influenced contemporary pedagogical thinking on school reform and, more recently, civic education. Sukhomlinskii began with the individual child. His guiding principle was that each child has a core of unique individuality that should be nourished from the day he enters school. Teachers must engage their hearts and minds with those of their pupils.46 Inspired in part by his work, Igor Ivanov and others created the Communard movement in Leningrad in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They, too, began with children’s interests, urging them to recognize and express their own creativity.47 Oleg Gazman continued in this tradition, organizing a summer camp where children were granted maximum freedom to set their own goals and rules and then were expected to live in accord with them.48 The founders of the Communard movement, like Sukhomlinskii, believed 233

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that the free individual would, with loving and empathetic support, come to understand that his interests coincided with those of the group, so that there was no conflict between being a free individual and a loyal member of the collective. Later, when the language of civic education had become current, Gazman argued that careful nurturing of the individuality of each child in elementary school and the creation of effective self-government for older children, what he called the creation of a civil society within the school, were the most effective ways to prepare good citizens. When such a thought was unacceptable to his innovator colleagues, he reminded them that there was much that was good in Soviet vospitanie, that it should be re-evaluated rather than rejected wholesale.49 In 1986, a group of educators that included Amonashvili, Matveev, Soloveichik and others drafted a manifesto calling for a ‘pedagogy of working together [pedagogika sotrudnichestva]’, that appealed for cooperation between teachers and pupils in teaching and learning. They stressed the need for teachers to respect and value their pupils as individuals, thus echoing Sukhomlinskii’s basic tenet. A few years later, in a follow-up meeting, they reported that ‘without even realizing it, we have taught children hostility and violence. Until recently our ideology has been extremely aggressive . . . the ability to argue with rather than to destroy one’s opponent is the kind of turnaround that must be accomplished in the school community.’ 50 Simon Soloveichik, the editor of a collection of Sukhomlinskii’s writings in the 1970s and participant in the Communard movement, later published his own manifesto, ‘The Free Person’ (Chelovek svobodnyi). He tried to define what a free person was, while continuing to emphasize the moral role of the teacher and the importance of teacher–pupil relationships.51 He shared the belief that if properly guided in loving respect, pupils would naturally form a social conscience and become decent members of the human community. Such thinking about the non-academic side of schooling implies a whole new pedagogy. It coincides with the thinking of those Russians who believe that effective civic education demands transforming the entire school environment, particularly what is sometimes called ‘the hidden curriculum’. When civic educators speak of the need to consider and change the effect of the school environment on pupils, or to create a democratic school, or a law-governed space within the school, they recognize the power of the inadvertent lessons taught in all schools. Like other school reformers, they want to root out and replace hidden lessons in hostility and aggression, passivity, and irresponsibility with lessons in personal accountability, and respect for self and others. Thus reformers influenced by international thinking and practice and those working largely within the Russian pedagogical tradition have reached similar conclusions about what needs to be done in contemporary schools. Both want to transform the school’s entire way of life so that they will teach lessons about new types of relationships between individuals and their commnity and prepare pupils for a society based on mutual respect and the rule of law.52 234

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Civic education for common citizenship The government and education ministry have set an important task for civic education that has been largely ignored by Russian civic educators: the creation of support for patriotism and a sense of common citizenship. This is a particularly challenging problem in today’s Russia because in both tsarist and Soviet times, imperial ambitions and imported ideals interfered with the development of a unifying ethnic Russian national identity. After the revolution of 1917, the Communist government set out to inculcate a sense of union-wide identity based on the universalist assumptions of Marxism–Leninism. Increasingly, however, the Soviet identity included elements of Russian nationalism. Appeals to Russian symbols were particularly prominent during World War II. After the war, non-Russians in the union republics where ethnic and political borders coincided acquired national identities based in part on resistance to Moscow. This development contributed to the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of independent national states in the early 1990s. The independent republics quickly repudiated the old Soviet identity. For members of the Russian Federation, disentangling the Soviet and Russian identities presents a far more difficult task. Although the Soviet government had favoured ethnic Russians in many ways, it destroyed the traditional markers of Russian identity such as the Orthodox Church and the Russian peasant commune. It also suppressed much of Russian high culture.53 The problem is further complicated because many ethnic Russians live outside the federation’s borders, while inside the federation, ethnic minorities make up almost 20 per cent of the population. Regional boundaries often respect ethnic settlement patterns. Like the peoples of the former Soviet republics, however, these peoples were incorporated into the Russian and Soviet empires by force. Even though many of these people lived as part of Russia long before the Bolshevik Revolution, they now seek autonomy or special rights. Today, the borders of the federation itself are contested, as is clear from the tragic events in Chechnya. The past weighs heavily on the implementation of any policy of decentralization and democratization within the federation. The Law on Education delegated to the regions greater responsibility for curricula and schools as part of a broader political effort to break up the centralized Soviet Communist state. Focused on this goal, reformers did not consider the possible negative consequences of their policy. Its success has created a new set of challenges: how to preserve a single educational space and a sense of common citizenship. The ministry has decided that 60 per cent of the school curriculum should be set at the centre, 30 per cent by regional authorities, and 10 per cent by local schools. The federal component includes civic education and national history. The regional component includes regional history and may include additional civics courses at local discretion. The implications of this arrangement for future national cohesion are discussed in print rarely and usually obliquely.54 Civic educators have chosen not

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to put this sensitive topic on their agenda. When educational administrators refer to the issue, they do so in semi-disguised form, during discussions about the creation of national standards so that children can move freely from educational institutions at one level to those at another, or from one region to another. They recognize the importance of a clear assignment of responsibilities among the regions, centre and localities, but speak of it in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and equity. A rare reference to ethnic issues was framed in terms of protecting the rights of children. The hypothetical example is children provided with a traditional education that teaches them the history and language of their own ethnic community but reduces instruction in maths and science, and offers no language, in this case Russian, which gives them access to the wider world. Will these children have been ill-served by their education? Do parents have a right to deny their children the opportunity for later cultural and educational choice?55 This is an important and legitimate question for a central ministry to ask. For the present, the ministry has been working to balance central and regional concerns by working out individual agreements with each of the 89 regions. Some of these agreements refer to the use of local languages in schools, developing new history materials, and creating curriculum to familiarize non-native populations living in the region with the cultural values of the ethnic minority there. The single most important subject for teaching about identity and group membership is history. It is in history classes that students learn about themselves and their neighbours, and the relations between them. In 1995, V.K. Batsyn, then deputy minister for national schools, made a radical proposal for Russian history education. He suggested that questions about national heritage and identity, and their implications for Russia’s present and future should be asked continuously as the teaching of history was reformed. He criticized existing school texts for remaining silent about the relationships among the various nationalities that made up the Russian and Soviet empires, and now live either in independent states or within the Russian Federation. Such questions must be faced directly, he argued, in order to develop a sense of common citizenship. Conversely, much of the old mythology about Russian history as centuries of righteous, defensive battles against a host of evil neighbours needed to be reconsidered and re-conceptualized if Russians were to learn to live in peace with those same neighbours. Whatever the new identity and outlook for the federation was to be, he believed that it must find its sources in the past.56 History journals and newspapers for teachers have shown little interest in taking up the challenge. In the early years of perestroika, and continuing into the mid-1990s, history teachers’ and textbook writers’ main concerns were to correct falsehoods and develop new conceptions for organizing and analysing history to replace the discredited Marxist version.57 Reform-minded history educators then turned to developing more sophisticated materials to encourage analysis and discussion. They wanted to contribute to education for 236

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democratic citizenship but sidestepped the even greater challenge of reconceptualizing Russian history to include the experience of its ethnic minorities. A course on the peoples of Russia has been proposed for schools specializing in history in the tenth and eleventh grades. The idea sounds promising, but excerpts from a proposed text, Peoples of the Fatherland, published in 1997, present the story of Russia’s people entirely from Moscow’s point of view and repeat Marxist terminology about the development of productive forces and hindrances to capitalist formation.58 Its contents serve as yet another reminder that stated intentions are not always reflected in actual texts and classroom practice. In fact, most post-Soviet Russian history texts concentrate even more fully on the Russian experience than did their Soviet predecessors. Elsewhere, out of sight of Moscow officials, the writing of regional histories proceeds apace. These histories, in the ethnic minority regions, often present the Russians as invaders and exploiters. A few raise claims to their neighbours’ lands imagining a past, to use Benedict Anderson’s evocative phrase, of illustrious ancestors and large kingdoms that should be restored.59 The creation of an acceptable shared past that includes all the Russian Federation’s peoples is an enormous challenge for Russia’s historians and school teachers. No country has succeeded entirely in forging a history that recognizes past controversies and injustices in a way that all its citizens can accept. Controversy abounds from Japan to Italy to the United States. It is particularly explosive in Russia because the grievances and voices of national minorities were suppressed during the Soviet period. If Marxist histories tended to ignore nationality issues, the current vogue of Lev Gumilev, who interprets historical development in terms of evolving ethnic groups that retain their essential characteristics over time, suggests an equally unproductive approach in the future. A few researchers have addressed this problem but teaching materials are not yet available.60 It has become a particular challenge since recent polls suggest that more than 50 per cent of young Russians in Moscow would like to see the old Soviet borders restored.61 Politicians have their own views about this problem. They understand the importance of history teaching and historical myth-making for political stability. Yeltsin himself appointed a high-level commission to develop a national idea for the new federation. During the 1996 presidential campaign, rhetoric about the need for a strong, stable national state was occasionally accompanied by references to education. The Communist candidate, Gennadii Ziuganov, called for the rebuilding of a strong Russian state based on ‘the glorious traditions of Russian statehood, Russian nationhood, the Russian nationality and Soviet patriotism’. He further lamented that school texts deprived Russians of their own history: ‘no . . . Pushkin, Dostoevsky or Tolstoi . . . No Soviet history, no patriotism, not even the word Motherland’.62 His knowledge of the textbooks was flawed, but he expressed many people’s anxiety about giving up familiar myths about Russian history and culture. He linked this charge with 237

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the observation that outsiders ‘armed with lies and slander have come promising to lead Russia to civilization, but in reality have destroyed the most important institutions of the Russian state’. Another candidate, Vladimir Zhirinovskii, urged giving priority to preserving the ‘Russian national school’ and rejecting western values that promote greed and dissipation.63 They were not alone in questioning the new history and social studies curricula. Two years later, the Duma Committee on Education sent a letter to the Academy of Education complaining that the new history texts did not present a single, full and unified view of the Russian past. They criticized the texts for focusing too much on the dark side of Russian history and not sufficiently nurturing patriotism. The letter added that too much time was being spent on new courses such as economics, sociology and law.64 Education for patriotism remains highly contentious in today’s Russia. Federal textbooks that ignore ethnic minorities, and highly nationalistic textbooks in some minority regions, coexist with appeals from politicians for patriotic education and the creation of a new national ideal. This is a potentially explosive mix.

Civic education at the dawn of the new millennium Civic education in Russia has become a broad and complicated enterprise. Courses introduced at the beginning of perestroika continue to exist. Today, the course ‘Mankind and Society’ is required by the federal curriculum and widely taught. There exists a choice of texts, a few of which have been approved by the central ministry. Regional variants also exist. They continue to reflect different points of view and encourage different pedagogies. While some encourage active discussion and creativity, others imply that there is one right way to think and act. In St Petersburg, for example, regional texts by a local team of authors are required for use in all city schools. Any teacher who deviates from the planned methodology can be reported to education officials and chastised for not following the proper curriculum. Yet teachers in schools with strong leadership, and perhaps in other ones as well, pay scant attention, illustrating once again that central and regional directives are not always carried out by teachers in the field.65 The federal curriculum also requires a civics course for the eighth and ninth grades. The federally approved and therefore most widely used texts, by Sokolov and Nikitin, have gone through numerous editions to make them more accessible and concrete, and to encourage the use of active methods. Both authors, particularly Sokolov, retain their hortatory tone, however, and make very clear the values that pupils are expected to hold and what they ought to do, without always explaining why behaving in accord with such values would lead to a better situation for everyone. Some regions have added civic education courses for children in lower grades and others are experimenting with introducing courses on law for younger pupils, although legal education in early 238

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grades is not widespread. Regions differ on their idea of the best approach.66 Academic courses on law, economics, and political science are increasingly taught in classes 10 and 11 at élite, specialized schools, most often for students preparing to enter institutes in those fields. A few internationally sponsored projects and a core of dedicated Russian educators have developed materials to engage children in issues of law and rights, and even consumer rights, in an immediate practical way. Most of these are still in the early stages of dissemination, and there is great regional variation. Educators generally agree that civic education requires a multi-faceted approach. Even teachers who doubt the worth of a course called civics agree that students should be encouraged to express and defend their own ideas. Many are trying to use active methods, though teacher training to help them do so effectively is not always available. Other civic educators argue for wholeschool reform to allow pupils to participate in a school community based on democratic and legal principles. One prominent educator, Isak Froumin, has suggested that it is time to reassess and consider more deeply what is meant by such grand terms as democracy and freedom in whose name reform has been carried out.67 Teaching patriotism and love of country is an important part of civic education. The challenge this presents to the Russian Federation has not yet been met in a way that includes all of the federation’s peoples. The task of conceptualizing an integrated history of Russia that includes the experience of both Russians and its ethnic minorities has been identified as important and historians are now at work on it. Today’s federal textbooks teach the history of Russia as the triumphant expansion of the Russian state. At the same time ethnic minority students in some regions are also being taught that their neighbours, often the Russians, have invaded and persecuted them. The fact that schools do not now teach a common version of the past may prove dangerous for the future of the Russian Federation’s stability. It is noticeable that the vanguard of Russian educators has not chosen to adopt the French or US model of civic education. In those countries, there is a strong effort to separate civic from spiritual and ethical instruction and to respect the divide between civic and personal virtue. In Russian schools, instructors and civic educators are accustomed to making little distinction between personal and civic values they wish to impart. This distinction was consciously blurred in Soviet times, and there is a tendency to continue in this tradition. The increasing overlap between civic education and the more allencompassing concept of vospitanie also reflects this choice. Russians appear to agree with Aristotle and Rousseau that the spirit must be engaged in support of politics and law. Only a few Russian historians have recognized that the existence of multiple ethnicities and religious confessions suggests the need for a different approach.68 Change in actual school practice remains difficult to estimate. New textbooks may exist, but they are not widely available to teachers outside major 239

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cities. The most innovative materials, with rare exceptions, have not even been approved by the Ministry of Education for wide distribution. The vanguard of Russians educational reformers can take pride in major accomplishments in theory and in limited practice. Yet it is probable that even those teachers who pay lip service to reform lack the understanding and support to carry out the changes intended by the innovators.69 Such a situation is not unique to Russia, but lack of support for education in general and teacher training, and retraining in particular, exacerbates the situation there. In Russia, as in all countries, schools alone cannot carry out significant reform without the support of the whole society.

Conclusion In the course of the 1990s, the initiative for new ideas and approaches to civic education passed from the central ministry to individuals, professional groups and local officials. Russian specialists on civic education with wide knowledge of international practice now exist. They have learned from western practice, but have also learned to be selective in their borrowings. They realize that there is much of value in their own pedagogical tradition. Many innovative ideas and new teaching materials have been developed, but teacher education and dissemination, particularly to rural areas, remains a problem. At the root of civic education reform, as of many problems facing Russian education today, is the collapse of financing for education and uncertainty about the future direction of the country as a whole. Two substantial challenges for civic education loom large for the future. The first is to maintain a sense of common citizenship in the context of regional decentralization and diversification of curriculum. The central education ministry is understandably concerned about ensuring the quality of education across the federation and maintaining a single educational space. A common school experience and some shared knowledge among young people would seem to be essential if the federation is to survive as a single country. The ministry is attempting to introduce central standards and exams for all school graduates. There is considerable opposition to this policy, as there is in the US, both from educators who believe that the tests measure the wrong sorts of attainments and from those who see this as part of a more general campaign by the ministry to re-impose central control over curriculum. Central control and innovation would seem to be mutually exclusive, as the innovators note in protest against the ministry’s attempt to gain control over experimental schools.70 The ministry’s policies appear particularly threatening as they parallel the Putin government’s moves to strengthen the power of the central government over the regions and limit freedom of the press. In the 1990s, controversy and perhaps bloodshed was avoided by decentralizing power. It will take great skill to re-establish central control without generating enormous conflict and resistance. 240

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A second problem is particularly acute for Russian civic educators. It arises because of the contradiction between what they are teaching about government and law in school and what children know to be going on in the society at large. In contrast to Soviet times when corruption and disregard for the law were widespread but unpublicized, the press has been reporting widely on violations of the law by people in high places. There was much talk in Gorbachev’s time of closing the gap between word and deed that had led to deceit and cynicism in the late Soviet period. That gap remains open and is now visible to all. A letter from a 15-year-old girl, Oksana Marchenko, published in Uchitel’skaia gazeta in 1997, cuts to the heart of this problem. She writes that her mother, a teacher, has not been paid for months. The same is true of their friends from whom they used to borrow. ‘Should we turn to crime?’ she asks. She notes that elected deputies are fed and housed in a grand manner and command high salaries, and wonders if the rules of the constitution exist only for those in power. She has read that if the right of deputies to immunity from prosecution is challenged, they protest that their human rights have been violated. ‘What about our human rights?’, she asks.71 Oksana has benefited from her civic education lessons. She knows a bit about the constitution, the concept of human rights and the practice of her elected officials. She wants to participate in a move to change something that seems to her illegal and unfair. Yet what can she actually do? Everyone knows about the situation she describes, but only rarely is effective action taken. How long can Oksana continue to believe that formal rights and laws mean something? Will she continue to want to participate, or will she grow cynical and apathetic like many of her elders and peers? Or will she, like many high officials and businessmen she reads about in the newspapers, become a thief ? It is important that the Oksanas of Russia see examples of businessmen who prosper within the law, lawyers who win cases, and local officials who better the lives of their constituents. Government, to paraphrase US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, is an omnipresent teacher that teaches its citizens by example. Education reform cannot occur in isolation from the society in which it is taking place. In an unstable society where there is basic social disagreement, educators join general discussions about values, structures and future directions. Civic educators are particularly close to politics, because they must base their work on some notion of what qualities a good citizen should possess, as well as devise strategies for encouraging those qualities in children. As a result, their work reflects, as did the early materials for the ‘Mankind and Society’ course, the actual divisions that exist in the larger society. Those Russian educators eager to prepare children for a democratic, law-governed society have shown remarkable creativity and determination in pushing their agenda forward. They have decided to avoid the important but politically dangerous topic of ethnicity and federal identity, preferring to leave that task to historians. They have been attacked by politicians, but persist. They may be encouraged by 241

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evidence that the vast majority of Russians under 20 value their rights, seek a democratic society, and expect to take responsibility for their own future. Many want to be lawyers and managers.72 Other signs, such as policies to reintroduce military training and patriotic vospitanie in schools and the withdrawal of controversial textbooks mirror societal trends in a different direction. What young Russians choose will determine Russia’s future, just as developments in the larger society will determine what they are able to choose. Civic educators and school reformers as well as politicians wish to influence these choices.

Notes 1 V.A. Bolotov, ‘Reforming Teacher Training in Russia’, ISRE Newsletter (Indiana University; formerly Institute for the Study of Soviet Education Newsletter) 1 (November 1991), pp. 3–7. 2 G. Barbulis, ‘Glavnoe – obresti vnutrenniuiu svobodu’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 14 February 1995, p. 4. 3 N. Voskresenskaia, ‘Kak izuchat’ konstitutsiiu Rosiiu v shkole’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 14 February 1995, p. 4. 4 Center for Civic Education, National Standards for Civics and Government, (Calabasas, CA: Center for Civic Education, 1994), pp. vi, 2–6. This same pattern of broad general statements followed by concentration on course input is adopted by L.N. Bogoliubov, G.V. Klokova et al., ‘The Challenge of Civic Education in the New Russia’, in J. Torney-Purta, J. Schwille and J. Amadeo (eds), Civic Education across Countries: Twenty-four National Case Studies from the IEA Civic Education Project (Amsterdam: IEA, 1999), pp. 523–43. 5 François Audigier and Guy Lagelée, Fifty-seventh European Teachers’ Seminar on Civic Education (Paris: Council of Europe, 1993), p. 2. 6 Larry E. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia 1917–1931 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). 7 G. Iagodin, ‘Prikaz 254: O perestroike prepodavaniia obshchestvennykh distsiplin v srednikh uchebnikh zavedeniiakh’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole (PIVSh) 2 (March–April 1990), pp. 3–6. 8 E.D. Dneprov, ‘A Concept of General (Secondary) Education’, in Ben Eklof and E.D. Dneprov (eds), Democracy in the Russian School: the Reform Movement in Education Since 1984 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), pp. 77–103. 9 Bolotov et al., The Reform of Education in the New Russia: A Background Report for the OECD Review of Russian Education (Moscow: Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, 1996), p. 5. 10 L.N. Bogoliubov, personal communication to the author, Moscow 1992. 11 V.A. Bolotov, presentation at conference, ‘Contemporary Central and East European, Russian and Eurasian Education: Common Legacies and the Struggle for Reform’, Columbia University, New York, 16 June 1994. 12 Russian discussions about the content and purpose of this course, and changes in history teaching, bear many parallels to US discussion about the same subjects in the 1920s and 1930s, and again in the 1970s. M. Lybarger, ‘The Historiography of Social Studies’, in J. Shaver (ed.), Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning (New York: Macmillan 1991), pp. 3–15. 13 V.I. Kuptsov et al., Sferi obshchestvennoi zhizni: chelovek i obshchestvo, Part 2 (Moscow: Moscow State University Press, 1993), pp. 35–51, 63–4. 14 L.N. Bogoliubov, A. Iu. Lazebnikova et al., ‘Osnovi sovremennoi tsivilizatsii, chelovek i obshchestvo, Part IV (Moscow: Biuro Dendi, 1992), pp. 182–97.

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15 A.F. Malishevskii et al., Mir cheloveka: Uchebnik dlia 10–11 klassov (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1994), pp. 277–93. 16 A.F. Malishevskii, Mir cheloveka, posobie dlia uchitelia (Moscow: Interpraks, 1995) pp. 5, 7–8. 17 Mary Canning, Peter Moock and Timothy Heleniak, ‘Reforming Education in the Regions of Russia’, World Bank Technical Paper no. 457 (Washington DC: World Bank, 1999), pp. 3, 17. 18 Ia. V. Sokolov, ‘Grazhdanovedenie: Etap Stanovlenenia’, PIVSh 3 (1994), pp. 49–52, quotation from p. 49. 19 Ibid. 20 Ia. V. Sokolov, Grazhdanovedenie, 5 Klass (Moscow: Grazhdanin, 1997) and Ia. V. Sokolov, Grazhdanovedenie, 6 Klass (Moscow: Grazhdanin, 1997); Elena Lisovskaya, ‘The Dogmatism of Ideology: A Content Analysis of Communist and Postcommunist Russian Textbooks’, in N.F. McGinn and E.H. Epstein, Comparative Perspectives on the Role of Education in Democratization (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 1999), pp. 367–95, did not analyse these particular texts but found similar problems in history, literature and other social studies texts. 21 A.F. Nikitin, ‘Politika i Pravo’, in Istoriia 31 (1994), pp. 3, 6–8; A.F. Nikitin, Prava cheloveka v shkole (Moscow: Daidzhest, 1993); A.F. Nikitin, Prava cheloveka (Moscow: Novaia Shkola, 1993); A.F. Nikitin, Prava cheloveka, khrestomatiia po kursy (Moscow: Novaia Shkola, 1993). Nikitin has remained active writing texts on law and civics that are widely used. Sokolov concentrates on civics. 22 The Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) played a particularly important role in supporting textbook development, but numerous other organizations including USIA, USAID, American Federation of Teachers, OECD, Council of Europe, Eurasia Foundation, the UK’s Citizenship Foundation and Know-How Funds have been active as well. Russian Education System – National Report of the Russian Federation (Geneva: UNESCO, 1996), pp. 74–6. 23 Syracuse University and the Russian Center for Citizenship Education, ‘Demokraticheskoe obshchestvo i grazhdanin: materialy uchebnogo kursa’, PIVSh 7 (1994), pp. 39–50. Other examples are numerous. 24 Teachers’ communications to the author. See review of Sokolov texts in Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 22 March 1994, p. 7. 25 John Squier, Johnson’s Russian List, no. 3672 (9 December 1999). 26 ‘O neobkhodimosti priniatiia ekstrennykh mer po obespecheniiu shkol’nikov Rossiiskoi Federatsii uchebnikami otechestvennogo proizvodstva, razrabotannymi rossiiskimi avtorami’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 19 July 1995, p. 1. 27 O. Ogorodnikova and G. Tarasevich, ‘Gosudarstvennaia duma: luchshe sovsem ostat’sia bez uchebnikov chem doverit’sia “prokliatym burzhuinam”’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 18 July 1995, p. 1. 28 A.G. Asmolov, Interview with V. Pokrovskii, Segodnia, 22 September 1995, p. 2. 29 A.F. Nikitin ‘ O grazhdanskom obrazovanii’, PIVSh 1 (1995), pp. 23–6. 30 S. Soloveichik, ‘Pedagogika sbrasyvaet gruz gumanizma’, Pervoe sentiabria 24 (2 December 1995), p. 1. 31 J. Torney-Purta et al., ‘Civic Education across Countries’; C. Cremieux, ‘La citoyennété à l’école (Paris: Syros, 1998). 32 P. Bourdieu and J.-C. Passeron, Reproduction in Education and Society (London: Sage Publications, 1977). 33 New-style texts include: I. Ukolova and L. Katsva, Perestroika: 1985–1991 (Moscow, 1999), Iu. Kushnereva and T. Chernikova, Illiuzii i razocharovaniia: Mir i SSSR v 60e gody (Moscow, 1998), and M. Boitsov and I. Khromova, Poslevoennoe desiatiletie: 1945–1955 (Moscow, 1998). These three texts were developed by the Euroclio project and are published in very small runs. Two relatively innovative

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34 35

36

37

38 39

40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

texts approved by the ministry for wide distribution are: M. Boitsov and P. Shukurov, Istoriia srednikh vekov (Moscow: Russkoe Slovo 2000) and N.A. Troitskii, Istoriia Rossii XIX v. (Moscow: Ts.G.O., 2001). S.I. Volodina et al., Osnovy pravovykh znanii, 8 Klass (Moscow: Vita-Press, 1999, 2000) and S.I. Volodina et al., Osnovy pravovykh znanii, 9 Klass (Moscow: VitaPress, 1999, 2000). OSI pamphlets include M.L. Gainer, Starsheklassniki o prave (Moscow: Magister, 1997), S. Sirotkin, Starsheklassnikam o prave, pravakh cheloveka (Moscow: Magister, 1998), L. Simena et al., Pravo na kazhdyi den’ (Moscow: Magister, 1997). Lidiia Semina heads a project to develop a law-governed space in the first years of school and offers teacher training. A. Tubel’skii and E. Prigodich also train teachers in this approach. Observation and personal communication with the author, Krasnoiarsk, Moscow and St Petersburg, 1998, 1999. In 1998 and 1999, the author evaluated the Russian Foundation for Legal Reform’s project of textbook production and teacher training, visiting many pilot schools. Pupils who had taken the course gave specific examples of how they had used their new knowledge in practical ways, an encouraging finding. The presentation of one such project from School No. 6 in Samara was observed by the author at a conference sponsored by the Interregional Association for Civic Education and the newspaper Uchitel’skaia gazeta, Moscow, 16–20 May 1999. Publication of similar projects include Isak Frumin, Grazhdanskoe obrazovanie v informatsionnyi vek (Krasnoiarsk: Znanie, 1999). N.S. Kovalenko et al., Grazhdanskii Forum (Briansk: Briansk govtip, 1998). National Report of the Russian Federation: Russia’s Educational System, p. 47. Isak Froumin (Frumin), ‘The Festival of the Russian Association of Innovative Schools’, ISRE Newsletter 1 (Summer 1997), pp. 23–4; Isak D. Froumin, ‘Russian National Competition for Designation of a Federal Experimental Site’, ISRE Newsletter 1, 2 (Spring/Fall 1999), pp. 2, 13. E.D. Dneprov, V.S. Lazarev and V.S. Sobkin, ‘The State of Education in Russia Today’, in Ben Eklof and Edward Dneprov, Democracy in the Russian School: The Reform Movement in Education since 1984 (Boulder, San Francisco/Oxford: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 148–220, quotation from p. 164. In the late 1990s, Russia still suffered from the lack of a well-developed statistical service to track educational developments. Canning et al., ‘Reforming Education in the Regions of Russia’, p. 3. S.L. Webber is particularly good at making these parallels. S.L. Webber, School Reform and Society in the New Russia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000), especially Ch. 6. Uchitel’skaia gazeta 29 (2 Aug. 1995), pp. 1, 19. G.I. Lovetskii and V.V. Sudarenkov, ‘Osobennosti stanovleniia grazhdanstvennosti u rossiiskikh shkol’nikov’, Mir cheloveka 1 (Kaluga, 1996), pp. 38–43, quotation from p. 38. Isak Frumin, Tainy shkoly (Krasnoiarsk: Grotesk, 1999); Aleksandr N. Tubel’skii, ‘Uklad zhizni shkoly kak komponent soderzhaniia obrazovaniia’, unpublished paper, 1999. Simon Soloveichik edited a collection of Sukhomlinskii’s writings, O vospitanii (Moscow: Politizdat, 1973). His views are set out in his memoir, V.A. Sukhomlinskii, Serdtse otdaiu detiam (Moscow: Radiansk’aia Shkola, 1994). English trans., To Children I Give My Heart (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981). A.M. Sidorkin, ‘The Communard Movement in Russia: The View of a Participant’, East–West Education 2 (Fall 1995), pp. 148–58. Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 15 July 1997, p. 7.

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49 O.S. Gazman, ‘Poteri i obreteniia, vospitanie v shkole posle desiati let perestroiki’, Pervoe sentiabria, 25 November 1995, pp. 2–3. 50 Sh. Amonashvili, I. Volkov, S. Lysenkova, V. Stepanov, Aleksandr Tubel’skii and V. Shatalov, ‘Turning Point: Report of the Fifth Meeting of Experimental Educators’, Peremena (1990), translated and reprinted in S.T. Kerr (ed.), Russian Education and Society 1 (January 1994), pp. 9–18. 51 Simon Soloveichik, ‘Chelovek svobodnyi’ (1994), reprinted in Pervoe sentiabria, 19, 26 July, 2, 9 August 1997. 52 Isak Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia (Krasnoiarsk: Znanie, 1998). Interview with Aleksandr Adamskii, Isak Frumin and Mikhail Shchetinin by Virginie Coulloudon, ‘Avtorskaia Shkola. Istoki svobodnogo dukha’, Radio Liberty Broadcast, 25 February 2001. Recent research in the US supports this view: R.G. Niemi and J. Junn, Civic Education: What Makes Children Learn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), though Russian pedagogues are too wise to speak of ‘making’ children learn. Leading international educators also argue for such an approach. Torney-Purta et al., Civic Education across Countries. 53 Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire 1552–1917 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), especially pp. 482–6. 54 V.G. Bezrogov, M.V. Boguslavskii and O.E. Kosheleva, ‘Rossiia i ee sosedi v uchebnikakh postsovetskikh gosudarstv’, Istoriia 25, 26 (July 1997). 55 Bolotov et al., The Reform of Education in the New Russia, p. 13. 56 V.K. Batsyn, speaking at an international conference in St Petersburg in the fall of 1995, ISRE Newsletter 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 29–34. 57 Vera Kaplan et al. (eds), The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia (Tel Aviv: Cummings Center, 1999). On the early 1990s, see J.G. Vaillant, ‘Reform in History and Social Studies Education in Russian Secondary Schools’, in A. Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 141–68. V.G. Bezrogov, M.V. Boguslavskii and O.E. Kosheleva, ‘Uchebnaia literatura po istorii’, Istoriia 11 (March 1997), pp. 1–4. 58 G.A. Krever, ‘Istoriia narodov otechestva do kontsa XVIII v.’, PIVSh 4 (1997), pp. 55–60. 59 V.A. Shnirel’man, ‘V poiskakh prestizhnykh predkov: etnonatsionalizm i shkol’nye uchebniki’, Otvetstvennost’ istorika, Prepodavanie istorii v globaliziruiushchemsia obshchestve (Moscow: IVI RAN, 2000). 60 M.N. Kuz’min, A.A. Sysokolov, V.K. Batsyn and M.B. Eshich, Natsional’naia shkola (Moscow: Institute for the National Problems in Education, 1994). G.V. Klokova, ‘O federal’nom i natsional’no-regional’nom komponentakh v istoricheskom obrazovanii’, unpublished paper presented at the Meeting of the Scientific Committee on Humanitarian Problems IOSO, 10 December 1998. G.D. Dmitriev, ‘Mnogokul’turnoe obrazovanie’ (Moscow: Narodnoe obrazovanie, 1999). This last book is by a Russian émigré now living in the US. It is intended to introduce Russian teachers to the field of multicultural education, much of which, he says, is ‘new to the country and its peoples’. 61 Kommersant–Vlast’, 4 April 1999; ISRE Newsletter 1–2 (Spring–Fall 1999), p. 36. 62 Gennadii Ziuganov uses the words derzhavost’, rossiskaia narodnost’, Sovetskii patriotizm, evocative words for Russians, if lacking in internal logic. G. Ziuganov, 27 April 1996, ‘OMRI Special Report: Russian Presidential Elections: 2’, 10 May 1996. 63 V. Zhirinovskii, ‘LDRP ne vinovata’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 12 March 1996, p. 3. 64 Gennadii Seleznev, speaker of the Duma, signed the letter, a copy of which I read at RAO. The Duma proposed to hold hearings on social sciences and history education and set up a commission to analyse history textbooks from the point of view of state interests and ‘scientific criteria’.

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65 Lev Lurie, Personal communication, St Petersburg, November 1999. St Petersburg teachers concurred. 66 In Lipetsk Oblast, a local school was forbidden by the regional educational committee to continue to teach a course on law that had been piloted in their school as part of a project supported by a World Bank loan to the Russian government. The school none the less continued to teach the course. In Novgorod Velikii, by contrast, the regional education committee decided that they wanted the course to be taught in all their schools, and supported in-service training for all eligible teachers. Personal observation of the author who served as evaluator of the project, 1998, 1999. 67 Frumin, Vvedenie v teoriiu i praktiku demokraticheskogo obrazovaniia. 68 Klokova, ‘O federal’nom i natsional’no-regional’nom komponentakh’; Batsyn, as reported in ISRE Newsletter 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 29–34. 69 Webber, School Reform and Society in the New Russia. His findings are supported by school observations by the author, 1992–2000. 70 A. Soloveichik, ‘Ekzamen dlia ministra’, Pervoe sentiabria, 19 December 2000, p. 1. 71 Oksana Marchenko, letter, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 25 February 1997, p. 2. 72 V.A. Ruchkin, ‘Molodezh’ i stanovlenie novoi Rossii’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 5 (May 1998), pp. 90–8; S.G. Vershlovskii, ‘Peterburgskaia shkola: portret vypusknika’ (St Petersburg: Spetslit, 1999).

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10 HISTORY TEAC HIN G IN P OST-SOV IET RUS S IA Coping with antithetical traditions Vera Kaplan

Educational reform in Russia during the 1990s altered both the priorities of educational policy and the structure of educational institutions and, in so doing, brought significant changes to the way subjects are taught in Russian schools. History has been at the forefront in this regard. Initial changes in history education were the result of political developments and sharp disputes concerning Soviet history that arose in the wake of the glasnost policy of the late 1980s. Intense interest in the national past brought the issue of history teaching into the foreground of an ongoing polemic. Explosive debates concerning history textbooks took place, while desperate attempts were made to adjust the texts to the rapidly evolving pace of political change in the era of perestroika.1 However, educational reform made it possible to do far more than rewrite individual textbooks. History education as a whole became an object of reform. From that critical moment in 1988 when the matriculation examinations in history were cancelled because of the utter impossibility of basing them on what had become an anachronistic programme, reform has achieved remarkable results. A new curriculum for history education was formulated and an unprecedented diversity of history textbooks published with completely revised content. Yet all this did not satisfy Russian educators. Moreover, a powerful appeal for ‘counter-reformation’ emerged at the turn of the millennium. Does this mean that reform has turned full circle? This larger question raises a number of more specific ones. Were the initial aims of reform unrealistic and misleading, thus generating poor results? Did the manner in which reform was implemented cause distortion and deviation? Last, but not least, have the goals of history education in schools been redefined over the past decade, and if so, have reforms been evaluated negatively because they fail to satisfy these new expectations? An examination of history education in Russian schools over the previous decade reveals that the paradigm of history teaching which had been shaped in the wake of perestroika underwent significant change during the 1990s. PostSoviet practice, ostensibly based on the reformist ideas of the late 1980s, 247

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developed in a direction that was distinct from the universalistic ideals of the late Soviet period. School history became more nationally oriented. Certain elements of traditional Soviet and even tsarist approaches were rehabilitated and put into practice. As a consequence, the new model of history education provoked numerous controversies. Attempts to lead history education out of one crisis have brought on a new one. Years of reform, however, have proven to be anything but a waste of time. Both the late Soviet and post-Soviet experience in restructuring history teaching may prove to have enriched educational theory and practice – similar to the way that early Soviet educational reform did in its day. An effective method for studying history teaching was proposed in the early 1990s by Klass-Goran Karlsson,2 who adopted a typology originally developed by the Danish Marxist historian Sven Sodring Jensen. While Jensen was interested in examining west European history teaching, Karlsson demonstrated the model’s applicability to the Russian experience. Following Jensen, he identified four types of history teaching 1 2

3 4

the classical method, based on a consensus concerning national and religious values; liberal objectivism, grounded in scientific criteria and an alleged valuefree perspective and strongly emphasizing an eternal historical cultural heritage;3 radical and critical formalism, which urges students to work analytically and critically with historical sources; and categorical history teaching, which combines an emphasis on analytical thinking with value-laden, emphatic education.4

Correlating the successive appearance of different types of teaching with phases in the political and social development of Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century,5 Karlsson concluded his essay with open questions concerning the future of history education in post-Soviet Russia. Some of these questions can now be answered. Adopting this typology as a point of departure, I do not intend to impose it upon the complex developments of the last decade in Russia. Rather, it will serve as a general methodological framework, facilitating an understanding of contemporary Russia’s educational reality.

Attempting to emancipate history from ideology Paradigmatic changes in history education in schools initiated in the late 1980s began with a rejection of the Soviet model of history teaching. The reasons for this repudiation of past practice were presented in various ways, ranging from the more moderate thesis – ‘History has become schematic and overly sociological’6 – to the more radical – ‘History has been turned into a lever for applying ideological pressure.’7 None the less, all led to the same conclusion: 248

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that it was critical to develop a new conception of history teaching. Suggestions were raised in numerous professional forums, and later consolidated in formal proposals for a new conception of history education, presented by various groups of educators in the journal Prepodavanie istorii v shkole.8 The new approach was based on the premise that history must be liberated from ideological indoctrination. In 1989, authors of even the most radical proposals had been reluctant to explicitly call for de-ideologization, the exhortation of Communist ideology being accepted as a main task of history teaching in the Soviet school. A year later, however, a session of the Board of the State Committee of Education (Gosobrazovanie) declared its intention to undermine the ‘bluntly ideological and mythologized (mifologizirovannyi) course on history, based on the dogmatic formation of a “one-dimensional (odnomernyi) worldview”’.9 In order to dissociate history from ideology, the purpose of history teaching had to be redefined. Emphasis was shifted from its political role to its social and cultural functions. Correspondingly, a wholly new way of looking at the issue of history education was considered – one that emphasized the system of relationships between the individual and society in the history curriculum.10 Significantly, the state was excluded from this proposed system, while domination of the concept of state within the Soviet curriculum had come under acute attack. ‘The cult of the state’ (kul’t lichnosti gosudarstva) manifest in educational programmes and textbooks11 that had led to the creation of a ‘state mythology’ was declared to be unsuited to the new reality. Considering history education through the prism of an individual–society dichotomy implicitly generated questions about the relationship within this dyad. Initially, society was viewed as a counterbalance to an oppressive state, and so its interests were the focus of discussions. The task of history teaching was defined as training members of a democratic society to be responsible citizens, willing to participate and cooperate.12 At the same time, the proposals for the new conception of history education published in 1989 posited the individual at the centre of the educational process. In particular, this orientation towards the individual – presented as the humanization of education – was elaborated in the proposal of the Temporary Scientific Research Collective ‘School’ (often know simply as Shkola).13 It singled out the development of the student’s personality as a main task in history teaching. In addition it proposed changes in the content of history as a school subject. The individual was to replace historical laws as the focus of programmes and textbooks. Subsequent suggestions proposed far-reaching innovations in the structure of the history curriculum in secondary schools. The result would be the creation of a range of courses from which the student could choose. The development of individual personality was to be achieved by putting emphasis on creative thinking, the ability for critical analysis, and a capacity for drawing independent conclusions through individualized work with historical sources. Another facet of this new concept pertained to place of values. 249

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History, according to the principles of the Shkola group, had to ‘present students with the problem of moral choice by honestly revealing the complexity and even ambiguity (neodnoznachnost’) that is part and parcel of the moral evaluation of historical events’.14 Here the importance of the student’s right of ‘subjectivity and preference (pristrastnost’)’ was emphasized. The focus on the critically thinking personality gave significant weight to the individual in the individual–society juxtaposition and found expression in the view of socialization contained within this proposition. The authors of the Shkola conception viewed socialization as self-definition of personality and ‘the understanding of one’s place in society’, while society was depicted as an extended cultural community. Since society’s temporal borders were expanded by including the historical past, the process of socialization included an awareness of one’s historical roots as well as ‘the awakening of “social memory”’. The spatial borders of society were expanded even more significantly as history teaching was assigned the role of educating the citizen to be ‘responsible for the fate of the country and for human civilization’. Consequently, previous educational tasks, inherited from Soviet theory, were re-evaluated in light of the new ones. Formation of a student’s value orientation (tsennostnye orientatsii), which had been integral to class consciousness in traditional Soviet educational discourse, now came to mean the teaching of humanistic values. Likewise, the attitude towards historical knowledge changed with an emphasis on its contribution to the student’s ‘orientation to world and national culture’.15 The ideas propounded in the Shkola concept were shared by participants at the State Committee for Education board session in June 1990 and were highly influential in the formation of a new approach to history teaching. The emphasis on the cultural function of history education was particularly important in formulating the next essential component in the evolving paradigm – a specific type of multiculturalism.

Creation of a multicultural perspective National conflicts and the escalating centrifugal pressures within the USSR stimulated the development of a multicultural perspective during the late Soviet period. This new outlook suggested a ‘deeper acquaintance with the history of different peoples and their cultures, and an understanding of the continuous interaction and the interdependence between different cultures’.16 Such a development was not without its problems. On the technical level, it required resolution of tensions between the history of the Soviet Union and the separate national histories of the Soviet republics. This issue was initially discussed at the All-Union Conference on the Problem of History Teaching, held in Tallinn in February 1988.17 Between 1988 and the end of 1991, it surfaced repeatedly in disputes over history education in which the issue was continually raised by representatives of the national republics. They proposed 250

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teaching ‘the history of the peoples of the USSR’ instead of the history of an illusory and ‘somewhat mythical’ new historical community – ‘the Soviet people (sovetskii narod)’.18 This suggestion meant much more than merely allocating additional class time to the history of the national republics. Courses on national histories had been taught in the Soviet republics (except for Russia) since the late 1950s.19 In practice, the teaching hours allocated to these courses had been steadily rising at the expense of the course on the history of the USSR. For example, according to Vladimir Batsyn, a prominent Russian educator and a high-ranking official of Gosobrazovanie during that period, the course on national history in Moldavia was given 102 hours instead of the ten allowed by the state curriculum.20 Therefore, the very idea of teaching the history of the peoples of the Soviet Union required a far-reaching revision of the comprehensive course on the history of the USSR. It was proposed that programmes and textbooks devoted to the history of the USSR be tailored to the different national republics. In addition, the suggestion was made to write texts presenting the history of a certain republic for use in other republics (the text on Lithuanian history was commissioned for use in Georgian schools, for example).21 The concept of regional history was introduced, but one that required the study of neighbouring states and not only adjacent Soviet ones. In particular, this meant learning the history of the cultural centres of the region, such as studying Scandinavian countries in Estonia, and India and China in Uzbekistan.22 The authors of the Shkola concept made one of the most ambitious proposals. They suggested taking the history of national republics before they belonged to the Russian state and teaching it in the context of world history rather than the history of the USSR.23 However, Estonian educators, the most consistent supporters of the innovations, advocated a different solution. They suggested that a ‘general course in world history’ be introduced that would embrace both of the existing courses on world and Soviet history. The history of the national republics would primarily be taught in the framework of this course. In the penultimate year of study it would be taught as a separate course.24 Thus, even the most radical adherents of teaching national history did not deny the need to present that history as part of a more general course. In light of the political sensitivity of the national issue (nationalist conflicts became a grim reality during the late 1980s), emphasis was placed on the conciliatory rather than the conflicting elements in national histories. Multiculturalism was perceived as a basis for such compromise. ‘We will feel a part of the Soviet people when we know that we are Russian, Belorussian, Estonian, and Ukrainian’, exclaimed a participant in the discussions on history education. On the other hand, this multicultural perspective gave birth to new criticisms of the past. The same participant continued: ‘As a result of declaring our unity, Russian students were unaware of the existence of Estonian culture and often do not understand why Estonians speak Estonian.’25 Multiculturalism was presented as an appropriate means, in contrast to Soviet 251

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practice, to develop ‘the culture of internationalism’ (kul’tura mezhnatsional’nykh otnoshenii).26 Central educational bodies and school practitioners, both of whom supported the preservation of a ‘unified educational space’, perceived the suggestions made by representatives of the Soviet republics as a willingness to liberate national schools from central control. Even those who would have been expected to oppose decentralization and who identified themselves with a ‘unified’ mainstream, actually agreed that it had become impossible to continue teaching the history of the USSR in the usual manner. They were even more critical than representatives of national republics in this regard. It was claimed that Soviet history had, in practice, turned into the history of Russian statehood with fragments of the histories of other nationalities interspersed.27 Nevertheless, such criticism notwithstanding, centre-oriented educators supported a comprehensive general course in all the republics. The overarching world history course appeared to be the most suited to this aim. It was agreed that Russian history and the history of national republics could be integrated in equal fashion into the study of world history. At the same time, such a course would make it possible to preserve a close connection between the Russian history course and the history courses of the other Soviet republics while avoiding ‘certain ethno-cultural problems related to distinctive national characteristics’.28 The idea of an integrated world history course drew attention to another aspect of the national issue. Russian educators became increasingly aware of the nationalist inclinations of Soviet history textbooks, and of the resulting discrepancies and internal tensions between the world history and Soviet history courses. Creation of an integrated course required the resolution of such tensions.29 From this point of view, emphasis on the cultural dimension of history created an opportunity to ‘overcome’ nationalist tendencies by changing the guiding perspective. Moreover, focus on cultural history made it possible to eliminate the concept of class struggle upon which the previous model had been based. Instead, the concept of civilization was proposed as the foundation of the new integrated course. This concept posited humanistic values (obshchechelovecheskie tsennosti) over class-oriented ones. Its thrust, typical of the period, was universalism. In accordance with the notion of returning to the ‘European home’, dominant in late Soviet discourse, civilization connoted a ‘world civilization’ that underscored the unity of world culture, one in which separate national cultures made their particular contributions. To a certain extent, this emphasis on unity contradicted the attention given to the particularity and diversity of national cultures. Nevertheless, this implicit conflict did not weaken the popularity of an integrated course, which received strong support among practical educators. Thus, as it was later recalled at a meeting of representatives of the Ministries of Education of the Soviet republics in early March 1990, in Iaroslavl’, ‘no one amongst the participants supported maintaining a separation between the two courses.’30 An integrated course was also 252

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basically accepted by the participants of a round table meeting devoted to the problem of history education that took place on 28 March 1990, at the Institute of the History of the USSR, Russian Academy of Sciences. Only one (albeit significant) objection was raised against the idea of an integrated course. It maintained that no modern nation had allowed its own history to ‘dissolve’ into world history. Serious disputes arose at the Gosobrazovanie session of June 1990, though all participants accepted the necessity of paying more attention to how different cultures were presented in the school history course.31 The multicultural perspective, which reflected the emphasis on social and cultural functions of history education, and an orientation of the educational process towards the student’s personality, became a significant element of the newly developed paradigm of history education. The first steps in implementing this concept, however, coincided with the collapse of the USSR. And while the development of history education in post-Soviet Russia was closely connected to late Soviet practice, the defining parameters of history teaching had changed. Two trends can be observed in this brief yet important period in school development. The attempt to liberate history from ideology in search of ‘historical truth’ and the formulation of a new conception of history education based on universal humanistic values were evidence of an evolving liberal–objective trend in history education. The second trend, defined by Karlsson as ‘categorical’, was expressed in the aspirations to develop creative thinking while strengthening a student’s relationship to his cultural environment. These tendencies encouraged optimistic expectations for the further development of history education. At the same time, however, difficult questions arose. Karlsson articulated one of them: Could Russia actually afford not to use history in the ‘classical’ way, that is, as a tool of political legitimization? The answers to this question have been rather complex.

Revival of the national state: re-legitimizing ideology The debates over teaching the history of the Soviet Union and the histories of national republics became irrelevant after the breakdown of the USSR. Communist ideology lost its state-sponsored status in the wake of the August 1991 putsch. As a result, the domination of the class struggle in the country’s history textbooks was consigned to oblivion. Institutional changes gave former oppositionists in the education field an opportunity to realize their most farreaching ideas. The new Law on Education provided a legislative basis for the further development of educational reform. New mechanisms for textbook preparation, supervision, and authorization were created. Economic reform led to the appearance of private publishing houses, and the financial support extended by international funds made it possible to launch programmes for writing new textbooks in the humanities. A structural transformation of 253

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school history education began which included a shift from a linear to a concentric system of teaching. In short, the circumstances in which the late-Soviet paradigm of history education had evolved were drastically altered. The revival of a Russian national state dramatically influenced the discourse on history teaching. A new aim was defined: establishing a continuity between the new democratic Russia and its pre-revolutionary predecessor. This focus on the period when Russia rather than the USSR existed revealed an intent to overcome the heretofore strict division between the Russian and Soviet periods in the nation’s history. Defining Russian ‘national destiny’, or ‘Russia’s place in history and the modern world’, became an important priority.32 As a consequence, the earlier goal of de-ideologizing history teaching lost its meaning. First and foremost, a shift in the understanding of ideology occurred. In the late 1980s, ideology was mainly perceived as propaganda imposed from above, a source of distortion in history education. Since then, however, ideology has become accepted as a system of values and interests intrinsic to history education (as well as to education in general). This development has raised doubts about the very aim of de-ideologization. ‘History is always partisan, it is value-laden’, stated the Materials for Discussion on the New Concept of History Teaching of the Department of History of the Russian Academy of Science.33 The only way to combine partisanship and objectivity, according to this document, was ‘to recognize the legitimate existence of differing interpretations and contrary evaluations’.34 The failure of de-ideologization was also declared in a report, entitled ‘Strategy for the Development of History and Civics Education’, presented at the board session of the Ministry of Education in December 1994 by A.M. Vodianskii, head of the Department of Humanities in the Ministry of Education.35 It observed that ‘In practice, de-ideologization meant only de-communization, the rejection of communist ideology’. This document defined the notion of ideology as either a dogma or Weltanschauung – that is, as either a negative or a positive phenomenon. This signalled a shift from ideology as a creed, to ideology as a philosophy that had to be developed in the sphere of social science. In fact, the document supported this shift while declaring the urgency of introducing a ‘plurality of ideologies’. Such a step was seen as legitimate insofar as it remained within the framework established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Declaration of Human Rights. Ideology, thus, became a legislative matter, but in the conclusion of the document was depicted primarily as political doctrine. ‘Free competition of ideologies’, according to the report, would be conducive to choosing the ‘national ideology most appropriate for Russia’.36 Re-legitimizing the notion of ideology in post-Soviet educational discourse corresponded to the necessity of legitimizing the revival of Russia as a sovereign state. Basic changes occurred in the very way history was taught: instead of the individual–society dyad, the triad of state–society–individual, now constituted the framework for discussion, with state as the dominant concept. Such a radical change became possible with a shift in emphasis towards the 254

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national character of the state, as opposed to the image of a supra-national party state that had prevailed in the Soviet period. Hence, grazhdanskoe (pertaining to citizenship) almost became a synonym for gosudarstvennoe (pertaining to statehood), both concepts now being primarily national in character. The new approach to history teaching thus preserved the principal categories of the previous paradigm, but with adjustments for this new hierarchy. In regard to the content of school history education, the above-cited Strategy underlined the ‘necessity of providing a balance between political, cultural, ethno-national, and other values, under the dominance of national (state) values’.37 The creation of a new concept of history education was linked to the ‘formation of the national–state doctrine of Russia’.38 Emphasis was placed, once again, on the political function of history education. The Strategy proposed a ‘more exact ratio between world, national and regional history’, defining three levels of values: the particularistic ethno-cultural ones; values common to the whole nation; and those universal values common to all of humankind.39 In practice, this division meant that the multicultural aspect of the previous educational paradigm was reduced to three subordinate components of national history – federal, regional and local.40 Paradoxically, this new perspective made it possible to teach national history, which constituted the federal component in the course, in an ethnocentric way. It could be taught as a history of the Russian nation only, thus almost entirely excluding national minorities from the course. As Moscow historian Leonid Katsva wrote in the introduction to his curriculum, ‘the history of the other nations of Russia (and of the former Russian empire) are to be touched upon only in passing, and then only as is necessary to the study of Russian history’.41 The affinity to Soviet practice was justified by the fact that the history of other nations of the Russian Federation constituted independent subjects, which should be taught separately, ‘possibly in the framework of the special course, “History of the People of Russia”’.42 The same arguments employed earlier for advancing the multicultural approach now served to diminish its practical significance. In addition, the idea of an integrated course in world history underwent serious alteration. It originally was based on the commonality, or universality, of humanistic values. The notion of civilization was accepted as the allembracing concept for the course on world history. The Strategy, while ostensibly supporting the idea of integrated courses, pointed out the danger that the history of the Motherland would be ‘diluted’, and its educational potential impaired.43 It therefore suggested ‘Russia and the World’ as the most appropriate model for the integrated world history course. In practice, this marked the beginning of a return to the idea of division between national (Russian) and world history and in fact, the Strategy recognized the possibility of continuing to teach separate courses on world and national history, an option which had been rejected in the above-mentioned discussions of the late 1980s. Moreover, it called for a change in the ratio between courses in national 255

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and world history, in favour of the former. In the traditional Soviet curriculum, they had received equal billing.

In pursuit of fundamental knowledge The most controversial aspect of post-Soviet history teaching became the attempt to reconcile a student-oriented educational approach with renewed domination of the state concept. The Strategy seemed to preserve the student’s position at the heart of the educational process while regarding that position through the prism of state interest. It declared that ‘The state has already ceased imposing on students a single valid worldview. Presently, it contributes to the realization of a student’s right to a free choice of views and convictions (vzgliady i ubezhdeniia).’ At the same time, the Strategy observed: ‘The state, however, has to do everything possible to ensure that the free expression of one’s personality is exercised consciously, on the basis of fundamental scientific knowledge.’ The final clause of this formulation reaffirmed the state’s intention to keep a framework for self expression.44 Furthermore, in a series of articles published in the professional journals affiliated with the Russian Academy of Education and the Ministry of Education as early as 1992–93, historical knowledge [emphasis mine – VK] as a part of a student’s development was assigned a significantly enhanced role. Obtaining such knowledge was considered to be a principal aim of history education, while development of a student’s personality was regarded as an aim of general (and not only school) education.45 Emphasis was placed on the systematic study of history. To make this possible, school courses were supposed to be ‘more classical, more consistent, and more fundamental’.46 For this reason, proposals were made to exclude contemporary history from school curricula. The conclusion of the Second World War, or, alternatively, the beginning of the Gorbachev era, were considered to be logical places to end courses in modern history.47 Furthermore, the content of the texts was to be drawn from empirical materials rather than theoretical ones. This preference was explained as both more pragmatic (avoiding the complexity of theoretical revision)48 and methodologically more correct. ‘History courses in school must be oriented to learning facts, and not to commentaries and evaluations regarding those facts’,49 one essay argued. Basic factual knowledge (fundamental’nye znaniia), not theoretical considerations, was supposed to constitute the foundation of historical consciousness. While retreating from history teaching as an exercise to induce critical thinking, adherents of ‘fundamental’ history did not deny that history has agency: the power to convey certain values to students. Since a school’s aim in accordance with state educational policy was ‘to be conducive to the consolidation of the nation and to the integration of society’,50 history was regarded as a means to inculcate such values of national unity. In conceptualizing this task, its advocates drew attention to the experience of pre-revolutionary 256

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schools, while the tsarist gymnasiums were used as a positive model. Moreover, they suggested utilizing certain teaching methods typical of tsarist schools. The most notable of these was what could be called a personification of history, by which desirable values were presented ‘in the form of distinguished individuals, worthy of empathy and imitation, acting in dramatic events’.51 Pointing out that ‘the objects of disapprobation in pre-revolutionary textbooks were not political convictions or ideological constructions, but evil, disgrace, ambition, egoism, meanness and cruelty’,52 supporters of this method connected it to the innovative idea of a humanization of history. They emphasized the point in a statement that addressed conceptions of history teaching: ‘It was no accident that the old history textbooks sang the praises of those statesmen who respected the interests of the country and of the people most of all: of clergymen who called for the people to unite against invaders and of scientists and ploughmen who devoted themselves to peaceful constructive labour.’53 School history correspondingly became regarded as a ‘history of personalities and of the struggle between their ideals and actual practice in the context of concrete circumstances’.54 Presented in this way, history was expected to have maximal educational (vospitatel’nyi) impact. Such ‘classical’ teaching appealed to the significant portion of history teachers who suffered from reform fatigue. At the same time, however, years of reform precluded ignoring critical thinking as an aim of education. Those who viewed the state–society–individual interaction through the prism of this latter aim resisted the imposition of a classical agenda on history teaching.

The ‘conscious citizen’ and the ‘critically thinking individual’ The anti-classical stand depended mainly on the previously discussed perception of society as an expanded cultural community and on the role of history teaching in cultural socialization. History teaching as an ‘introduction for students into a multi-cultural, multi-historical space’, as conceived by V. Batsyn,55 embodied this trend. Most importantly, it revealed the differences between the interest of the state and of society in the field of history education. The aim of history teaching was reformulated as the shaping of a functionally educated personality able to make socially aware choices and find his or her place within the complexity of social relationships.56 Functional literacy in this case clearly contrasted with ‘pure’ knowledge. The advocates of this approach emphasized the differences between awareness, on the one hand, and learnedness, on the other. At the same time, Andrei Golovotenko, editor of the Istoriia supplement of Pervoe sentiabria, touched upon another aspect of the issue of cultural socialization. In contrast to the dominant iconoclastic trend,57 he underscored the importance of maintaining cultural myths and considered acquaintance with society’s myths to be especially significant for those whose personality was still in the formative stage. In addition to the trend of redefining the aims of history teaching in terms 257

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of the interaction between the individual and society, another trend appeared which focused entirely on the development of creative thinking. Significantly, this concept of late-Soviet education now became more ‘formal’ than ‘categorical’ (to use Karlsson’s terminology again). Emphasis was placed on specific intellectual skills, the most important of these being critical analysis. As a result, a new methodology of history teaching was proposed to teach students how to explain and interpret historical events independently. According to this method, students would work with collections of documents instead of traditional textbooks. The goal would be to formulate various historical explanations. As Iurii Troitskii, author of this method, emphasized, the students must ‘write history by themselves’. Only then would real educational dialogue take place. This method, its supporters believed, would facilitate the de-mythologization of history and the advancement of historical thinking.58 Another method, typified by an even more ‘formal’ inclination, categorized historical knowledge as a specific kind of information and argued that history lessons must develop the ability to collect, examine and analyse this data.59 This approach also rejected traditional textbooks and suggested that history teaching should be based primarily on documents. Proponents of the divergent and often contradictory ideas about the aims, priorities, and methods of history teaching regarded their views as perfectly consistent with the declared principle of democratization of education. Nevertheless, in the preparation of the basic curricula and standards for history teaching, attempts were made to unify antithetical approaches and elaborate a ‘balanced’ version, a compromise that would fit any and all proposed ends.

Unified programmes versus diversified textbooks The Provisional State Standard in History, formulated by the Department of History Education of the Institute of General Schools at the Russian Academy of Education in 1994, proposed to ‘create the opportunity for forming different structures and models of history education, programs and textbooks, and, at the same time to resolve the contradictions between the demands for unity and diversity within educational institutions.’60 Thus, in defining the aims of history education, it attempted to accommodate divergent attitudes. The result would embrace an ‘essential knowledge of the history of peoples and society from ancient times until the present and of their social, spiritual, and moral experience’. It would also ‘develop the ability to understand events and real phenomena on the basis of historical knowledge and analysis’, which would encourage ‘formation of students’ values and opinions on the basis of their personal comprehension of experience and history lessons’.61 At the same time that they outlined the ‘main conceptual line’ of the school curricula, the authors of the Provisional Standard delineated the most ‘pure’, ‘nuclear’ elements of historical knowledge, such as ‘historical time’, ‘historical space’, and ‘historical movement’. Significantly, ‘historical movement’ was to 258

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focus on the ‘human being with his needs, motivations, values and activities’.62 These fundamental elements of historical knowledge, according to the Provisional Standard, served as the basis for various and varying programmes and textbooks. The civilization-oriented approach was recommended as the most flexible theoretical framework for history textbooks. Implementation of this recommendation, however, revealed that the concept of civilization had significantly changed. Proposed in the late 1980s with the goal of replacing rigid Marxist schemes and supporting the introduction of an overarching course in world history, the civilization approach now took on new (and often different) meanings in the various textbooks. Texts on Russian (national) history emphasized the variety of civilizations rather than a single world civilization, all the while underscoring the particularity of Russian civilization. Declaring the civilization-oriented approach as their general framework, the majority of authors writing textbooks on modern Russian history developed in practice a specific facet of this approach – the idea of modernization. Explaining this choice in an article on the methodological aspects of writing a history textbook,63 Liudmila Kosulina (co-author of one of the more popular texts) argued that the theory of modernization was, first of all, the most ideologically neutral, and, secondly, made possible the use of existing Marxist categorical and conceptual apparatus.64 Valerii Ostrovskii and Aleksei Utkin,65 authors of A History of Twentieth Century Russia, utilized the concept of modernization to present the transition from traditional to industrial society, with the central role belonging to the state. Explaining their intention, the authors contended that the idea of a strong, stable state could serve as an important unifying component in contemporary Russian society. In contrast, the textbook A History of the Homeland, 1900–1940, by Liudmila Zharova and Irina Mishina, presented the concept of civilization as a system of coordinates with Russian history perceived in terms of ‘overlapping’ historical epochs and distinct Asian and European paths of development.66 Focusing on the concept of society and social relationships, the authors discussed the peculiarity of Russian social life vis-à-vis types of consciousness and mass psychology. At the same time, new textbooks on world history appeared that were based on a concept of global civilization. This was considered to be a product of western European culture. Thus, for instance, the textbook The World in the Twentieth Century by Oleg Soroko-Tsupa, Vladislav Smirnov, Vladimir Poskonin and Aleksandr Stroganov described western Europe as a model for modern development. These authors identified the main trend of twentiethcentury history as ‘the elevation of the rest of the world’ to the level of western Europe.67 Aleksandr Kreder, author of the textbook A Modern History of the Twentieth Century, opened with a statement affirming European supremacy by characterizing Europe as the ‘centre of the world’ at the dawn of the twentieth century.68 Both textbooks concluded by asserting that such western values as liberal democracy and market economy had become universal.69 259

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Paradoxically, creating inclusive standards and applying a flexible civilization-based approach made it possible, on the one hand, to write conceptually distinct texts and, on the other hand, to revitalize certain traits of the former Soviet curriculum. However, efforts to create a new breed of history textbook, one that would integrate distinct tendencies and satisfy diverging expectations, led to unforeseen results.

What is new in the new history textbooks? In the 1990s an unprecedented variety of textbooks existed for any given course. They differed significantly from their Soviet predecessors. In particular, authors now explicitly declared their theoretical allegiances (or, using the current Russian professional jargon, the historical approach to which they adhered).70 Still, it should be noted that despite their quasi-scientific rhetoric, they remained no less political than their Soviet predecessors. Engagement in current political discourse was typical and most pronounced in those texts devoted to the history of twentieth-century Russia. A pointed example is manifest in the sundry interpretations of socialism.71 In Igor Dolutskii’s textbook on twentieth-century Russian history, socialism is presented as a complex, multi-layered concept, a notion born in theory and then misunderstood, with tragic consequences for Russian history.72 Dolutskii then examines ‘real’ Soviet socialism, dismissing it as camouflage for a violent and cruel struggle to attain power. This does not prevent him, however, from regarding socialism as a movement aimed at achieving freedom, one capable of further, if still unrealized, development. In contrast to Dolutskii, Zharova and Mishina73 view socialism as a purely utopian event, distinguishing it entirely from the realm of real economic and political experience. They argue that this reality was not socialist, but totalitarian. At the same time, they focus on the interaction between the socialist idea and what they consider to be traditional Russian ideals of equality and authoritarianism. Ostrovskii and Utkin, authors of yet a third text,74 condemn socialism as an ideological trend typified by radical and terrorist inclinations. They emphasize that socialism’s character is alien to Russian culture and also view socialism as synonymous with totalitarianism. Despite their conceptual differences, then, all these textbooks were closely connected to the political debates of the early 1990s. The next and perhaps most important feature of the new textbooks was the role ascribed to teacher and pupil, both of whom were forced to make active choices. Because of the varying, and overly sophisticated, structure of the textbooks, teachers had to select both basic and supplementary texts and to offer the students differentiated sets of queries and tasks containing a great number of documents. The textbooks’ overemphasis on facts, which stemmed from a desire to give teachers an abundance of material to work with, caused a phenomenon known as ‘information overload’ (informatsionnaia izbytochnost’). Moreover, a main genre of the field had become the so-called polyconceptual 260

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textbooks. These presented rival interpretations of the same historical events as expressed by both contemporaries and modern historians. As for students, the new textbooks sought to appeal to their personal life and everyday experience. The books paid much greater attention to the anthropological aspects of history such as daily events, religious practice, family and labour. Shifting the emphasis away from a political history of great events, some texts actually created a ‘history from below’, an approach that was quite a novelty for Russian textbooks.75 In an attempt to avoid the schematization that plagued Soviet history textbooks, authors now sought to recreate an image of a period rather than propose models, schemes and tables by which to study it. Almost all the new textbooks devoted to modern national history included tasks and questions that related directly to the students’ family histories and the history of their towns, thus linking national, personal and local history (kraevedenie). Meanwhile, the focus on social history and the inclusion of elements of historical anthropology developed an empathic, personal relationship with history. The textbooks of the 1990s marked a significant move away from the highly standardized, normative texts of the Soviet era, but educators and didacts, who had sharply criticized Soviet history texts, were no less critical of the post-Soviet ones. In the debates which have ensued, instructors at higher institutes of pedagogical training have pointed to methodological and terminological confusion and have uncovered numerous factual errors. Moreover, while filling in previous gaps, these textbooks have created new ones. Thus, participants in the discussion on world history textbooks that took place at Kursk Pedagogical University in 1997 noted that new lacunae included the history of the Union of Communists, of the First International, and of the revolutionary workers’ movement. According to one of the discussants, none of the new textbooks describe Karl Marx’s activities after 1842–44, and they barely touch upon the development of Marxist theory at all.76 Another criticism concerned the tendency towards dilettantism which appeared when teachers entered a field, previously the domain of academic historians. Meanwhile, ‘rank and file’ teachers considered the new textbooks to be too complicated, and pointed to a lack of appropriate teaching aids that has hampered work with the new texts. Teachers have also insisted that the transition from a linear to a concentric method, which began in school history courses in 1993, occurred without an appropriate set of clearly delineated texts that matched each discrete level.77 Because different authors wrote for the first and second concentric levels, their texts contained considerable overlapping of material and needless repetition.

The decline of reform: what next? Against the backdrop of such dissatisfaction, the Ministry of Education has reaffirmed its standing as the most influential agent of educational policy, 261

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exercising new methods of control over history teaching, taking steps to protect state interests, and even, in some instances, resurrecting previous regulations. Since 1997/98 a tendency towards re-centralization, and even towards a ‘counter-reformation’ in history education has occurred. Establishment of the Compulsory Minimum of the Content of Education for secondary schools was an important step in this process.78 The Compulsory Minimum provided the Ministry of Education with an excellent benchmark to use in shaping the content of history textbooks. In the wake of this decision, the structure of the federal list (komplekt) of textbooks recommended by the Ministry of Education was divided into two parts: the first included those texts which ‘fulfilled the Compulsory Minimum’; the second part listed textbooks which, for various reasons, diverged from the Compulsory Minimum. The latter comprised either texts which did not meet the requirements of the Minimum, or those intended for a more advanced level, together with more innovative texts ‘that initiate a new, interesting, but incomplete contextual line’.79 Although the Ministry of Education’s Letter on the Teaching of History and Social Science in Institutions of General Education of the Russian Federation for the 1999/2000 School Year duly noted that these rankings did not oblige schools to use specific textbooks, it impelled texts towards greater standarization. Indeed, the same document observed that almost all textbook authors have revised their texts or written new ones in accordance with the Compulsory Minimum Content of Education.80 The next and very significant event in this counter-reformation was the publication in March 2000 of a draft Concept of History Education in the Institutions of General Education of the Russian Federation.81 For the first time the progress of educational reform was severely criticized. In explaining their conclusion, the authors of the Concept noted the profound crisis that had overtaken education during those very years in which the government had supposedly given education first priority. They also addressed the loss of the right to an equal education and the destruction of Russia’s ‘unified educational space’.82 De-communization and the differentiation of history education, once thought to be the main achievements of educational reform, are now considered questionable, at best. Numerous theoretical approaches which replaced ‘vulgar Marxism’, the authors observed, had failed to create a comprehensive theoretical framework for history teaching. At the same time, frequent shifts in theoretical approaches were blamed for creating a simplistic transition from a positive to an absolutely negative assessment of the same event. Moreover, the authors of the Concept claim that the diversity of programmes and textbooks had led to the absence of any standardized criteria for further textbook development. In promoting basic principles for renovating history education, the authors of the Concept persistently adopted the notion of ‘unity’ as a common denominator. The unity of instruction and upbringing, the unity of demands with the content and level of education, elaboration of united approaches to history teach262

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ing, together with the principle of scientific objectivity all have very little in common with the goals of diversification that initially inspired educational reform. This document, moreover, demands that limits be set on diversity in history education, emphasizing that ‘diversity in the content of history education is possible only in the eleventh and twelfth grades . . . or is possible only in regard to the regional component of the basic school curriculum’.83 The publication of this draft led to an outcry among well-known experts on history education,84 and the Concept never became an official document. However, it became clear from subsequent developments that the counterreformist steps in history education were proceeding in line with the new educational policy being implemented at the beginning of the millennium. The new policy was characterized, in the words of a popular slogan of the time, by the ‘return of the state to the sphere of education’. Generally this meant that decisions and practical moves were undertaken at the governmental, not ministerial, level. An indication of that change was the creation of a working group for reform in education at the State Council of the Russian Federation.85 The expanded report of this group was presented at the session of the State Council of the Russian Federation held on 29 August 2001. Outlining a strategy of development in education for the next ten years, this document on Russia’s modern educational policy differed greatly from previous political documents of its kind. First and foremost, the term ‘reform’ had disappeared from the final version. Instead, the modernization of education was declared.86 Edward Dneprov, former minister of education and a prominent member of the working group, explained this paradox. Reform, he said, presupposed reorganization and reconstruction, which had become irrelevant since Russia’s educational system had already undergone such a process in the early 1990s. On the other hand, he claimed, the educational system still needed modernization, or ‘modification in accordance with contemporary demands’.87 In emphasizing modernization, the authors of the document also underlined the importance of its macroeconomic aspects. As a result, the role allocated to history as a school subject was changed once again. It became a discipline aimed at the successful socialization of students, which, according to the report, meant their incorporation into the work force.88 While there was much less stress on the former humanitarian line of educational policy, the humanities remained in the limelight. On 30 August 2001, a meeting of the Government of the Russian Federation took place, which was devoted to the issue of textbooks on modern Russian history.89 A report presented by Minister of Education Vladimir Filippov gave an account of a special governmental commission set up by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The conclusions of this report, as well as keynote remarks of Prime Minister Mikhail Kas’ianov, were extremely critical. Underscoring the inferior editing, poor style and numerous distortions of facts, the participants in the meeting condemned history textbooks as ‘hopelessly obsolete’ and excessively politicized. Practically ignoring the developments of the previous ten 263

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years in the field of textbook writing, high-ranking critics repeated, almost word for word, criticism from the perestroika period. Indeed, the meeting was more reminiscent of Soviet rather than perestroika practice. It was decided to devise an integrated concept for continuous history education from school to university. In early 2002 a history textbook writing competition was announced.90 It was specified that a minimum of three history textbooks per course should be published. Significantly, this point attracted considerable attention in numerous commentaries. The phrase ‘a minimum of three textbooks’ was eventually understood as a limitation on the number of textbooks per course to a maximum of three. No less important, the governmental attack on diversity in history textbooks led to opposition among publishers and the pedagogic press (especially Pervoe sentiabria), but it elicited an insignificant reaction among fatigued and confused teachers. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education adopted the idea of reducing the number of history textbooks and unifying their content. In early 2002 ministry officials stated openly that three textbooks for each school subject were more than enough.91 In regard to history, it was emphasized that textbooks which reflected ‘state-oriented opinion’ rather than those whose authors presented their own point of view, would be included in the federal set of textbooks.92 However, with the competition on modern Russian history textbooks finally announced on 16 January 2002,93 it became clear that the previous ten years of reform had left their mark. Although a commission of experts was designated to choose only ‘good’ and ‘appropriate’ textbooks, as was typical under the Soviet school system, the proposed process of competition – open, meticulously elaborated, and with clearly defined rules – had been influenced, undoubtedly, by the democratic experience of the previous ten years. Further, it was stipulated that the textbooks must not only instil patriotism, civic virtues and the notorious quality of ‘historical optimism’, but that they must also include conceptions introduced into the educational discourse during the previous reformist decade. Thus, according to the ministry’s instructions, competing manuscripts were to represent Russian history in the context of world history, while portraying the history of Russia as a multinational state. They also specified that one of the aims should be to form ‘an organic perception of democratic transformation in society by students’ and development of ‘key social skills’. While the latter notion has appeared only in recent educational documents, its general idea derives from the discussions on functional literacy which took place in previous years. Last, but not least, potential authors of textbooks were reminded that there were alternative opinions on the past of their society and were asked to reflect plurality in the interpretation and presentation of the historical material. This correlated logically with the aim to educate youth in a spirit of tolerance and respect towards the beliefs and opinions of others.94 According to the rules of the competition, the prizes for winning entries were to be contracts (details of which were not specified) between the publish264

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ers of the texts and the Ministry of Education. The participants were required to submit a concept, an outline and sample chapters of texts on modern Russian history in three categories: textbooks for the ninth and eleventh grade of general secondary schools and for the eleventh grade of specialized secondary schools.95 Originally, the Ministry planned to commission the publication of nine texts, apparently in accordance with the same notorious principle that ‘three is enough’. Eleven texts for the ninth grade, nine texts for the eleventh grade and five texts for specialized schools participated in the first round of the contest. Nine texts which reached the second round of the competition were submitted by well-known publishers and such leading academic institutions as the Institute of Russian History and the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.96 The final results of the contest were rather surprising. Only one textbook for the ninth and one for the eleventh grade, both submitted by Russkoe slovo, a private publishing house, were declared winners. The texts put forward by major academic institutions, by the state publishing house, Prosveshchenie, and by larger private publishers such as Drofa, were left behind. Moreover, both winning texts were written by the same team of authors, led by Nikita Zagladin, the head of the Department of Domestic Politics at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations.97 In discussing the concept of his texts, Zagladin emphasized political aspects alongside the didactic ones. From the didactic point of view, he saw their advantage in the ability to give an integrated, cohesive, balanced image of history and not to overwhelm students with too much information. From a political perspective, he felt the books were successful because they adhered to principles of patriotic upbringing.98 Yet, the decree of the Ministry of Education appended additional entries with a somewhat peculiar status to the list of winners. Some of these appeared under the rubric of ‘teaching aids’,99 others were classified as textbooks which had yet to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Education100 – in other words, had yet to go through another (if more routine) assessment process. This separation between absolute and ‘conditional’ winners is confusing when viewed from a purely educational perspective, but becomes clearer when one takes economic considerations into account: only a textbook officially recommended by the Ministry of Education can be purchased with funds from the state. This does not mean that other texts are prohibited. It means only that they must be purchased with private funds. This can be seen as additional evidence that the state has begun to achieve its political aims in the sphere of education. The textbook competition, another ongoing episode in the fascinating evolution of history education in contemporary Russia, still leaves open the central question: has the cycle been completed and thus has the reform of history teaching returned to its starting point? There is no definitive answer. The interaction of three separate tendencies or typologies of history teaching could be discerned in the 1990s to early 2000s. One is a return to classical teaching, which presupposes a revival of both pre-revolutionary and Soviet practices in using 265

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history for political legitimization. The second is a type of teaching which comprises both cultural socialization and the development of a creative personality. The third is a method of teaching which stresses both analytical skills and critical thinking. While the latter two methods derived from reformist ideas of the late 1980s, the last was closer to Russian and early Soviet educational theories which devoted considerable attention to the development of a student’s intellectual abilities. After more than ten years of reform, current history teaching in Russia tends to be more traditional. Therefore, the question still remains: which tradition – classical, formal or developmental – will prevail?

Notes 1 For the late 1980s to early 1990s, see R.W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); William B. Husband, ‘Secondary School History Texts in the USSR: Revising the Soviet Past, 1985–1989’, Russian Review 4 (1991), pp. 458–80; Vera Tolz, ‘New History Textbooks for Secondary Schools’, Report on the USSR (Radio Liberty) 35 (1 September, 1989), pp. 5–7; Harold Shukman, ‘Lenin or Alexander?’, Times Higher Education Supplement (3 February 1990), p. 15; Klas-Goran Karlsson, ‘History Teaching in Twentieth Century Russia and the Soviet Union: Classicism and its Alternatives’, in Ben Eklof (ed.), School and Society in Tsarist and Soviet Russia (London: St Martin’s Press, 1993), pp. 204–23. See also Janet G. Vaillant’s chapter on history teaching and textbooks in 1989–92 in Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 141–68. 2 Klas-Goran Karlsson, ‘History Teaching in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union: Classicism and Its Alternatives’, pp. 205–23. 3 Resolving an implicit contradiction between a ‘value-free perspective’ and an emphasis on cultural heritage, which is inevitably value-laden, Karlsson draws attention to the development of the ‘objectivistic’ concept of history. According to it, ‘the notion of an unchanging historical matter, refined by scholarly research but impervious to political, social or educational change’ developed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Karlsson, consequently, claims that historical content was slowly transformed into an objective, petrified cultural heritage. See ibid., pp. 208–9. 4 Ibid., pp. 205–23. 5 According to Karlsson, ‘the great turning points in Russian and Soviet history – 1905, 1917, the Stalinist revolution of 1930 and the first years of the Gorbachev era in the late 1980s – can also be used as the boundaries between different phases in the development of Russian and Soviet history teaching’. Ibid., p. 205. 6 ‘“Kruglyi stol” v redaktsii zhurnala Prepodavanie istorii v shkole, 2 dekabria 1988 g.’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 2 (1989), p. 77. 7 ‘Zasedanie sektsii “Prepodavanie istorii i obshchestvennykh nauk” Vsesoiuznogo s”ezda rabotnikov narodnogo obrazovaniia 21 dekabria 1988 g.’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 3 (1989), p. 21. 8 The essays ‘K voprosu o perestroike shkol’nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, by O.I. Bakhtina, and ‘Predlozheniia po perestroike shkol’nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, by G.V. Klokova, appeared in Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 3 (1989), pp. 81–8, and in Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4 (1989), pp. 52–8. Further, two distinct proposals for conceptions of history education were published in Prepoda-

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9 10 11

12

13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30

vanie istorii v shkole 6 (1989): the more traditional ‘Materialy k kontseptsii shkol’nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’ prepared by scholars from the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Science, and the more radical ‘Kontseptsiia istoricheskogo obrazovaniia v srednei shkole’ presented by the Temporary Scientific Research Collective ‘School’ (Vremennyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii kollektiv ‘Shkola’). Educators’ feedback on both conceptions were published in Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 2, 3, 4 (1990). ‘Na kollegii Gosobrazovaniia SSSR’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 5 (1990), p. 4. ‘“Kruglyi stol” v redaktsii zhurnala Prepodavanie istorii v shkole, 2 dekabria 1988’, p. 91. N.A. Chirukhin, ‘Chemu uchit’? (o perestroike shkol’nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniia)’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 6 (1989), p. 73. See also a later essay of V.K. Batsyn, ‘O reforme istoricheskogo i obshchestvovedcheskogo obrazovaniia v sovremennoi rossiiskoi shkole’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 8 (1997), pp. 16–23. ‘Kontseptsiia istoricheskogo obrazovaniia v srednei shkole’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 6 (1989), p. 79; ‘Istoricheskaia nauka i shkol’noe istoricheskoe obrazovanie: “Kruglyi stol” v redaktsii zhurnala Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 28 marta 1990 g.’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4 (1990), pp. 7–30. ‘Kontseptsiia istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, p. 79–90. The research project Shkola (see note 8) was established in 1988 for proposing new ideas in the sphere of education. The project included various research groups, dominated by the School Curriculum Group. Primarily, this group had to work out concepts for reforming the curriculum of each subject. The five historians invited to participate in this group (Moscow State University lecturers Alexander Shevyrev and Mikhail Boitsov as well as the young Moscow teachers Tamara Eidelman, Irina Ukolova and Tatiana Chernikova), proposed radical changes in the history curriculum. Later a school curriculum group was set up in the Moscow Institute of Development of Educational System (MIROS), which consists of 13 departments, the largest being the laboratory of history education, headed by Alexander Shevyrev. See Alexander Shevyrev, ‘Developments in Russia: The MIROS Institute’, in EUROCLIO Bulletin 7 (Winter 1996–97), pp. 3–5. ‘Kontseptsiia istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, p. 79. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Ot “gosudarstvennoi mifologii” k real’nomu znaniiu’, Aleksandr Kolodin’s interview of deputy minister of education V.K. Batsyn, Narodnoe Obrazovanie 6 (1995), p. 10. ‘“Kruglyi stol”, 2 dekabria 1988’, p. 86. ‘Ot “gosudarstvennoi mifologii”’, p. 10. Ibid., p. 11. ‘Zasedanie sektsii “Prepodavanie istorii i obshchestvennykh nauk”’, p. 8. ‘“Kruglyi stol”, 2 dekabria 1988’, pp. 80, 88. ‘Kontseptsiia istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, p. 84. ‘“Kruglyi stol”, 2 dekabria 1988’, p. 80. Ibid., p. 86. Ibid., p. 88. ‘Istoricheskaia nauka i shkol’noe istoricheskoe obrazovanie’, p. 9. Ibid. V.K. Batsyn discussed this issue in his later essays. See ‘A Proposal for History Teaching in Russian Schools’, ISRE Newsletter 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 29–34 and ‘O reforme istoricheskogo i obshchestvovedcheskogo obrazovaniia v sovremennoi rossiiskoi shkole’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 8 (1997), pp. 16–23. ‘Istoricheskaia nauka i shkol’noe istoricheskoe obrazovanie’, p. 9.

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31 ‘Na kollegii Gosobrazovaniia SSSR’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 5 (1990), p. 5. 32 E.E. Viazemskii and B.L. Khavkin, ‘O prepodavanii istorii v shkolakh’, Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (1991), p. 225. 33 Materialy k obsuzhdeniiu novoi kontseptsii prepodavaniia istorii was presented at the conference organized by the Department of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Education in February 1993, see Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4 (1993), p. 68–72. 34 Ibid., p. 69. 35 See A M. Vodianskii, ‘Istoricheskoe i obshchestvovedcheskoe obrazovanie: strategiia razvitiia’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 3 (1995), pp. 55–9. 36 Ibid., p. 56. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., p. 57. 40 Ibid.; ‘Ot “gosudarstvennoi mifologii” k real’nomu znaniiu’, p. 12. 41 L.A. Katsva, ‘Kurs Otechestvennoi istorii VIII–XVII vekov, Programma dlia VIII klassa’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 2 (1995), p. 30. 42 Ibid. 43 Vodianskii, ‘Istoricheskoe i obshchestvovedcheskoe obrazovanie, p. 57. 44 Ibid., p. 56. 45 V.S. Gribov, ‘Aktual’nye problemy obucheniia istorii’, Vecherniaia sredniia shkola 1 (1993), p. 36. 46 Evgenii Viazemskii and Andrei Kulakov, ‘Kak vyiti iz tupika ili ob istoricheskom obrazovanii v shkole’, Narodnoe obrazovanie 3/4 (1992), p. 21. 47 Ibid., p. 21. 48 ‘Materialy k obsuzhdeniiu novoi kontseptsii prepodavaniia istorii’, p. 71. 49 Viazemskii and Kulakov, ‘Kak vyiti iz tupika ili ob istoricheskom obrazovanii v shkole’, p. 21. 50 V.P. Dmitrenko, ‘O nekotorykh problemakh Otechestvennoi istorii XX stoletiia’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4 (1993), p. 72. 51 Karlsson, ‘History Teaching in Twentieth-Century Russia’, p. 206. 52 Dmitrenko, ‘O nekotorykh problemakh Otechestvennoi istorii XX stoletiia’, p. 72. 53 Ibid. 54 Viazemskii and Kulakov, ‘Kak vyiti iz tupika ili ob istoricheskom obrazovanii v shkole’, p. 21. 55 ‘Ot “Gosudarstvennoi mifologii” k real’nomu znaniiu’, p. 11. 56 Ibid., pp. 13–14. 57 It is no accident that the author of the article, Andrei Golovatenko, entitled it ‘V zashchitu istoricheskogo mifotvorchestva: Retrogradnye zametki o tseliakh izucheniia istorii v shkole’ (In defence of historical mythmaking: retrograde notes on the aims of studying history in school), Istoriia supplement to Pervoe sentiabria 28 (1994), p. 2. See also his ‘Uchebniki istorii: segodnia i zavtra, obzor problemy i kontury resheniia’, Istoriia 7 (1997), pp. 15–16. 58 Iu. Troitskii, ‘Novaia tekhnologiia istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, Istoriia 45 (1994), pp. 1–3; see also Iu. Troitskii, ‘Zametki na poliakh standarta po istorii’, Istoriia 7 (1997), pp. 15–16. 59 B. Bogoiavlenskii and K. Mitrofanov, ‘Istoriia: vo-pervykh, vo-vtorykh, vtret’ikh’, Istoriia 27 (1994), pp. 1–2. See also V.V. Sukhov, A. Iu. Morozov and E.N. Abdulaev, ‘Les problem i variant dorogi: poisk putei obnovleniia shkol’nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 1 (2000), pp. 50–6. 60 E.A. Gevurkova, ‘Vremennyi Gosudarstvennyi Standart istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, Vecherniaia sredniaia shkola 2 (1994), p. 34. Initial drafts of state standards

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61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74 75

76 77

in history were published in Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4, 6, 8 (1994). In the AllRussia Competition of Proposals for State Standards, there were two winning proposals, prepared by groups headed by L.N. Aleksashkina and L.N. Bogoliubov [see these versions in Istoriia 42–3 (1996)]. The preparation of alternative versions subsequently continued. The projected standard prepared by the group headed by E.E. Viazemskii was published in Istoriia 2 (1997). Gevurkova, ‘Vremennyi Gosudarstvennyi Standart istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, p. 34. Ibid. p. 35. L.G. Kosulina, ‘Metodologicheskie i metodicheskie aspekty uchebnogo kursa ‘‘Istoriia Rossii v nachale XX veka v srednei shkole”’, in A.P. Shevyrev (ed.), Rossia (1856–1917) i Germaniia (1871–1918): Dve imperii v istoriografii i shkol’nykh uchebnikakh (Moscow: MIROS, 1999), p. 47. Ibid., p. 55. V.P. Ostrovskii and A.I. Utkin, Istoriia Rossii, XX vek (Moscow: Drofa, 1995). L.N. Zharova and I.A. Mishina, Istoriia Otechestva, 1900–1940 (St Petersburg: IchP Khardford, 1995), p. 5. O.S. Soroko-Tsupa, V.P. Smirnov, V.S. Poskonin and A.I. Stroganov, Mir v dvadtsatom veke (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1996), p. 5. A.A. Kreder, Noveishaia istoriia, XX vek, vol. 1 (Moscow: Tsentr gumanitarnogo obrazovaniia, 1995), pp. 6, 7. Soroko-Tsupa et al., Mir v dvadtsatom veke, pp. 5–6; Kreder, Noveishaia istoriia, vol. 2, pp. 172–4. For more on this subject, see Vera Kaplan, ‘The Reform of Education in Russia and the Problem of History Teaching’, in Education in Russia, The Independent States and Eastern Europe 1 (Spring 1999), pp. 8–9. See also Vera Kaplan, ‘Die Überwindung der sozialistischen Vergangenheit in den russländischen Schülbuchern der 90er Jahre: der “Sozialismus” – Begriff im Wandel’, in Isabelle de Keghel and Robert Maier (eds), Auf den Kehrichthaufen der Geschichte? Der Umgang mit der sozialistischen Vergangenheit (Hannover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1999), pp. 115–31. I.I. Dolutskii, Otechestvennaia istoriia, XX vek (Moscow: Mnemozina, 1994). Zharova and Mishina, Istoriia Otechestva. Ostrovskii and Utkin, Istoriia Rossii, XX vek. New experimental textbooks for the course on ‘Russia and the World’ have recently been published in the framework of the ‘Uroki Klio’ (Lessons of Clio) project, M.A. Boitsov and I.S. Khromova, Poslevoennoe desiatiletie: 1945–1955 (Moscow: MIROS, 1999); Iu. V. Kushnereva and T.V. Chernikova, 1960-e gody: Illiuzii i razocharovaniia: Eksperimental’noe uchebnoe posobie dlia srednei shkoly (Moscow: MIROS, 1999). Each covers only ten years. The Post-War Decade by M. Boitsov and I. Khromova surveys the period between 1945 and 1955. Illusions and Disappointments by Iu. Kushnereva and T. Chernikova covers the years from 1960 to 1970. In comparison to traditional textbooks, these works contain less narrative by the author and a far larger number of sources, including documents, excerpts from memoirs, works by prominent Russian and western historians, and copious visual materials (photographs, caricatures, and reproductions of art masterpieces). Questions and tasks for the pupil help not only to internalize information, but to connect it to the pupil’s own family history and personal experience. The main feature of these new texts is their representation of ‘Russian and European history in indissoluble unity’. Roundtable: ‘Obsuzhdenie rossiiakikh shkol’nykh uchebnikov po novoi i noveishei istorii’, Novaia i noveishaia istoriia 4 (1998), p. 120. An absolute majority of teachers and didacts oppose the concentric system. In

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79 80 81 82 83 84 85

86 87

88 89 90

fact, there was ample information regarding its disadvantages from the onset of educational reform. A previous attempt to introduce the concentric system, undertaken in 1959–65, was ultimately a failure, and was well studied by Soviet scholars. The latest initiative was even more traumatic. According to one betterinformed Russian expert, E.E. Viazemskii (one of the few supporters of the concentric structure), the main disadvantage in the current experience has been an attempt to squeeze all the material designed for grades 4 through 10 into the curriculum of grades 5 through 9, which currently constitute the basic secondary school. Viazemskii also notes an inclination to use textbooks prepared for the secondary school (tenth and eleventh grades) in the basic secondary school (fifth through ninth grades) and that the same level of demands is made of students in both the basic and secondary schools. This effort has led to poor results. There has been a sharp decline in historical knowledge among school graduates. Students lose interest in history as a school subject (while it was once one of the three most popular subjects) and teachers are disappointed professionally. See ‘Prikaz ot 30.06.99 #56 Ob utverzhdenii obiazatel’nogo minimuma soderzhaniia srednego (polnogo) obshchego obrazovaniia: Obrazovatel’naia oblast’ obshchestvoznanie’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 7 (1999), pp. 24–6. The Provisional Compulsory Minimum of the Content of Education for Basic Schools was confirmed by the Ministry of Education a year before, in 1998, by Decree No. 1236 of 19 May 1998. ‘O prepodavanii kursov istorii i obshchestvoznaniia v obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdeniiakh Rossiiskoi Federatsii v 1999/2000 uchebnom godu’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 6 (1999), p. 11. Ibid. See Istoriia Supplement to Pervoe sentiabria, 8 March 2000. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Obsuzhdenie kontseptsii istoricheskogo obrazovaniia v Moskovskoi assotsiatsii prepodavatelei istorii (kratkii otchet), GPBI, 15 marta 2000’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4 (2000), pp. 41–3. The composition of the working group makes it evident that it was designed as a state, not a ministerial body: the head of the government of the Karelian Republic, Sergei Katanadov, was appointed head of the group, while Minister of Education Vladimir Filippov was a member, together with the head of the union of university rectors, V. Sadovnichii, and chief of the State Duma Committee on Education I. Mel’nikov. The group also included representatives of local educational bodies, trade unions and voluntary organizations. See Pervoe Sentiabria, 26 June 2001. For more in this regard, see Aleksandr Adamskii, ‘Ot reformy k stabilizatsii’, Pervoe sentiabria, 21 August 2001. Edward Dneprov, ‘Modernizatsiia obrazovaniia – obshchenatsional’naia zadacha: k itogam deiatel’nosti rabochei gruppy Gosudarstvennogo Soveta RF po voprosam reformirovaniia obrazovaniia’, Prevoe sentiabria, 26 August 2001. Finally the conception of modernization of the educational system was confirmed by the government at the end of October 2001. See Aleksandr Adamskii, ‘ . . . A davaite bez nachal’stva!’ Pervoe sentiabria, 19 February 2002. ‘Osnovy sovremennoi obrazovatel’noi politiki Rossii (strategicheskie tezisy): materialy dlia obsuzhdeniia’, Pervoe sentiabria, 26 June 2001. ‘O soderzhanii uchebnoi literatury dlia obrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii po noveishei otechestvennoi istorii’, see Sergei Lebedev, ‘Vot takaia istoriia . . . ’, Pervoe sentiabria, 4 September 2001. Uchitel’skaia gazeta 37 (2001).

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91 See information on the press conference of the Minister of Education, Vladimir Filippov, in Ol’ga Dashkovskaia, ‘Kak spasti variativnost’, Pervoe sentiabria, 16 February 2002. 92 Such an idea was articulated by First Deputy Minister of Education V. Bolotov, at the section of the Public Council on the Problems of Textbooks for Educational Institutions at Prosveshchenie Publishing House on 25 January 2002. See Ol’ga Dashkovskaia, ‘V tom, chto nasha shkola ne uchit dumat’, vinovat i uchebnik’, Uchebniki Supplement to Pervoe Sentiabria, 5 February 2002. 93 ‘Prikaz Ministerstva obrazovaniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 16.01.2002 #100 Ob ob”iavlenii konkursa na sozdanie uchebnikov po noveishei istorii dlia obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 6 (2002). 94 Ibid. 95 Prikaz Ministerstva obrazovaniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 16.01.2002 #100 Ob ob”iavlenii konkursa na sozdanie uchebnikov po noveishei otechestvennoi istorii dlia obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii Rossiiskoi Federatsii. See Uchitel’ skaia gazeta 6 (2002), www.ug.ru/02/06/po4.htm. 96 Irina Kaminskaiia, ‘V nachale bylo “Russkoe slovo”: itogi konkursa uchebnikov po noveishei otechestvennoi istorii’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta 31 (2002), http://www. ug.ru/02.31/t8.htm. 97 N.V. Zagladin, S.T. Minakov, Iu. A. Petrov and S.I. Kozlenko, Otechestvennaia istoriia: XX vek for the ninth grade and S.T. Minakov, N.V. Zagladin, Iu. A. Petrov and S.I. Kozlenko, Otechestvennaia istoriia: XX vek for the eleventh grade – see ‘Prikaz Ministerstva Obrazovaniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 28 noiabria 2002 goda #4150 Ob utverzhdenii uchebnoi literatury po noveishei otechestvennoi istorii, rekomendovannoi Ministerstvom obrazovaniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii dlia ispol’zovaniia v obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdeniiakh Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 52 (2002), http://www.ug.ru/02.52/t6.htm. 98 Nikita Zagladin in an interview with Aleksandr Averiushkin. ‘My stremilis’ napisat’ uchebnik, svobodnyi ot kakoi-libo ideologii . . . ’, Pervoe sentiabria, 7 (2003), http://ps.1september.ru/articlef.php?ID=200300720. 99 The following books have been included in the group of ‘teaching aids’ (uchebnye posobia): V.V. Barabanov, A.B. Nikolaev, N.I. Nikolaev and B.G. Rozhkov, Shkol’nyi slovar’–spravochnik ‘Istoriia Rossii: XX vek’ dlia 9 i 11 klassov (Astrel’), V.F. Krivosheev et al., Slovar’ terminov i poniatii po otechestvennoi istorii XX veka dlia 9 i 11 klassov (Russkoe slovo); A.O. Chubarian et al., Istoriia Rossii, XX vek: Posobie dlia uchitelia (Prosveshchenie). 100 As the prikaz formulates it, ‘uchebniki po noveishei otechestvennoi istorii s neobkhodimost’iu polucheniia v ustanovlennom poriadke grifa Ministerstva obrazovaniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii’ are as follows: E.M. Shchagin, A.T. Stepanishchev and O.I. Borodina, Istoriia Rossii XX veka dlia 9 klassa (Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo pedagogicheskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta); A.A. Danilov, M. Iu. Brandt, L.G. Kosulina and O.L. Mitvol’, Istoriia Rossii XX veka – nachala XXI veka dlia 9 klassa (Prosveshchenie); S.V. Mironenko, Iu. A. Shechetinov, A.A. Levandovskii and T.V. Koval’ Istoriia Rossii XX veka – nachala XXI veka dlia 11 klassa (Prosveshchenie); V.A. Shestakov, M.M. Gorinov and E.E. Viazemskii, Istoriia Otechestva. XX vek dlia 9 klassa (Institut Rossiiskoi istorii RAN); L.N. Zharova, I.A. Mishina and V.S. Beliavskii, Istoriia Otechestva. XX vek dlia 9 klassa (Tsentr gumanitarnogo obrazovaniia i novykh tekhnologii); A.O. Chubarian, A.A. Danilov, E.I. Pivovar and A.V. Shubin, Otechestvennai istoriia XX veka dlia 11 klassa (Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN); V.P. Ostrovskii, Istoriia Rossii. XX vek dlia 11 klassa (Drofa).

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11 REWRITING TH E NATIONAL PAS T New images of Russia in history textbooks of the 1990s Alexander Shevyrev

The rewriting of history, which began in Russia with the introduction of perestroika and glasnost, is an open-ended process. The freedom of scholarly creativity, more specifically the freedom to express its findings, permits historians to adopt varying points of view on a given historical event. As long as this freedom exists, not only will every new generation rewrite history, but within each generation alternative visions or understandings of history will vie for legitimacy. School textbooks tend to be more rigid in the range of their interpretation than scholarly works. In contrast to academic writing, the content of textbooks is controlled not only by professional historians, but also by the state and society. In countries which are politically stable the state is interested in maintaining a societal consensus concerning the past, reached by free will or imposed from above. Hence, fundamental revisions of history textbooks occur fairly infrequently and different generations conceive of and speak about history from identical frames of reference. Another feature of the school textbook is its mythological nature. In school, history is not a goal, but a means by which educational aims are achieved. Thus, while a scholarly work may conceal or be devoid of ulterior motives, in school textbooks, educational goals are inevitably revealed at one level or another. In them, the academic text is reduced to a simplified, structured and overtly value laden narrative. In this sense, the school textbook is quite interesting as an object for historiographical analysis: it lays bare the political orientation of the scholarly approach, even in situations in which the authors have tried to avoid any bias. The publication of Russian textbooks in the 1990s was influenced by several interconnected processes: Russian society was experiencing a profound crisis of historical consciousness. Consequently, during that specific period, 272

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history was rewritten on almost a yearly basis and in every region. Very few reliable historical reference points remained, and the growing pluralism of historical interpretation caused society to doubt the ability of professional historians to reconstruct the past. This distrust of historians together with a an innate love of sensationalism accounts for the popularity of works such those of Anatolii Fomenko and Gleb Nosovskii, which advocate complete rejection of history as scholarship.1 School textbooks also began to manifest pluralism in their interpretations. However, the authors, publishers, and educational administrative bodies which control the publishing process sensed the burden of accountability for various and differing interpretations of history. Hence, the spectrum of views presented in textbooks is much narrower than in the academic field, to say nothing of popular literature. The content of school textbooks can therefore be seen as a reflection of the consensus existing in Russian society at a given time. While in the 1990s one increasingly found schoolteachers among the authors of educational materials, the tradition of enlisting academic scholars to write textbooks prevailed for the most part. For this reason school textbooks can serve as a gauge for assessing the general status of historical studies. In order to analyse the historical narrative in the post-Soviet Russian school, the researcher must face the problem of selecting texts. It is not an easy task, since in the 1990s dozens of history materials for the secondary schools were published and reprinted every year. These included school textbooks, readers, workbooks, compendiums of tests and a variety of other source materials. In Moscow alone, it is possible to find more than twenty different history textbooks in any of the major bookstores. For this reason, I established the following guidelines for my analysis. First, I chose to examine textbooks dealing solely with Russian history. Even though the history of Russia is partly covered in textbooks on world history as well, I felt it was possible to leave these textbooks out of my analysis. Second, I limited the period of my investigation to pre-revolutionary history: the fact that the changes that can be discerned in this period are less obvious and little discussed makes them all the more intriguing as an object of analysis. Moreover, political considerations blatantly interfere with historical narrative in texts on the Soviet period. This leads, inter alia, to presentation of the Soviet past from a predominantly political perspective. In the era of perestroika it was not the state, but the public and the professional community, which initiated changes in the representation of ancient and early modern history in the school curriculum. While there was a public appeal to make national history more attractive to students, historians felt a need to create new explanatory paradigms to replace those that had collapsed in the course of rewriting Soviet history. Authors of new textbooks on pre-Soviet history were relatively free to construct new versions of historical narratives. It is in this sense that the textbooks on pre-Soviet history are less tainted sources for studying the self-image of post-Soviet society and its perception of the past. 273

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Third and finally, from this already limited group of textbooks on the prerevolutionary history of Russia, I singled out books written by academic scholars. Textbooks written by teachers and didacts are frequently eclectic and abound with errors. It is often difficult to determine whether the biases they contain are of a conscious nature, or merely the result of a low level of writing. In either case, I have found them less useful for the purposes of this study. I would like to begin my analysis with a textbook that can be classified as a standard. It is the textbook by Aleksandr Preobrazhenskii and Boris Rybakov.2 This book can be considered a ‘classic’ partly due to its longevity. Its first editions were published in the Soviet period, so the 1997 edition is exemplary as a transitional text. In developing a narrative of pre-revolutionary Russia in the Soviet period, it was necessary to reconcile two conflicting goals: patriotic education required the establishment of a positive image of the motherland, while Communist education required a sufficient quantity of negative factors in the description of the pre-revolutionary past in order to give meaning to the October Revolution. The solution to this dilemma was to concentrate on the negative characteristics of three agents of the historical process: the ruling classes, the state, and the church. However, the authors of Soviet textbooks were consistent only in their negative depiction of the church. As far as the nobility and especially the state were concerned, it was necessary to seek a compromise: After all, one could not deny the positive role of the state and its military leaders in the defence and expansion of the boundaries of the fatherland (otechestvo) and the contribution of individual representatives of the noble ranks in the development of Russian culture. These contradictions were never resolved. They were simply ignored. This treatment was characteristic of the earlier editions of Preobrazhenskii and Rybakov’s text, but in the early 1990s it underwent major modification. Rejection of the aims of Communist education allowed the authors to focus fully on patriotic education. ‘The deeper one’s knowledge of one’s country, the more deliberate and deep one’s love for it’, write the authors in one section of the textbook. ‘And this is a direct path to the development of patriotic feelings.’3 As part of the shift in emphasis towards patriotic education, a radical change occurred in relation to religion and the church. In the 1997 edition, a significant degree of exposure is given to the Orthodox Church and it is treated in an utterly positive manner. In the entire book there is not a single negative portrayal of any figure associated with the church. The authors pay particular attention to historical figures who have been canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, noting their devotion and their willingness to martyr themselves for their faith. In several places the Orthodox and Catholic churches are compared and the Orthodox Church is praised for its moderation. The text notes, for example, that the Russian Orthodox Church never 274

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engaged in the selling of indulgences, which are defined as ‘meaningless scraps of paper for the remission of sins’.4 Another example is that while admitting the severity of the Orthodox Church’s treatment of heretics, the authors point out ‘that they did not approach the level of persecution committed by church leaders in the countries of western Europe’.5 Another important element to be found in newer editions is the positive characterization of the ruling classes, in this particular case the feudal lords. The authors introduce arguments supporting the feudal lords’ position of leadership in society and their right to exploit peasants. Following an exposition of the background to feudal relations in ancient Russia (Rus’), the authors justify turning the peasants into slaves or serfs with the argument that ‘such an order was the only solution for a peasant who had fallen into “inevitable misfortune”’.6 In a section entitled ‘Preconditions for the Unification of Russia’ the authors point to the development of new forms of landownership and the concomitant growth of dvorianstvo (gentry). ‘The dvorianstvo was considered a service class’, the textbook declares. ‘At the first summons they were obliged to appear and to fulfil their obligations: going off on a military campaign, carrying out their duties in administrative and judicial affairs, managing the economy of large landholdings. The dependent peasants became the property of the nobleman, and they provided the landholder with everything necessary.’7 Although the authors never claim that social harmony existed in Russian society, they do emphasize the united efforts of different estates in striving towards a unified state: the landowners ‘were increasingly drawn to [the idea of] consolidation of a greater power which could provide protection from insubordination on the part of the peasants and kholopy [slaves] and from the encroachment of other landowners’. The peasants likewise ‘set their sights on a unified government so that it could establish for them an acceptable standard of living and not allow the lord to oppress them. In spite of the difference in their situations, the lords and the peasants both supported the strengthening of a unified order and the institution of laws.’8 It seems, however, that presenting the nobility in a favourable light required a special effort on the part of the authors. In the section devoted to peasant wars and uprisings, the authors’ sympathy is clearly with the rebels. Ivan Bolotnikov, the leader of a rebellion during the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the seventeenth century, is characterized as ‘a brave and staunch fighter for the freedom of the oppressed’. The authors, moreover, make a point of emphasizing the chronicler’s ‘hostile attitude’ towards Bolotnikov’s followers. An even more blatantly class-determined position is conspicuous in the description of the peasant uprising led by Stepan Razin. Razin himself, ‘a brave and experienced Cossack . . . understood well the position of the people, having at one time, made his own pilgrimage to Solovetsk monastery’.9 The presentation of the pilgrimage as a significant deed is, in itself, noteworthy. 275

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The rebels are characterized in the most positive language: ‘venerable ataman’, ‘surprising courage’, ‘comrades in arms’; correspondingly, negative terms describe their opponents: ‘members of a punitive expedition’ and ‘oppressors’. At the time of the Cossack campaigns in search of booty along the western coast of the Caspian, ‘some affluent cities were taken and the poor of these cities joined the Cossacks’, after which Razin ‘came up with the idea of giving freedom to the working people, extricating them from the power of the oppressors who came from the ranks of the boyars and officials’.10 Life in rebel Astrakhan is portrayed in idyllic terms: ‘Issues were decided at a general meeting of the inhabitants, and concerns were raised about the normal workings of the local market and the fishing trade . . . The local children imitated the Cossack krug [assembly] with enthusiasm. The Cossacks married the Astrakhan girls and widows and even had time to produce offspring. In terms of popular rule (narodopravstvo), the example of Astrakhan in 1670–71 was significant.’11 The authors note as well the cruelty of the participants in the Razin uprising, but only after a description of the bloody violence perpetrated by the government soldiers against them.12 The most effective means in the hands of the authors of textbooks to awaken patriotic feelings is through a discussion of famous battles and wars. In all editions of the textbook by Rybakov and Preobrazhenskii, a large amount of space is allocated to these types of events. The 1997 edition devotes five pages of text (not including illustrations) to the battle on the Kalka River and the Batyi invasion; the Battle on the Neva River and the Battle on the Ice receive one and a half pages; the Battle of Kulikovo, three; the wars of Ivan the Terrible, almost nine; and the wars of Peter the Great, about thirteen. A characteristic trait of this edition is the ‘democratization’ of certain battle chronicles. In these, the authors try to examine not only the intentions and actions of the military leaders, but also the feats of ordinary soldiers. In the Battle on the Neva, six individual warriors are mentioned, not including Prince Aleksandr Nevskii. The exploits of some of these are described in detail, but others are merely named and heroic qualities are attributed to them (‘the young warrior Ratmir fought the enemies surrounding him until his last breath’).13 On the whole, the accounts of battles included in this textbook do not differ substantially from earlier editions. In the newest editions of the text the authors could not avoid rewriting the past because of a decrease in the territory of Russia in the early 1990s. The kingdom of Urartu, the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast (those which Soviet editions of the textbook located in the territory of Ukraine) are excluded. The Grand Principality of Lithuania is depicted as Moscow’s hostile neighbour (but references to the Grunwald Battle of 1410, in which Russian regiments of Smolensk fought side by side with the army of the Lithuanian principality, are retained). Moreover, the Estonians and Latvians, as before, appear solely as victims of the aggression of German crusaders and accomplices of the Russian army in the Livonian and Great Northern wars. 276

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Ukraine occupies no less space in post-Soviet textbooks on Russian history than in Soviet editions. The authors note the historical unity of the eastern Slavs14 and emphasize the serfdom and national–religious oppression that the peoples of Ukraine and Belorussia experienced from the Polish and Lithuanian landowners, as well as from the Catholic and Uniate churches. However, in contrast to earlier editions, when discussing the history of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, more space is devoted to the activity of the Russian army in the war with Poland than to the struggle of Ukrainian Cossack leader Bogdan Khmel’nitskii, against Poland. The reunification of the eastern Slavic peoples in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is seen in terms of mutual benefit and restoration of historical justice.15 So convinced are Rybakov and Preobrazhenskii of the historical unity of the three eastern Slavic peoples that at times they seem unaware that these peoples currently live in different countries. When they write that at the time of the Northern War ‘the Swedish invaders encountered the resistance of peasants and townspeople on the territory of Belorussia’,16 they do not clarify within the bounds of which state it took place. In as much as previously it is said that following the defeat of August II Russia remained isolated, and that in 1706 Karl XII advanced to the Russian border, only a very attentive reader would guess that in moving across the territory of Belorussia, the Swedish king had not yet reached Russia. As concerns the activity of the hetman Mazepa in the course of the Great Northern War, the authors give a decisive rebuff ‘to the attempts by some to portray Mazepa as a “hero”.’ ‘The Ukrainian people’, they write, ‘rejected the hetman traitor . . . The Swedish army was faced with a popular revolt [narodnaia voina] in Ukraine.’17 In spite of the ostensible effort to allow for another point of view, the epithets used to describe Mazepa leave little room for debate. The text by Rybakov and Preobrazhenskii preserves the patriotism of its Soviet predecessors, but, with the aim of Communist education no longer relevant, the Communist idea has been replaced primarily with the idea of Orthodoxy. The patriotic colouring together with the positive presentation of the role of the church is reminiscent of pre-revolutionary Russian history textbooks. If the textbook by Rybakov and Preobrazhenskii can by classified as traditionalist–patriotic, then the textbook edited by Nikolai Pavlenko et al. would perhaps fall into the traditionalist–monarchical category.18 The methodological positions of the four authors of this text vary considerably, but the overall tone of the book is set by Pavlenko himself, who, in addition to acting as editor, wrote more than one-third of the text himself. Pavlenko adheres to the tradition of the nineteenth-century ‘state school’ of Russian historiography, whose leading figures included Solov’ev, Kaverin, and Chicherin. He sees in the state the sources of Russia’s strengths and weaknesses; the power of the state for him is the criterion of historical progress; and the good of the state is, for the most part, identified with the national good. 277

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The central figure of his narrative from about the time of Mikhail Fedorovich to Aleksandr I is Peter the Great. Pavlenko recognizes as the main merit of Peter’s personality ‘that the tsar considered himself the servant of the state, and he served it’.19 Citing a statement of Feofan Prokopovich in his eulogy at Peter’s funeral: ‘Russia will be whatever Peter has made it’, the author notes that ‘these words are imbued with the influence of a century in which the state and the sovereign appeared in the eyes of contemporaries as one and the same and all the achievements of the country were personified in the sovereign’. None the less, he asserts, ‘there is some truth in these words.’20 Another historical figure who, in the eyes of the author, deserves unqualified recognition is Catherine II. Comparing Peter and Catherine to those leaders who occupied the throne between their reigns, Pavlenko underlines the principal difference: ‘Peter and Catherine considered themselves servants of the state. The goal of their service was the achievement of the common good – a notion which today seems mythic – but to which their entire lives were devoted. Although Peter’s successors from time to time used his terminology regarding the common good, they did it out of habit or simply in imitation of the tsar.’21 These two sovereigns were quite different from the tsars of the seventeenth century as well. The Law Code of 1649 (Sobornoe Ulozhenie) ‘defined the rights of the tsar, but not his duties’, thus the very notion of common good was non-existent at that time.22 The institution of absolute monarchy in the eighteenth century was, according to Pavlenko, unquestionably progressive. In defining the exceptional role of the state in the transformations of the first quarter of the century, he writes, ‘This role was conditioned by objective circumstances, the necessity to ensure the sovereignty of the country with the limited material resources of its population.’23 Pavlenko does not inquire into the ‘imperial legacy’ or the ‘imperial model’ of the monarchies of Peter and Catherine, although it is a question that has become quite popular in contemporary historiography. Evaluating the impact of victory in the wars of the eighteenth century, Pavlenko is convinced of their significance: ‘As a result of the Great Northern War, Russia gained great-power status at the same time that Sweden lost its position. It also gained the status of a sea power.’ Triumphant words describe the outcome of the many years of fighting against Sweden: ‘Beginning on 22 October 1721, Russia was proclaimed to be the Russian Empire. Hundreds of guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress and 125 galleys launched into the Neva, celebrated this event with their volleys.’24 With regard to foreign policy, Pavlenko does not even attempt to reach the level of objectivity that he demonstrated in the chapters on domestic issues. The value of the national interest unconditionally prevails over the values of right or fairness. All the wars that Russia fought in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (and it is this period that is covered by Pavlenko in the textbook) are justified as means to achieve national goals: access to the Baltic Sea (‘the loss of the Baltic coast reflected poorly on the 278

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economic and cultural development of the country, for it deprived the country of comfortable connections with western Europe’); ‘the reunification with the Ukrainians and Belorussians – two peoples who were close to the Russians in language, religion, culture, and lifestyle’; and the struggle against the raids of the Crimean Tatars. Pavlenko justifies the foreign policy of this period by emphasizing that these goals did indeed serve the national interest of Russia and by accusing Russia’s rivals of refusing ‘to part freely with their ill-gotten gains’ [emphasis mine – A. Sh.].25 In the chapter dedicated to the eastern policies of Peter I, two of the four major objectives given are connected to the development of trade relations, while the other two concern attempts to seize foreign territories for the riches they contained: ‘to penetrate into Central Asia, which, word had it, was rich in valuable minerals, above all, precious metals, gold and silver’ and then ‘to move further to the south to achieve the cherished dream of reaching the enchanted land of India’.26 The author does not even try to justify these intentions, taking for granted the notion that the subjugation of countries rich in resources was completely in accordance with the state interests of that time. In Pavlenko’s presentation, the social and economic life of the country is closely linked to the activities of the state. Developments in these spheres are seen as the consequence of beneficial or unsuccessful state policies. Characteristically, the author views the entire picture of the numerous uprisings in the seventeenth century not from the perspective of social struggle, but primarily in the context of government policy. The Salt Rebellion is presented as one of the main reasons for the enactment of the Law Code of 1649 while the Copper Rebellion is considered in a paragraph on social and economic policies immediately following a discussion of the financial policies of the government of Aleksei Mikhailovich. A separate paragraph is dedicated to the uprising by Stepan Razin, but it is depicted as a brigand movement of the Cossacks that developed into a peasant rebellion. The author describes vividly ‘the pillaging and bloody acts along the Caspian Sea’, which were perpetrated by Razin’s followers and ‘the bacchanalia of torture’ in Astrakhan, followed by ‘pillaging the property of the dead and of the Russians and foreign merchants’.27 The motives for the participation of the peasants and the people of the Middle Volga region in the uprising are not examined. Pavlenko admits ‘that they had reason to take a stand against the consolidation of serfdom in their country’, but as far as the question of the goals of the participants in this movement is concerned, ‘the extant documents supply no answer to this question, nor do Razin or his fellow participants’. The author notes the hopelessness of this uprising: ‘The movement could not have led to a change in social relations, but only to a change in the privileged stratum of society – its entire make up’, and in addition, ‘a mob of poorly armed and uneducated people could not stand up to the government soldiers that had gone through military training’.28 279

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Likewise, Pavlenko writes sympathetically about the rebel Emel’ian Pugachev. The comparison of the manifestos of Catherine and Pugachev clearly favours the latter. Without minimizing the cruelty associated with the rebellion, the author tries to rationalize it by saying that any landowner left alive by his rebellious serfs would surely have taken revenge on them.29 In sum, however, Pavlenko’s evaluation of the peasant rebellions and Pugachev’s uprising is ambivalent. ‘On the one hand, this was a form of protest of the labouring people against serfdom and the state over its lack of rights. On the other hand, the struggle for a better lot acquired a bloody character at a cost of great human sacrifice and suffering.’ The senselessness of the peasant wars from Pavlenko’s point of view was also reflected in ‘the destruction of a significant part of the nobility, that is, of intellectual potential’.30 The ruling class is presented in Pavlenko’s text as a service class. In the seventeenth century the state established the rights and duties of the estates, including the nobility. ‘The nobility was obliged to serve, that is, to ensure the sovereignty and integrity of the state.’31 In the age of Peter the Great, the burden of service was increased further. The author challenges established stereotypes, arguing that, ‘It would be a mistake to suppose that the nobility under Peter I was blissfully happy and lived in luxury and idleness. In fact, it was burdened by a multitude of obligations, including [duties] unknown to the seventeenth-century nobility.’32 Only after the Manifesto on the Rights of the Nobility (1762) and reforms under Catherine the Second ‘did people in their prime begin to settle in the country estates. The nobility changed from a service estate into a landholding estate.’33 Although Pavlenko condemns Peter’s successors who rejected the tsar’s policies regarding the nobility, he none the less finds some justification for the unlimited power of the landlords over the peasants. ‘The great landowner also played the role of a caring master, who was concerned about the welfare of the peasant family, for he understood that his own welfare was directly related to the prosperity of the peasant family.’34 Pavlenko examines the role of the church in the fate of the fatherland from the perspective of the ‘state school’. He maintains that in the Law Code of 1649, the state defined the church’s place in the social organization of Russian society as follows: ‘the clergy, or as it was called at that time, the tsar’s pilgrims (tsarevy bogomol’tsy), were obliged to pray for the forgiveness of the sins of the laity’.35 The author does not entertain the possibility of any alternative type of relationship between church and the state aside from that which existed in pre-revolutionary Russia.36 The Petrine reform placed the material and the human resources of the church at the service of the state. Peter’s policies, writes Pavlenko, were founded ‘on the principle that everyone, including the monarch, was a servant of the state and that the church was also obliged to do its bit in this service. From this perspective, there can be no discussion about the role of the church as an autonomous entity or of its material and political self-sufficiency.’37 It is worth noting that the author discusses, without 280

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comment, Peter’s legislation obliging the clergy to violate the secret of confession for the disclosure of persons potentially dangerous to those in power. The transformation of the church into a state institution facilitated the concentration of its efforts in education and missionary activity. Pavlenko argues that realization of these aims had an overwhelmingly positive impact. He points out that ‘Frequently, the priest or the sexton was the only educated person in the village and not only the peasants, but the landlords as well, used his services to educate their children.’ Regarding missionary activity, he takes the view that, ‘Christianity, in comparison to idolatry and shamanism, represented a more perfect religious system, and hence, the missionary activity of the Orthodox priests deserves a positive appraisal.’38 The educational aim of Pavlenko’s text is to instil an ethic of service. An attentive student would most likely conclude from the text that the worthy execution of one’s duty (on the part of both monarchs and their subjects) guarantees the prosperity of the Russian state and nation. Certain moot points of this assumption notwithstanding, it does encourage constructive civic behaviour. While it is not clear whether schools can inculcate such values solely by the pedagogical means at their disposal, it is clear that presenting an integrated and positive image of national history (and Pavlenko is a master of this, employing literary language and providing comprehensible explanations) is especially conducive to accomplishing this task. Pavlenko’s version of history is one that young readers can relate to and be proud of, but it leaves little room for independent reflection. If the two textbooks considered above are based on a relatively firm foundation of historiographical tradition, the third textbook, which will be analysed below, truly belongs to a new generation.39 Its author, Andrei Bogdanov, a prominent historian and an expert on seventeenth-century Russian history, is fairly well known in academic circles for his research on the history of that period. The extreme nature of some of the points of view in the textbook evoked an angry response from venerable scholars (including Academician V.L. Ianin) and provided grist for the journalists’ mill. Were it not for the status of its author, the textbook might have been dismissed altogether. From a historiographical point of view, Bogdanov’s textbook is difficult to categorize. Its conception rests to a large degree on moral rather than historiographical foundations. The structure of its narrative conceals many unexpected twists and turns and it is difficult to predict how a particular figure or event will be treated. The signposts guiding Bogdanov’s interpretation are as follows: anti-etatism democratism class solidarity nationalism

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Anti-etatism In Bogdanov’s textbook, the state is presented as an unconditional evil. This idea is clearly formulated in the introduction: Only in fairy tales do government figures rule solely according to the interests of the state. In actual fact, they have more important goals, their own personal goals . . . External enemies need not steal from us or oppress us. This is accomplished more frequently and enthusiastically by our own leaders. Moreover, it is carried out under slogans such as: ‘for the greatness of the state’, ‘for sovereignty’, ‘for the common good’, and ‘for the good of the people’.40 Although Bogdanov recognizes that ‘the majority of states are founded on the idea of uniting people in a common goal’,41 he refers to the leaders of the Russian state and their activities in the most unflattering terms: ‘Kremlin mercenaries’, ‘palace spongers’, ‘the most heinous crimes’, ‘senseless greed of the wealthy for power’. The author’s meagre praise is reserved primarily for the rulers of pre-Mongol Russia. Their successors, the various Ivans and Vasiliis are portrayed as bloodthirsty, insidious, cowardly, and injudicious rulers. Especially sharp criticism is reserved for Ivan the Terrible. Not content with describing Ivan as a ‘malicious tyrant rotting from disease’, Bogdanov actually accuses him of treachery: In 1569, the Russian secret service was well informed about the details of the forthcoming Turkish attack . . . Turkish military and political plans, carefully formulated in Constantinople and . . . Bakhchisaray [in the Crimea], were secretly copied and sent to Moscow. The secret service agents were incredulous when the tsar guaranteed the success of these plans by withdrawing his troops from the theatre of military activity . . . the very same Tsar Ivan, this exceedingly great villain . . . that scholars have praised generation after generation. Historians and writers, teachers and politicians continue, in succession, to perpetrate this crime.42 Significantly, the Romanovs of the seventeenth century receive much better treatment in this textbook than the House of Riurik or Boris Godunov and Vasilii Shuiskii. The only Romanov who can be regarded as an exception is Peter the First. Bogdanov’s text does not cover the Petrine period, but his views on Peter become clear when he juxtaposes his reign to that of his immediate predecessors, Fedor and Sofiia. Bogdanov argues that Peter is generally credited with reforms that were, in fact, initiated by his older brother, Fedor. Tsar Fedor, who is barely mentioned in other textbooks on that period, including those intended for higher educational institutions, is presented by

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Bogdanov as an ideal ruler, ‘a philosopher on the throne’, and as the greatest reformer of all. The sum total of his and Sofiia’s reigns appears stunning indeed in Bogdanov’s revolutionary interpretation: Russia, according to Bogdanov, was transformed into a great world power and had the ability to decide the fate of other countries. Austria was obliged not only to John Sobieski for saving Vienna from the Turks, but also to Russian diplomacy which ‘urged him into a union with the Habsburgs’. This exemplifies his assessment of the role of Russia in European history in this period. Democratism ‘The peace and prosperity of a country are possible only when the state which serves us (podkontrol’noe nam) ensures equal rights to all children, women, men, classes, nationalities, and other groups of people.’ Such is the promotion for democratic values given in the introduction to Bogdanov’s text. Yet, he would argue, the history of Russia is the history of the establishment and strengthening of despotism. This process is, however, mainly the result of the insidious politics of the Muscovite sovereigns: ‘the eastern despotism that was imposed so forcefully by the Muscovite sovereigns . . . was alien to national traditions and, more importantly, to the enormous size and the higher level of development of the country’.43 Bogdanov substantiates the ‘accidental nature’ of the despotic path of the Russian state. In the middle of the sixteenth century, ‘the broadening of rule by the people (narodopravstvo) through representation of the estates would have constituted a powerful foundation of the Muscovite state’.44 The oprichnina45 of Ivan the Terrible resolutely destroyed the democratic alternative. However, at the end of the seventeenth century, Tsar Fedor and Tsarevna Sofiia ‘consciously took the path of liberal reform, being favourably disposed towards the lower estates . . . This was a period of overall prosperity . . . The Petrine reforms decisively placed the state on the road to serfdom.’46 In Bogdanov’s enthusiasm to inculcate democratic values, he goes so far as to claim that history developed in an ‘incorrect’ way. With regard to the relationship between the state and national interests in the seventeenth century, the author finds ‘especially distressing’ a situation in which ‘a mechanism of lawful national will does not exist (or is very weak)’.47 Class solidarity Bogdanov does not hide his sympathy for the oppressed and, consequently, his antipathy towards the exploiting classes and estates of Russian society. ‘In each country there are inequalities between classes – social groups have a strictly defined role and different rights (if this is not the case de jure, then it happens de facto). Only nominally is a banker a friend, comrade, and brother to a mechanic.’48 Another adage which the author offers the reader states that, 283

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‘Where a stratum of rich people has appeared, a great number of deprived and poor people can be found.’49 The author expresses his attitude towards the well-to-do in ancient Russia in very harsh terms. He calls them ‘spongers’ and refers to their ‘crazed hunger for power’, their willingness ‘to bring ruin and starvation to the very people who fed them’. In contrast, he describes members of the dvoriane and townspeople who served as representatives in the Zemskii Sobor (the Assembly of the Lands) in the seventeenth century as selfless and willing to sacrifice their last kopeck and drop of blood for the sake of Russia . . .The common people had managed to create a powerful economy and to increase and strengthen trade ties, to bring about the establishment of a country-wide commercial market.50 Bogdanov’s attitude towards class is also reflected clearly in the passages devoted to national uprisings. The author stands unconditionally and almost without exception on the side of the insurgents. Thus, Stepan Razin’s pillaging campaign is depicted as a carefully planned action against Moscow. In addition, ‘the cruel and merciless ataman, although one of the most notorious brigands in the world, was distinguished by his firm adherence to principles: fight the enemy and spare the dependent, oppressed, and affronted poor’.51 Another worthy figure from the history of the peasant movements is Ivan Bolotnikov. He is depicted in laconic terms, yet a figure clearly at odds with his opponent, Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii: ‘Contemporaries were surprised at the contrast between the chivalry of the popular leader and the servile nature of Tsar Vasilii, obsequiously attending Godunov, who destroyed his own relatives, was corrupt, hypocritical, cowardly, and cruel to the weak.’52 Nationalism ‘Nationalism is a dangerous scourge of humanity’, proclaims Bogdanov. At the same time he calms the young reader: ‘The formation of the Russian nation successfully avoided all the horrors of nationalism.’53 In his definition of the Russian nation the author includes, apparently, all ethnic groups that have ever been part of the Russian state. In this way he considers Ukrainians and Belorussians who lived in the territory of the Polish Commonwealth54 to be Russians, and he views sixteenth-century Kazan as a true Russian city.55 The most notable achievement of Bogdanov’s textbook is the creation of a new narrative capable of serving as a foundation for the national consciousness. Consistent with efforts in many young states that seek legitimization for their national spirit by claiming the exceptional antiquity of a nation’s historical roots, this textbook gives the Russian people an opportunity to mine the depths of their civilization. Bogdanov acknowledges the lack of historical evidence for his claim that the beginnings of Slavic and Russian history date from 284

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2409 BCE, admitting from the outset that this knowledge came to us ‘from chronicles dating no earlier than the middle of the seventeenth century’. However, he insists that ‘the legend is known from much earlier writings of western Slavs. We use the best account of it from the chronicler Isidor Snazin, which was written around 1683.’56 Still, this disclaimer hardly equips the schoolchild to assess the authenticity of the facts on the pages which follow. On the contrary, the veracity of the legend is affirmed implicitly by posing study questions such as: ‘Why did Alexander the Great not pursue war against the Slavs?’57 Throughout the entire text, Bogdanov establishes the ethnic superiority of Russians by denigrating others: The biggest, strongest, and most good-natured tribe stayed in the south Russian steppes, grew, and, little by little . . . inhabited a large part of Europe. These were the Slavs . . . The Slavic women were especially beautiful, intelligent, good, and hard working, for they were the ones who embodied the age-old ideal of a large part of the IndoEuropean peoples. The Slavs are distinguished as peace-loving people as well.58 Tribes considered kindred to the Slavs include ‘disciplined Germans’, ‘brave Lithuanians’, and ‘wise Armenians’, and from the Slavs themselves emerged the ‘rich and famous tribe of the Czechs’ and the ‘populous and arrogant tribe of Lakhs (Poles)’. The ambivalent approach to the Poles, who are depicted as ‘brave warriors, clever merchants, and unsurpassed braggarts’ stems from their distinct status among the Slavic people: ‘With time Poland adopted the Catholic faith and the Latin alphabet, but the language and customs remained Slavic.’59 Bogdanov’s textbook treats the Catholic faith as one of the great burdens of the European peoples. Orthodoxy and Catholicism are juxtaposed as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ religions. The author notes that with the acceptance of Orthodoxy, ‘the previously pagan population of Kievan Rus, in contrast to many converts to the Christian tradition, remained tolerant towards other religions. The Russian land did not produce any figures comparable to the Crusaders and Inquisitors.’60 The history of the Grand Principality of Lithuania serves as the best example of the pernicious influence of Catholicism. Until the fateful date of 1385, the ‘powerful Lithuanian–Russian state stretched from the Baltic Sea to the southern Russian steppes’. Even the Tatar Hordes avoided confronting it. In 1385 Lithuania united with Poland under the ‘villain’ Jagiello and the Poles were forced to adopt Catholicism. Thus, ‘owing to the union, a Russian and, above all, Orthodox state was transformed under the successors of Jagiello into a despised neighbour of the Polish Catholic state’.61 The affirmation of national worth is attained through consistently tendentious comparisons of Russia with other countries, most of all with the 285

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countries of the west. An episode involving the marriage of the two daughters of Iaroslav the Wise, Anna and Anastasia, to the French and Hungarian kings, respectively, provides the author with an opportunity to demonstrate the level of superiority of ancient Russia over the western kingdoms: ‘The departure from a vigorous and prosperous Russia to small countries, to peoples with crude customs, was hardly a source of great happiness for the educated princesses. But, noblesse oblige.’62 Bogdanov insists that ‘foreigners were amazed with the grandeur and abundance of Russian cities . . . the wealth, variety, and inexpensiveness of all the wares. They exported quite a lot of it abroad: we fed half of Europe with our bread alone.’63 In the seventeenth century Russia not only fed half of Europe, but armed it as well: when the English, Dutch, and other navies ‘met in battle, from both sides of the conflict, Russian cast-iron destroyed Russian sails and cables on the masts made from Russian forests’.64 However, it is the comparison of the court of Aleksei Mikhailovich with the court of his French counterpart Louis XIV which contributes most profoundly to understanding the greatness of the fatherland. The Russian tsar, in his solemnity and grandeur, sought to surpass and surpassed all the monarchs’ palaces of the world, above all the French. For travellers of that period the competition between Aleksei Mikhailovich and Louis XIV, was plain to see. They both were praised in the literature of the court as the ‘Sun-tsar’ and the ‘Sun-king’ (by the way, the former entered into circulation several years earlier than the latter), both were zealous about ritual and the magnificence of their palaces, equipage, hunts.65 As noted earlier, Bogdanov’s textbook is highly eclectic and difficult to assign to any historiographical conception. His orientation in this regard is clearly defined only in the section on Tsar Fedor Alekseevich and the Tsarevna Sofiia, in which the author draws upon the findings of his academic research. Determining his educational goals is even more difficult. Depicting the old Russia, the author notes its superiority over other countries and its prosperity, side by side with its outrageous social injustice and intolerable state oppression. Since he quite frequently creates parallels between the past and present,66 the reader expects to learn a lesson from the past. However, the morals which can be gleaned from Bogdanov’s interpretation of the past turn out to be rather primitive: the rich are loathsome, the state is unscrupulous, yet, in the past Russia was powerful and flourishing. Bogdanov advises his readers that in the final analysis it is ‘up to us’ to determine whether Russia will remain such a state ‘or whether it will turn into a poor beggar wandering the world with an outstretched hand’.67 And the only means for preventing the latter remains the struggle against greedy rich people and foolish leaders. 286

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Thus, the contemporary narrative of history education in schools is developing, for the most part, in two directions. The majority of authors search for new traits of the image of Old Russia in the historiographical traditions of the very distant past. These traditions allow them to establish educational goals on the basis of traditional, mainly imperial, values. The results of such education in the wake of the destruction of the empire are rather difficult to predict; however, they contain great potential for positive change. Another path is the formation of new values, associated with developing democratic society. However, there are enormous contradictions in the understanding of the essence of these values in today’s Russia. Bogdanov’s textbook, with all its idiosyncrasies, reflects the widespread perception of democratic ideals as a blend of egalitarianism, anarchism, and nationalism. Written in colloquial language appealing almost exclusively to the reader’s emotions, largely devoid of internal logic, and hence, not demanding intellectual effort, this kind of narrative is a justifiably attractive one and will always find adherents and even admirers. Political changes which took place in Russia at the end of the last millennium have seriously influenced the very process of development of historical narrative. The adoption of the government programme of patriotic education in the spring of 2001 signalled increased state interest in the teaching of Russian history. Prime Minister Mikhail Kas’ianov’s criticism at the beginning of the 2001/02 school year of modern Russian history textbooks led the government to initiate a number of measures which restricted the circulation of history texts in the book market. The state set itself a new goal: to produce a limited series of textbooks that could be introduced into the curriculum in accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Education. While the state has displayed renewed concern about history education in general, it focuses primarily on the history of the twentieth century – just as it did ten years ago. Now, however, the authorities seem more determined to shape the contents of the textbook. Thus, one might expect that in the near future the state would try to fashion the image of early modern history and encourage the rewriting of textbooks dealing with earlier periods as well. In this case, the burning issue of the 1990s concerning the degree of public consensus required to create a narrative of the past will be superseded by the question of which narrative the state will choose to present. If in the 1990s the historical narrative presented in textbooks was of interest for the insights it provided into ‘societal consciousness and historiographical achievements’, it could soon turn into a potential source of state myth-making. I would venture to say that in the next few years it will become apparent whether the state intends to follow a path of restoration of old myths or whether it will attempt, following the model of A.P. Bogdanov, to construct entirely new ones.

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Notes 1 Anatolii Fomenko and Gleb Nosovskii are two mathematicians who, based on contradictions between astronomical phenomena and their placement in chronicles and annals, claim that all ancient history was falsified in the period of the Renaissance (ancient Russian history, in the eighteenth century). They have published a large number of books which have enjoyed great commercial success including Novaia khronologiia Rusi (A New Chronology for Old Russia) (Moscow, 1997); Bibleiskaia Rus’ (Biblical Russia) (Moscow, 1998); Rekonstruktsiia vseobshchei istorii. Novaia khronologiia (A Reconstruction of General History: A New Chronology) (Moscow, 1990); and others. In all their works, these authors offer their own reconstruction of history, in accordance with which events described in the chronicles took place at other times, in other places, and with different participants. 2 A.A. Preobrazhenkii and B.A. Rybakov, Istoriia Rossii: Uchebnik dlia 6–7 klassov obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii (The History of Russia: A Textbook for the Sixth and Seventh Grades of General Schools) (Moscow: Russkoe slovo, 1997). The first textbook by these authors was issued in 1980 – Boris Rybakov, Anatolii Sakharov, Aleksandr Preobrazhenskii and Boris Krasnobaev, Istoriia SSSR: Probnyi uchebnik dlia 7 klassa srednei shkoly (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1980). Beginning in 1985, this text was republished almost every year. From 1993 to 2002 the textbook was published under the title Istoriia Otechestva. Another version has been published under the title Istoriia Rossii. 3 Ibid., p. 434. 4 Ibid., p. 130. 5 Ibid., p. 134. 6 Ibid., p. 17. 7 Ibid., p. 113. 8 Ibid., pp. 113–14. 9 Ibid., p. 253. 10 Ibid., p. 254. 11 Ibid., p. 258. The people’s rule in Astrakhan at the time of the Razin uprising may be viewed also in the context of attempts of the post-Soviet regime to seek out or even invent a democratic tradition in the Russian past. 12 ‘It stands to reason that the followers of Razin cannot be portrayed as innocent lambs. They also acted with cruelty towards their opponents. Such was the struggle among the social forces of that time.’ (Ibid.) 13 Ibid., p. 78. 14 ‘The inhabitants of the future Ukraine and Belorussia continued to consider themselves Russians, profess Orthodox Christianity, and call the land where they lived Russia.’ (Ibid., p. 243.) 15 ‘The unification of fraternal nations increased the economic, military and political options of the Russian state. The Ukrainians were no longer menaced by the religious and cultural pressure of the former lords and Polish gentry and Catholic–Uniate clergy.’ (Ibid., p. 250.) ‘A great step was taken on the path towards the reunification of the eastern Slavic peoples which earlier had made up Kievan Rus’. Thus the centuries-long historical ties that had been artificially interrupted were restored.’ (Ibid., pp. 390–1.) 16 Ibid., p. 298. 17 Ibid., p. 299. 18 N.I. Pavlenko and I.L. Andreev, Rossiia s drevneishikh vremen do kontsa XVII veka: Uchebnik dlia 10 klassa obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii (Russia from Ancient Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century: A Textbook for the

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19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49

Tenth Grade of General Schools) (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1997); N.I. Pavlenko, L.M. Liashenko and V.A. Tvardovskaia, Rossiia v kontse XVII–XIX veke: Uchebnik dlia 10 klassa obshcheobrazovatelnikh uchrezhdenii (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1997). Pavlenko et al., Rossiia v kontse XVII–XIX veke, p. 44. Ibid., p. 56. Feofan Prokopovich (1681–1736), Russian churchman. Prokopovich’s career can be divided into two parts, the first spent mainly in Kiev at the celebrated Kiev Academy, and the second (from 1716 until his death), in St Petersburg, where he was a close collaborator of Emperor Peter I in reforming the Russian Church. He wrote Spiritual Regulation (1721), which helped to strengthen state control of the church. See James Cracraft’s entry on Feofan Prokopovich in The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, vol. 11 (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1979), p. 104. Ibid., p. 71. Pavlenko and Andreev, Rossiia c drevneishikh vremen do kontsa XVII veka, p. 262. Pavlenko et al., Rossiia v kontse XVII–XIX veke, p. 17. Ibid., pp. 40–1. See also the the comparison of strengths of Russia and Turkey at the beginning of Catherine’s reign: ‘The Ottoman Empire began to decline at the same time that Russia found itself rising to greater glory and power.’ (Ibid., p. 118.) Pavlenko and Andreev, Rossiia c drevneishikh vremen do kontsa XVII veka, p. 273. Ibid., p. 41. Ibid., pp. 247–8. Ibid., p. 249. Pavlenko et al., Rossiia v kontse XVII–XIX veke, p. 135. Ibid., p. 136. Pavlenko and Andreev, Rossiia c drevneishikh vremen do kontsa XVII veka, p. 236. Pavlenko et al., Rossiia v kontse XVII–XIX veke, p. 45. Ibid., p. 174. Ibid., p. 85. Pavlenko and Andreev, Rossiia c drevneishikh vremen do kontsa XVII veka, p. 236. Ibid., p. 272. Pavlenko et al., Rossiia v kontse XVII–XIX veke, p. 31. Ibid., p. 93. A.P. Bogdanov, Istoriia Rossii do Petrovskikh vremen. 10–11 klassy: Probnyi uchebnik dlia obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchebnykh zavedenii (Moscow: Drofa, 1996). Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 35. Ibid. pp. 211, 206. This is historically inaccurate. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that the author is unacquainted with the scholarship on Ivan the Terrible by Stepan Veselovskii, Aleksandr Zimin, Vladimir Kobrin and Ruslan Skrynnikov. Ibid., p. 181. Ibid., p. 193. A special mode of rule established by Tsar Ivan IV in 1564. The whole country was divided into two parts – oprichnina, administrated by the Tsar, and zemshchina, headed by the boiar council. In the oprichnina the Tsar had his own administrative apparatus modelled on the one already in existence; a ruling council, chancery units and army, to be recruited from whatever parts of the country Ivan might designate as within his purview. The aim of the policy of oprichnina was to curb and destroy the old boiar families. Ibid., p. 294. Ibid., p. 254. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 242.

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50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67

Ibid., p. 240. Ibid., p. 277. Ibid., p. 223. Ibid., p. 253. ‘There were serious obstacles hindering the emergence of the Russian nation. The most obvious of them was that a significant portion of the Russians themselves remained for a long time under the power of other states’ (ibid.). By Russians, the author means Ukrainians and Belorussians. If calling the Ukrainians and Belorussians ‘Russians’ can be justified historically as successors of the peoples of Rus’ and the ancient Russian state, then the term Russian (Rossiiane) relates solely to the inhabitants of Russia. Bogdanov consciously refers to the inhabitants of the Polish Commonwealth (Rech’ Pospolitaia) as Russians (Rossiiane): ‘If Russia from time to time reminded eyewitnesses of “the entrance to hell”, then the Russians under the power of the Polish–Lithuanian state were in a genuine earthly hell.’ (Ibid., p. 283). ‘Many inhabitants – freed slaves – greeted their liberators with tears of joy and loud cries. This was the real Kazan, for the Russians, who made up the majority of the inhabitants, had built the city and filled it with riches.’ (Ibid., p. 199.) Ibid., p. 25. Ibid., p. 30. Ibid., p. 20. Ibid., p. 38. Ibid., p. 71. Ibid., pp. 148, 150. Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 192. Ibid., p. 244. Ibid., p. 255. In this way, for example, employing an entirely transparent allusion, the author relates to contemporary history: ‘A certain president is counselled in vain: “Don’t get too close to the precipice, it will end badly!” “Oops!” is all the president says as he falls over the precipice together with his counsellors and his people. “Wiser” presidents send young people, who have just finished school, into dangerous places instead of themselves.’ Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 5.

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12 NE W TRENDS IN HI S TORICAL S CHOLARSHIP AN D THE T E ACHING OF HISTORY IN RUSSIA’S SCHO OLS Igor Ionov

It is impossible to analyse the development of history teaching in Russia’s schools without taking into account a number of political, ideological and academic factors. These include the collapse of the Soviet empire and the discrediting of Communist ideology, reconsideration of the cognitive foundations of Russian philosophy and rapid progress in the social sciences. Efforts to examine the subject in a broader context, encompassing a multitude of new ideas and trends in Russian scholarship and education have already begun.1 In order to further this task, it is necessary to distinguish three levels of scholarship that influence history education: 1

2

3

the paradigmatic or theoretical aspect, which determines the subject of research: whether, for example, we are dealing with objective reality or a construction of our own intellect; whether the historian seeks acquisition of the ultimate truth or only a useful model; the methodology of the social sciences and humanities which determines the very nature of history: whether, for example, history amounts to a linear process, or whether it highlights the peculiarities of local civilizations or unique facts in people’s private lives; the very content of history, which means, in our case, the sum total of facts from the past that are appropriate for study.

The above-mentioned points have affected textbooks and programmes employed in teacher training, the content of which conforms to strictly defined scholarly methods, as well as school textbooks and manuals, where emphasis is more on accessibility and on solid mastery of material by students. They have also had an impact on the actual instruction of history in schools by adapting it to the knowledge of children from specific regions. 291

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A shift in the scholarly paradigm Beginning with the publication in 1992 of the book by Iurii Lotman, Kul’tura i vzryv,2 new developments such as the concept of synergetics have increasingly affected the study of history. The founders of synergetics, Ilya Prigogine and Heinrich Haken, formulated an idea according to which highly complex, open, unbalanced and even chaotic systems spontaneously become ordered. This applies not only to certain chemical substances and animal populations, but to human society and culture as well. According to the theory of synergetics, this new state of order is completely free of any causal connection with previous conditions, and emerges randomly, out of the growing chaos. In contemporary western scholarship, synergetics is actively employed in the fields of sociology and history.3 The predominant interest of Russian Marxists in structural ties, continuity and causality in the historical past is no longer relevant. Instead, historians and anthropologists are increasingly focusing on crises of different types, on unpredictability, on discontinuity in history, and on events that do not conform to historical laws, as well as on the unique, which some contemporary Russian historians have termed ‘the historical par excellence’. It is characteristic that historians Iurii Bessmertnyi and Mikhail Boitsov titled their collection of articles, Kazus: Individual’noe i unikal’noe v istorii (Causus: The Individual and the Unique in History).4 Such new thinking approximates the rhizome approach found in the postmodernist classics of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari5. They argue that all historical events are interconnected and that attempts to uncover causal and, moreover, vital connections are senseless.6 The term ‘rhizome’, borrowed from botany, signifies a plant such as the iris, whose underground shoots spread, forming roots and stems everywhere. Linear models of historical development are thereby relegated to the background, and less and less room is left for schema, which earlier were the main mnemonic device for teaching history and a key factor for nurturing students to become active individuals (through the imitation of heroes who influenced history). The emphasis shifts to ordinary persons, with their specific world outlook and everyday concerns conditioned by culture and social life, which differ vastly from today’s mores. No less important a place is occupied by the personality of the observer and the interpreter of history, be that a scholar–historian, teacher or student. According to the post-modern perspective, the chaos of possible interpretations of the past must increase before it is overcome by the responsible position of the scholar or the student–researcher. A methodology and materials based on this theory are being developed in the Novosibirsk laboratory Tekst, where children are required to become researchers, deciding for themselves what part is truth, what conjecture, and what fabrication in a selection of sources that represent clashing worldviews, cultural values and social interests.7 Teachers guide and analyse the dialogue between student and historical

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sources.8 This methodology has generally been termed ‘anthropological’; however, it might be better termed ‘anthropocentric’. In this methodology, chaos in the past and in the study of the past (breaks in the continuity of history, the introduction of models of history that are alternative and provocative) attracts special interest and promotes spontaneous manifestations of students’ personalities.9 Teacher training institutes have introduced courses that illustrate the place of dynamic chaos and synergetic processes in nature and culture.10 Of particular interest is the transition from the study of scientific synergetics to Christian synergetics, which deals with the interaction of God and humans and mythological history of a given place.11 As a result of this development, key events of local history are endowed with sacred meaning, and take on the character of local myths, thus influencing the creation of collective memory and the identity of teachers and students. The new synergetic and rhizome paradigm influences school textbooks by substituting for concepts (or at least supplementing them with images) that earlier determined the content of history textbooks. For a number of authors of textbooks, this new approach is becoming the underlying one. According to Natalia Trukhina, ‘our textbooks take into account, first of all, the agelevel abilities of children eleven to twelve years old. Children of that age do not need historical theories. They understand the world in terms of feelings and images and are able to absorb coherently the rhythm, style and image of one or another ancient civilization as an integrated whole.’12 Some multimedia educational courses on the history of Russia have up to one hundred illustrations, tables and maps to accompany just one paragraph of text. The authors see this as one of the basic advantages of such courses.13 The task now is to encourage the maximum number of interpretations of the material provided. An emphasis on images in the study of materials is especially evident in introductory courses and in courses on the history of the ancient world. There myths have received a completely new role as the basis of a worldview and, correspondingly, of how people lived. It has also gained great significance in courses on the history of the Middle Ages, as in the textbooks of Aaron Ia. Gurevich and Dmitrii E. Kharitonovich and of Michael Boitsov and Rustam Shukurov.14 If earlier, students were given a defined historical framework upon which to affix concrete historical facts, the current emphasis is on images and particular events, and generalizations are secondary.15 The focus of study is to compile an image of everyday life. Boitsov and Shukurov openly proclaim the absence in their textbook of ‘predetermined sociological models’. Their vast materials are limited to those elements of culture and social relations of the Middle Ages that are relevant to modern culture. Consequently, the authors have removed truly antiquarian material that has no relationship to the present. Thus, the benefits of the anthropological method have been realized: they 293

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include openness and norms of tolerance as a prerequisite for dialogue as well as promotion of learning through a student’s independent mastery of the signs and symbols of other cultures and of the past. This approach immerses students in the cultural environment of a past epoch reproduced through historical and literary sources. For example, gymnasiums in southwest Moscow conduct thematic days devoted to Russian culture of different epochs, for example, the salon of the nobility of the nineteenth century, the Bohemian culture of the Silver Age, and the revolutionary culture of the 1920s. These occasions are structured as school festivals which include the performance of plays and recitation of poems. The Sozvezdie House of Children’s Creativity, and the Russian Academy of Fine Arts (GITIS) assist the gymnasiums in organizing these events.16 One school in south Moscow has employed extracurricular activities to develop a methodology of historical and social modelling. Younger students independently created handmade toys which embodied their mental image of an imaginary country. Through the characters inhabiting this country and the interrelation and artifacts of their ‘activities’, the children gradually developed and mastered knowledge of social structures of both antiquity and modernity (including familial and economic relations and intellectual and educational life17), projecting their own personal characteristics and requirements on to the toys. As a result, out of the chaos of childish fantasy and under the guidance of a teacher, a creative relationship with the world of history and an urge to know about it were born. The noosphere or ecological school is yet another synergetic approach to the teaching of history. It has been developed extensively in the Siberian city of Krasnoiarsk. Noosphere is the name the Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadskii gave to the sphere of the mind wherein innate processes are governed by the influence of a person’s activities. It is considered an ecological supersystem determining the development of culture on a global and local scale. The dialogue of world cultures is studied in their ecological context, an approach that compels teachers to synthesize in their lessons knowledge of history, geography, biology and astronomy.18 As early as the sixth grade, in lessons on the history of the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt students consider the fate of the landscape and animal world of the Nile valley. The disintegration of Alexander the Great’s empire is taught in the context of the degradation of the natural environment of the eastern Mediterranean.19 Such a study of ecological problems of the past allows a transition from the traditional scientific–historical approach to a subjective and activity-centred one. Ecological crises thereby demonstrate how new social and ecological relationships are formed out of the chaos of a disintegrating culture. It is not surprising that such a large-scale revolution in the sphere of knowledge has had varied and at times conflicting educational consequences. I have written elsewhere of the inevitable development of many means for acquiring historical knowledge, one of which is synergetics.20 At the earlier 294

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stage of development, a paradigm allowed scholars and teachers to use only one approach, while ignoring all others. Disputes about the interpretation of the synergetic paradigm began with the authors of the theory (Prigogine and Haken) and continue to this day.21 For history education it is important that authors of textbooks and materials, as well as teacher training institutes and schools, consciously use the new possibilities to meet the particular requirements of their students.

A shift in methodological principles The transition from a linear scheme as the basis for the presentation of history to focusing on the image of a given epoch and culture required that scholars and teachers master and apply the new approach gradually rather than in wholesale fashion. Current conditions do not yet permit complete rejection of a linear framework for studying a particular period or culture. Although the dominance of Marxism collapsed in Russia in the 1990s, the retreat from a monistic model with its distinct historical formations could not occur all at once.22 The intermediate stages of this retreat were positivism and structuralism with their characteristic ‘theory of civilizations’. Attempts to synthesize theories that emphasized formations and civilizations were made in the USSR in the 1960s and 1970s, represented by the work of the noted historians and Asian studies experts, Nikolai Konrad and Lev Reisner.23 In the 1990s, an understanding of ‘civilization’ (in the beginning as a singular, and later in the plural) became part of history education in higher and secondary educational institutions.24 Russian scholars embraced the theories of positivists Comte and Morgan as well as those of Toynbee and Spengler and of the French Annales school of history. The entire Weberian tradition of the study of the theory of civilizations (including the well-known work of Elias and Jaspers) was essentially consigned to oblivion in Russia; yet from the 1960s to the 1980s it was experiencing a renaissance in the west, owing largely to the work of Israeli sociologist Shmuel N. Eisenstadt.25 Hence Russian historians who introduced the civilization-based approach in research and the teaching of history had to make their work known to a wider audience. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the well-known Soviet historian Michael Barg, and subsequently his students, accomplished this task.26 The writing of abstracts and the publication of the most important works of Weber, Jaspers, Sorokin and others allowed cultural studies scholar Boris Erasov to compile a collection of contemporary theories of civilizations.27 However, it should be emphasized that progress in this area is slow. Courses on the theory of civilizations (or theoretical historiography, as taught by Aleksandr Partushev at Moscow University)28 are not offered everywhere. Hence, the correlation between the concepts of culture, society and civilization remains very unclear to non-specialists, in particular to teachers of history. As Sergei Serebrianii justifiably noted, the authors of a majority of works on: 295

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cultural studies (and, I would add, on history in general), tend to follow ‘unilinear evolutionism’ and ‘Eurocentrism’ of the most vulgar sort. All non-European cultures are generally examined under the heading of ‘ancient civilizations’. After that period, it is as if the cultures of China and India (as well as the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia) ceased to exist. As for the world of Islam, these scholarly works allocate practically no space to it at all.29 Thus, these scholars understand ‘civilization’ as a European phenomenon, as a broad global one, or as an all-embracing ‘process of the development of civilization’. However odd it may seem, even the curriculum of the ‘History of World Civilizations’, compiled by a group of teachers directed by the liberal historian Iurii Afanas’ev, of the Russian State University of the Humanities, presents the history of eastern civilizations as a special theme only in regard to antiquity, to the epoch of geographical discoveries lasting from the fifteenth century to the seventeenth, to the period of colonial empires, and to the era of modernization of semi-colonial areas. In the section on the transition to feudalism, the material on the history of the Roman Empire takes up thirty-five lines, whereas that of India, China, the Arab countries and Japan occupies only seven.30 Moreover, the section on the Asian Middle Ages takes up only eight lines. This is in spite of the fact that at this time the eastern world dominated the planet politically and economically or struggled for pre-eminence by obtaining from European countries the riches that the latter had expropriated from the Americas and Africa. I want to emphasize that in spite of its drawbacks this curriculum is one of the best; usually future teachers of history are not taught even this much. The basis of such an approach is positivist historical sociology, based on the ideas of Comte, Spenser and Morgan, that is, a linear model of the history of civilizations that is equated with urban, literate and class-based societies. Its advantages are a logical monism, a clear deterministic framework and the presentation of factual material. This model is very similar to the formation-based approach customary in Russian education, which causes confusion among many teachers. In some cases the class-based (Marxist) approach has been substituted by a general civilization-based approach in the school curriculum. Consequently, its theoretical foundations are changing. The priorities of economics, of production relations and of class struggle, which stem from the theory of formations, are changing and being replaced by the development of civil society, a legal state and a rational worldview. Yet determinism and monism remain the same. It is interesting to note that one can encounter similar views among specialists in the Asian field. An example is the well-conceived and well-written textbook Rossiia i mir v srednie veka for the sixth grade, edited by Lev Alaev, which focuses on the history of four empires – the Roman, the Parthian, the Kushan and the Han and their political successors – as well as 296

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on Black Africa. However, only one subject is studied – feudalism, in its western and eastern forms (the main difference allegedly being that in the east rank gave rights to property and in the west property gave one status).31 Thus reliance on an approach that focuses on ‘civilization’ is inextricably bound up with an emphasis that promotes distinct historical formations.32 The textbook by Irina Mishina and Liudmila Zharova, Stanovlenie sovremennoi tsivilizatsii for upper grades, as well as other textbooks, pursue similar objectives.33 Of the two acceptable ways of defining or approaching civilization, either through a focus on linear development in distinct stages or through a focus on local developments, the authors clearly prefer the former. They label civilizations that have not played a role in the creation of today’s world, parochial (ochagovyi). According to Mishina and Zharova, parochial civilizations are heading for unification with European civilization, the bearer of modernization. The authors show little interest in other theoretical approaches to civilizations that have developed over the past 250 years. In the introduction, they proclaim that ‘scholars are only beginning to investigate these problems’.34 It is necessary to point out that Zharova and Mishina do not ignore the experience of non-European civilizations. They emphasize the cultural superiority of the Hindus and Arabs over the Europeans at the time of the Crusades, the achievements of Chinese culture before the fifteenth century, and the early appearance of universities in India and Africa. However, they still consider these civilizations ‘parochial’ and ‘traditional’, which means that they were not capable of leading the historical movement of humankind. They disregard widespread trade of the Chinese, Hindus and Arabs in the Indian Ocean and beyond it, which created the unique world of the Orient, later appropriated by the Europeans. For them the single path of modernization is a combination of eastern ethics and western technology (with Japan as a model). However, the authors believe that the values of the Modern Age, which they term ‘pancivilization values’ retain pre-eminence.35 The rigidity of their historical framework forces the authors to rearrange events chronologically to fit their version of history. They have post-dated the beginnings of ploughing in western Europe from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth centuries to ‘prove’ the overlap of crises there of agrarian and artisanal sectors of traditional civilization (although they had already ended in the thirteenth century). Thus the authors ignore important events during the period of the Great Plague and late Middle Ages, namely the flourishing of feudalism accompanied by developments in handicrafts and trade.36 They detect the development of a rational view at that time solely in the economic needs and consumption of former peasants who had left the countryside, and in the commercial activity of state officials.37 They thereby completely ignore Elias’s theory of ‘court rationalism’.38 Their textbook also attempts to place Russian history in a global context. However, the authors did not make use of available works (especially on state feudalism). Their corresponding attempt 297

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to set the formation of eastern Christian civilization in Russia in the eighteenth century is not convincing. According to the research of Russian scholars, the state began its domination of society not as a result of the Petrine reforms, but during the initial feudalization of the land, when the special characteristics of Russian civilization began to take shape.39 However, it is important to emphasize that Zharova and Mishina’s textbook was quite an achievement for its time in that the authors breached some apparently impenetrable barriers. They set up a sound theoretical base for a non-Marxist discussion of the history of the modern period and presented important material on the history of modernization in the west, the east, and in Russia. Moreover, they used this material to support liberal and ‘common human’ values, as they were understood at that time. Their textbook is used widely in schools. Valeriia Khachaturian devised a completely new approach with a textbook for upper grades, Istoriia mirovykh tsivilizatsii s drevneishikh vremen do nachala XX veka.40 It combined a preservation of the traditional division of history into chronological periods (antiquity, the Middle Ages, the modern period) with an interest in the chief features of local civilizations. As a result, the author emphasizes the existence of socio-cultural systems, each of which has its own special relationship between state and society, culture and religion, while modernization is represented as a product of western culture only. The west, the east, and Russia are given equal prominence. In this way Khachaturian’s text has affirmed the value of a polycentric world by adhering to the Weberian tradition. The combination of these two methodologies was not without complication: the author had to place his discussion of the basic characteristics of eastern civilizations in the section on the Middle Ages, where he included material from the history of antiquity – the beginning and middle of the first millennium BC. He treated another section – the history of India and China – in much the same way.41 In so doing, he highlighted states and regions with well-known histories (China and the Arab world, while India, the source of many faiths and of the scientific knowledge and technology of the east, remained, as it were, on the periphery). Moreover, in his description of a civilization, the author emphasized familiar philosophies (Confucianism in China, for example) but failed to present the complex interaction of cultures, which allowed such a society to exist and to flourish for centuries. The textbook was too difficult for students in the upper grades, who in practice were unable to master the history of the east in the basic course. The book is used successfully, however, in teacher training institutes. A handbook for teachers by Iakov Shemiakin, Istoriia mirovykh tsivilizatsii. XX vek, represents significant progress. In a more systematic and dynamic fashion, it demonstrates the interaction of the values of the west, the east, and of Russia. It emphasizes the ideals of tolerance and avoidance of extremes, and advocates ‘the middle path’, on the basis of which a synthesis of the 298

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achievements of different cultures and the successive modernization of society and the state is possible.42 The study of Russian civilization has had its own special history. In 1991 the book by Aleksandr Akhiezer, Rossiia: kritika istoricheskogo opyta,43 discussed Russian history through the ideas of Spengler, Toynbee and contemporary western experts in cultural studies. The book greatly influenced the literature on the history of Russian culture, specifically the textbook by Igor Kondakov for higher education institutions, Vvedenie v istoriiu russkoi kul’tury,44 and the textbook for upper grades by this author, Rossiiskaia tsivilizatsiia. IX – nachalo XX vv.45 These publications focus on stimuli for and obstacles inhibiting Russia’s modernization: the schism in Russian society which prevented its evolution as an organic whole; historical retrogressions in the country’s history; a paradoxical combination of cultural progress and a revival of traditional culture (the Silver Age occurred alongside a ‘religious-philosophical renaissance’); and the contradictory character of the Russian Revolution (the clash of a democratic revolution and the great peasant revolution from 1902 to 1922). In addition, these works introduce a cultural dialogue among Orthodox, Islam and Lamaist communities and among the archaic (primitive), traditionalist and modern strata of Russian culture. As distinct from textbooks on the history of world civilization, where each civilization is usually characterized from the point of view of one basic cultural factor or conflict, here the authors have attempted to show complex interactions of different cultural factors determining the life of the civilization. In so doing, the authors have synthesized the approaches of Toynbee, Spengler, Weber, Elias, Eisenstadt, Wallerstein, and contemporary western and Russian historians. They present a number of variants which, when in conflict, determined the relationship between state and society, the special characteristics of education and science, the legal culture and elements of civil society, and the development of a unified internal market and manufacturing industry. As a result, the material turns out to be even harder to understand and is used mainly in Moscow and in the centre of the country, in schools specializing in particular disciplines and in schools with extended curricula. In order to facilitate its use in schools, specialists in didactics (in particular Elena Zakharova in Moscow) have subdivided the text into sections that are easily understood by the average high school student and those that are more difficult to grasp. Frequently the textbook is used together with a simpler one. To aid teachers, the author, in cooperation with Galli Klokova, has published a lesson-by-lesson supplement to the textbook, although, it certainly does not solve all the problems.46 In addition, it should be pointed out that in the past few years the study of the history of civilizations in high schools and in higher education institutions has been called into question. In the year 2000, this course was removed from teacher training institutes and in 2001 from schools. The documents concerning 299

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this process, The Compulsory Minimum of the Content of Education, and the Model Curriculum for Tenth and Eleventh Grade History, mention the concept of civilization but only in conjunction with an emphasis on socio-economic formations.47 Students become acquainted with ‘civilizational variations of typology’ of historical communities, but an understanding of ‘civilization’ is applied only in relation to ancient history and the history of the Middle Ages.48 At present, the history of civilizations can be studied in high schools only as an elective course. Criticism has now been directed at these textbooks and at the entire system that led to them and their approval, and innovations of the past few years have come under harsh attack.49 In developing concepts for history education in schools, some scholars have suggested placing all courses on one theoretical foundation, to be conceived as a synthesis of formation- and civilization-based approaches. This proposal has drawn criticism from leading centres dealing with the methodology of history teaching – in particular the Moscow Association of History Teachers and the Department of the Methodology of History Teaching at Herzen Pedagogical University in St Petersburg. Historian Alexander Shevyrev has expressed suspicions that ‘we are being asked to reintroduce the Marxist–Leninist methodology, albeit synthesized with the civilizational approach’.50 Wellknown experts in didactics, Vladimir Barabanov and Natalia Lazukova, have rejected a formation-civilization-based course of history as an eclectic combination of different methodological approaches.51 However, more emphasis has recently been placed on political rather than cultural history. This approach can be schematized as state–economics–culture in contrast to the Marxist schema of economics–state–culture. Therefore, the prospects for textbooks and courses on history of civilization in schools are anything but clear.

Changes in the presentation of historical material The most intensive efforts in regard to changing historical material have been directed at abandoning a Soviet-style preoccupation with the history of class struggle. Scholars of antiquity and the classical world are turning to the idea of ‘ancient society’ (literally ancient communal–civil society) that suggests the domination of free labour and of a free community and the absence of state institutions. A number of authors have even refused to call the classic polis a state. When characterizing eastern feudalism, authors now refrain from usage of western terms and emphasize the weak development of private property in the east, the slow pace of development, and the absence of individuality.52 The publication, Provisional Requirements for the Compulsory Minimum Content of Basic Education – 1998, clearly expressed these new notions regarding history. The concept of ‘slavery’ is entirely absent and that of ‘feudal relations’ is applied only to the countries of Europe. In the section on the history of Russia the names of formations (feudal, capitalist) are completely removed, and the use of emotionally laden ethnonyms is avoided. The 300

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ideas of ‘socialism’ and ‘Communism’ are used only in the context of ‘utopian socialism’ and ‘war Communism’. ‘Traditional society’ and ‘modernization’ have become key concepts.53 At the same time, the history of the modern period continues to be based on the history of revolutions. The radical spirit of the revolutionary democratic ‘Franco-centric’ scheme of nineteenth-century history predominates. In accordance with this approach, each revolution in France evokes an upsurge in the struggle in Europe and in the world, which is conducive to progress.54 However, a number of new textbooks set forth a reformist and liberal ‘Anglocentric’ approach, which proposes that the basic values of the nineteenth century were not associated with revolution but with effective liberal and social reforms that promoted economic and political modernization. This scheme is more compatible with the second half of the nineteenth century, when the centre of attention was the British Empire and not the Paris Commune (as it had been earlier).55 Worth noting is the attempt by some authors to move the history of the Paris Commune to the first ‘revolutionary’ section in the history of the nineteenth century. The textbook on modern history by Sergei Burin covers the revolutionary period in nineteenth-century European history in a special manner. The author contrasts this period with the epoch of developed modernization and with the formation of a liberal and scientific world view in the west, while placing a discussion of the revolutionary period in the context of the creation of national states.56 In the twentieth century, efforts at reform are held up as a positive alternative to Bolshevism and fascism. However, certain historical literature still ignores some characteristics of Nazism, such as its support by workers, although such features of Nazism are evident in published research and are discussed in the textbook on modern history by Aleksandr Kreder.57 Understandably, changes have occurred in the interpretation of the evolution of developed states and of the relationship of the ideal of a ‘welfare state’ with a ‘conservative wave’. Textbooks have dealt with these issues in the context of globalization as a unifying force and of a single world civilization, and not from the viewpoint of a multipolar world, which is gaining prominence in Russian popular and scholarly literature. It is important to note the ongoing transition in the history of prerevolutionary Russia from ‘objective analysis’ of historical documents to a hermeneutical treatment of religious archetypes in chronicles and other religious texts. This new approach examines the structure of literary texts as well as that of political, economic and other types of consciousness. Since it involves an examination of religious literature, and in particular hagiography, this material entails a discussion of the Middle Ages in new textbooks. Richly endowed with such textual material, these books teach students to examine their spiritual roots.58 A fundamental change has occurred in historical scholarship on the prerevolutionary peasantry and on the significance of its form of life and social 301

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organization. This new understanding is important for the country’s entire history. The works of Leonid Milov, Liudmila Danilova, Viktor Danilov, Eduard Kul’pin, Svetlana Lur’e and others59 pose questions concerning the relatively autonomous character of peasant life during the period of slashand-burn agriculture (until the sixteenth century). They also discuss the formation in such conditions of ideals and values and the natural obstacles preventing the peasantry from proceeding from extensive to intensive farming. In addition, they focus on the original appropriation of Russian lands by princes (okniazhenie), which gave the state great power over society, limited private property and led to the formation of ‘state feudalism’ as an important feature of Russian civilization. State feudalism not only influenced village life but also affected the development of monopoly capitalism because it entailed skipping the stage of developed market relations and quickly advanced to the stage of financial oligarchy and state monopoly.60 However, it must be noted that the state school tradition of historiography hinders the inclusion of these new views and obstructs teaching of prerevolutionary Russia within a basic history course. A periodization of history ‘by tsars’ sometimes repeats, in essence, ‘the periods of development of the revolutionary movement’ as defined in the Soviet period. Attempts at writing textbooks that were strongly liberal in spirit were immediately criticized.61 Instead of the history of classes and peasant wars, the history of the state and church began to dominate. In 1997 V.K. Batsyn noted that the authors of a majority of textbooks on Russian history focused on the étatist model of thought, which inhibited the search for a new post-Soviet identity. The old logic of historical thought has dissolved but has remained in the course structure.62 The periodical Itogi describes textbooks whose contents display a fawning (umil’no siusiukaiushchee) orthodoxy and an inflexible patriotic and militaristic Great State mentality (derzhavnost’) . . . Vestiges of the Soviet past persist in an expression of sympathy for participants in revolts, in an almost complete disregard for national perspectives and in a scornful approach towards culture.63 In the best case, the authors of textbooks for basic nine-year schools incorporate new methodological devices and devote more attention to the peasantry, zemstvo,64 culture and religion.65 The situation is somewhat different for the study of Russian history in the twentieth century. Textbooks have kept pace with new learning and thereby have presented new views of the events of 1917. They portray the Civil War from the point of view of both the victor and the vanquished; demonstrate the scale of repression that followed in the Soviet period; note the cost of industrialization; of victory in World War II and of the postwar restoration of the economy; and acknowledge the contradictions of the ‘thaw’ under Khrushchev as well as of perestroika. However, even with the new content, the structure of these textbooks rarely changes. This contra302

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diction is striking in the praiseworthy textbook Otechestvennaia istoriia XX veka, edited by Anatolii V. Ushakov,66 intended for teacher training institutes.67 The textbook by Vladimir Dmitrenko, Vladimir Esakov and Vladimir Shestakov, Istoriia Otechestva: XX vek, while clarifying a number of facts and seriously questioning the nature of the Communist experiment, preserves some myths from the Soviet period. It presents the USSR as struggling for peace, echoes the Stalinist account of the heroes of the Panfilov division who defended Moscow in the winter of 1941, and reproduces glossy pictures of postwar economic recovery. Shameful episodes such as the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact are mentioned only in passing.68 The reliability of Stalinist era statistics are called into question solely in order to avoid discussing the amount of German reparations to the USSR following World War II, and consequently, to avoid evaluating the role of these reparations in Soviet economic recovery.69 A similar problem is encountered in the textbook by Aleksandr Danilov and Luidmila Kosulina, Istoriia Rossii: XX vek for the ninth grade.70 This book is a masterful work in both its manner of presentation and its content. Some concessions to an older version of history are made in order to maintain a ‘patriotic’ stance. When discussing the partisan movement, nothing is mentioned about the role in 1941 and thereafter of the Cheka diversionary detachments of the Special Motorized Brigade Infantry or about the value of statistics from the Soviet period, although these are frequently cited. The main financial source of industrialization (expropriation from the peasantry) is explained in Stalinist terms as an ‘internal accumulation of resources’. In the authors’ opinion, foreign firms rendered ‘meaningful help’ only in supplying equipment.71 This interpretation fails to show that in the name of industrialization the main branch of the nation’s economy, agriculture, was destroyed and that new factories and technology had to be purchased from the west. The chapter on the postwar economic restoration begins by portraying widespread socialist competition and the Soviet people as the creator of ‘unquestionable economic achievements’. Only later, at the very end, does the chapter discuss the role of German reparations.72 By far the best of the existing textbooks is Igor Dolutskii’s Otechestvennaia istoriia: XX vek, for the upper grades, which seeks a dialogue with students. Rather than forcing his views upon them, Dolutskii compares facts and different ideological and theoretical schemes for an understanding of the development of Russia in the twentieth century. The author keeps his distance from the Bolsheviks and the liberals. While asserting the right of people to improve their situation, he provides an uncompromisingly impartial picture of the failure of the Communist project.73 In conclusion, it is possible to say that authors of new textbooks have taken advantage of recent scholarship on history in general (especially ancient history and the history of the Middle Ages) as well as on twentieth-century Russian history. This new knowledge has entered the consciousness of teachers and 303

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students. However, new textbooks on Russian history from the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century have incorporated the achievements of recent scholarship less impressively. Progress in the social sciences and humanities (the anthropological and civilization approaches) are most noticeable in courses for gymnasiums. There we find remarkable breakthroughs and see new possibilities for teaching history and for the active participation of students. However, these courses remain at present the privileged preserve of schools in large urban areas.

Notes 1 N.G. Levintov, Metodologicheskii analiz uchebnoi literatury po istorii. Postanovka problemy. Priglashenie k razmyshleniiam (Ul’ianovsk: Ul’ianovskii Gosudarstvennyi Pedagogicheskii Institut, 1998). 2 Iu. M. Lotman, Kul’tura i vzryv (Moscow: Progress, Gnozis, 1992). 3 G. Khaken, Sinergetika (Moscow: Mir, 1980); H. Haken, Erfolge geheimmisse der nature – synergetik: Die Zehre vom Zusammenwirken (Stuttgart: 1981); A.G. Frank, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998); I. Prigogine, The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos and the New Laws of Nature (New York: Free Press, 1997); H. Haken and M. Stadler (eds), ‘The Synergetics of Cognition’, Proceedings of the International Symposium at Schloss Elmau, Bavaria, 4–8 June 1989. 4 Kazus: Individual’noe i unikal’noe v istorii (Moscow: RGGU, 1997). 5 Zh. Delez and F. Gvattari, Chto takoe filosofiia? (St Petersburg: Aleteiia, 1998). 6 P.G. Grechko, Kontseptual’nye modeli istorii (Moscow: Logos, 1995), pp. 98–102; F. Guattari, Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics (Middlesex, England: Harmondsworth, 1984); G. Deleuze and C. Parnet, Dialogues (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987). 7 Iu. L. Troitskii, ‘Deti pishut istoriiu’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 1 (1999), pp. 24–7. 8 L.I. Novikova and M.B. Sokolovskii, ‘“Vospitatel’noe prostranstvo” kak otkrytaia sistema (Pedagogika i sinergetika)’, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ 1 (1998), pp. 132–43. 9 V.I. Rediukhin, ‘Sinergetika – “siniaia ptitsa” obrazovaniia’, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ 1 (1998), pp. 144–53; S.A. Borinskaia, ‘Doroga v volshebnuiu stranu’, Pedologiia 1 (1999), pp. 22–7. 10 Iu. N. Afanas’ev, Iu. S. Voronkov and S.V. Kuvshinov, ‘Istoriia nauki i tekhniki’, in Avtorskie programmy po gumanitarnym i sotsial’no-ekonomicheskim distsiplinam: istoriia, pravo, politologiia, ekonomika (Moscow: Logos, 1998), p. 37. 11 Such an approach was taken, for example, by the talented teacher from Kirov, Sergei A. Gomaiunov: S.A. Gomaiunov, ‘Ot istorii sinergetiki – k sinergetiki istorii’, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ 2 (1994) pp. 99–106; idem, Kompozitsionnyi metod v istoricheskom poznanii (Moscow, 1994); idem, Problemy metodologii mestnoi istorii (Kirov: Viatskii gos. Pedagogicheskii universitet, 1996). See also I. Bestuzhev-Lada, ‘Dialektika mifa i fakta’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 5 (2000), pp. 11–16. 12 Quotation from E.E. Viazemskii, O. Iu. Strelova, I.N. Ionov and M.V. Korotkova, Istoricheskoe obrazovanie v sovremennoi Rossii. Spravochno-metodicheskoe posobie dlia uchitelei (Moscow: Russkoe slovo, 1997), p. 53. 13 T.S. Antonova and A.L. Kharitonov, ‘Mul’timediinyi uchebnik istorii Rossii XX veka’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 3 (2000), p. 57.

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14 A. Ia. Gurevich and D.E. Kharitonovich, Istoriia srednikh vekov (Moscow: Interpraks, 1994); M. Boitsov and R. Shukurov, Istoriia srednikh vekov (Moscow: AO ‘Moskovskie uchebniki’, MIROS, 1996). 15 A. Gurevich and D. Kharitonovich, ‘Istoriia srednikh vekov: novyi uchebnik’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 1 (1996). pp. 63–76. 16 Iu. Iu. Zavel’skii, ‘Vospitatel’naia sistema Moskovskoi gimnazii na Iugo-Zapade: pogruzhenie v kul’turu’, in G.N. Sevost’ianov (ed.), Gumanisticheskie vospitatel’nye sistemy: Vchera i segodnia (Moscow: Pedagogicheskoe obshchestvo Rossii, 1998), pp. 221–2. 17 In essence, it is the germ of a new system of education. Its central idea is that a child cannot and should not learn more than he is able to see or to imagine for himself or to reproduce with the help of his own hands or intellect. Hence, the cognitive process, especially among preschool and younger primary schoolchildren, is developed from within through the process of games that include a large group of children, preferably the entire student body. The teacher should only form the general cognitive context of the game (subject, problem, terminology) and direct it; the concrete approach is worked out by the children themselves. As a result, each new gain in knowledge is experienced by them as a discovery, emotionally consolidating the result of their active search and discovery. For more details see S.A. Borinskaia, ‘Doroga v volshebnuiu strany’, Pedologiia 1 (1999). 18 A.M. Burovskii (ed.), Noogenez i obrazovanie: Postroenie noosfernoi shkoly vol. 2 (Krasnoiarsk: Nauchno-metodicheskii tsentr Noosferno-ekologicheskogo obrazovaniia, 1996), pp. 66–73, 78–86. 19 Ibid., pp. 84–6. 20 I.N. Ionov, ‘Teoriia tsivilizatsii i evoliutsiia nauchnogo znaniia’, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ 6 (1997), pp. 130–2. 21 See M.A. Cheshkov, ‘Sinergetika: za ili protiv khaosa? Zametki o nauke epokhi global’noi smuty’, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ 6 (1999). 22 The Marxist notion of formations refers to the socioeconomic stages of historical development, which are based on the mode of production; See Editor’s Introduction, Russian Studies in History 3 (Winter 1996–7), p. 5. 23 N.I. Konrad, Izbrannye trudy: Istoriia (Moscow: Nauka, 1974); N.I. Konrad, Zapad i Vostok: Stat’i (Moscow: Nauka, 1972); L.I. Reisner, Tsivilizatsiia i sposob obshcheniia (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura, 1993). 24 Gosudarstvennyi obrazovatel’nyi standart vysshego professional’nogo obrazovaniia (Moscow: Gos. komitet RF po vysshemy obrazovaniiu, 1995), p. 108. 25 S.N. Eisenstadt, The Origin and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (New York: State University of New York Press, 1986); S.N. Eizenshtadt, Revoliutsiia i preobrazovanie obshchestv: Sravnitel’noe izuchenie tsivilizatsii (Moscow: Aspect Press, 1999). 26 M.A. Barg and K.D. Avdeeva, Ot Makiavelli do Iuma: Stanovlenie istorizma (Moscow: Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN, 1998); Sovremennye teorii tsivilizatsii: Referativnyi sbornik (Moscow: Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN, 1995); historiographical essays in the collection Tsivilizatsii 1–4 (Moscow: Nauka, 1992–7); I.N. Ionov and V.M. Khachaturian, Teoriia tsivilizatsii ot antichnosti do kontsa XIX veka (St Petersburg: Aleteiia, 2002). 27 B.S. Erasov (ed.), Sravnitel’noe izuchenie tsivilizatsii. Khrestomatiia (Moscow: Aspect Press, 1998); B.S. Erasov, Tsivilizatsii: Universalii i samobutnost’ (Moscow: Nauka, 2002). 28 A.I. Patrushev, ‘Istoriografiia novogo i noveishego vremeni stran Evropy i Ameriki’, Avtorskie uchebnye programmy po gumanitarnym i sotsial’no-ekonomicheskim distsiplinam (Moscow: Logos, 1998). 29 Istoriia mirovoi kul’tury. Nasledie Zapada (Moscow: Rossiskii gosudarstvenyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 1998), p. 26.

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30 Programmy avtorskikh kursov po gumanitarnym i sotsial’no-ekonomicheskim distsiplinam dlia vysshei shkoly (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi komitet RF po vysshemy obrazovaniiu, 1996), p. 155. 31 Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 5 (1997), pp. 72–3. 32 Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 2 (1998), p. 9. 33 I.A. Mishina and L.N. Zharova, Stanovlenie sovremennoi tsivilizatsii, Chast’1: Istoriia rannego novogo vremeni (16–18 vv.), (Moscow: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli, 1995). See also I.A. Mishina and L.N. Zharova, Novaia istoriia kontsa XV–XVIII vv. (Moscow: Russkoe slovo, 1999); L.N. Zharova, N.V. Zagladin and I.A. Mishina, Novaia istoriia XIX–nachala XX vv. (Moscow: Russkoe slovo, 2000). 34 Mishina and Zharova, Stanovlenie sovremennoi tsivilizatsii, p. 39. 35 Ibid., pp. 43, 152. 36 Ibid., p. 152. 37 Ibid., p. 179. 38 Norbert Elias, Pridvornoe obshchestvo: Issledovaniia po sotsiologii korolia i pridvornoi aristokratii (Moscow: Iazyki slavianskoi kul’tury, 2002). 39 L.V. Danilova, ‘Stanovlenie sistemy gosudarstvennogo feodalizma v Rossii: prichiny, sledstviia’, in Sistema gosudarstvennogo feodalizma v Rossii. Part 1 (Moscow: Institut istorii SSSR AN SSSR, 1993). 40 V.M. Khachaturian, Istoriia mirovykh tsivilizatsii s drevneishikh vremen do nachala XX veka (Moscow: Drofa, 1996). See also L.I. Semennikova Tsivilizatsii v istorii cheloveshestva (Briansk: Kursiv, 1998). 41 Khachaturian, Istoriia mirovykh tsivilizatsii, pp. 212, 240. 42 Ia. G. Shemiakin, Istoriia mirovykh tsivilizatsii. XX vek (Moscow: Akademiia povysheniia kvalifikatsii i perepodgotovki rabotnikov obrazovaniia [APK i PRO], 2001). 43 A.S. Akhiezer, Rossiia: kritika istoricheskogo opyta, Vols 1–3 (Moscow: Filosofskoe obshchestvo SSSR, 1991). 44 I.V. Kondakov, Vvedenie v istoriiu russkoi kul’tury (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 1997); L.I. Semennikova, Rossiia v mirovom soobshchestve tsivilizatsii (Moscow: Interpraks, 1994). 45 I.N. Ionov, Rossiiskaia tsivilizatsiia i istoki ee krizisa. IX–nachalo XX v. (Moscow: Interpraks, 1994); I.N. Ionov, Rossiiskaia tsivilizatsiia. IX–nachalo XX vv. (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1995, 1998, 2000); Istoriia (Sbornik istoriko-kul’ turologicheskikh program) collected by E.E. Viazemskii and T.I. Tiuliaeva (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1994); see also N.I. Strokova, Faktory formirovaniia rossiiskoi tsivilizatsii. Metodologicheskie rekomendatsii (Moscow: Intersignal SP, 1997); N.I. Strokova, Tsivilizatsionnye al’ternativy v istorii Rossii: Metodologicheskie rekomendatsii (Moscow: Intersignal SP, 1997). As of writing, a textbook by I.N. Ionov was being prepared which covers the history of the country to the end of the twentieth century. 46 I.N. Ionov and G.V. Klokova, Pourochnye razrabotki po kursu ‘Rossiiskaia tsivilizatsiia. IX–nachalo XX veka’ (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 2001). It is necessary to note that one direction of civilization studies – the idea of the development of a cultural dialogue in the framework of the Russian state – had many supporters. As early as the mid-1990s attempts by scholars in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan to write the history of their republics from a local, ethnic point of view were met with hostility in the centre. This was true in particular of the textbook by Z.Z. Miftakhov and D.Sh. Mukhamadeeva, Istoriia Tatarstana i tatarskogo naroda (Kazan: Magarif, 1995) in which it was shown that Aleksandr Nevskii was an adopted son of the Tatar khan Batyi; that the famous battle on Kulikovo Field was not a conflict between the Tatars and Russians, but a struggle among the factions of the Hordes of the Emir Mamai and the Khan Tokhtamysh; and that the Tatars pro-

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47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60

61 62 63 64

65 66 67

tected Russia and Europe by defeating the warriors of Tamerlane at the Terek. At present, hostility towards a regional view of history has softened significantly, and in 2000 an entire issue of the journal Prepodavanie istorii v shkole (no. 2) was devoted to the history of Tatarstan (beginning with the era of the Bulgar and Golden hordes) in articles by historians of the republic. ‘Obiazatel’nyi minimum soderzhaniia istoricheskogo obrazovaniia v 10–11 klassakh’, in L.N. Aleksashkina (ed.), Otsenka kachestva podgotovki vypusknikov srednikh shkol po istorii (Moscow: Drofa, 2000), pp. 4–8. ‘Primernaia programma kursa dlia 10–11 klassov’ in ibid, pp. 9–22. See also http://www.informika.ru/text/ school/p_min/pr56-1-1.html. Otsenka kachestva podgotovki vypusknikov srednikh shkol po istorii, collected by L.N. Aleksashkina (Moscow: Drofa, 2000), pp. 5, 11–12. Istoriia, Supplement to Pervoe sentiabria 7, 11, 16, 25, 27 (1997); see also the chapter by Vera Kaplan in this volume. ‘Obsuzhdenie kontseptsii istoricheskogo obrazovaniia v Moskovskoi assotsiatsii prepodavatelei istorii (Kratkii otchet)’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4 (2000), pp. 42–3. V.V. Barabanov and N.N. Lazukova, ‘Nekotorye razmyshleniia o kontseptsii istoricheskogo obrazovaniia’, Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 5 (2000), p. 39. Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 2 (1998), pp. 9–11, 14. Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 7 (1998), pp. 37–8. Ibid., p. 40. A. Ia. Iudovskaia, Iu. V. Egorov, P.A. Baranov, and L.M Vaniushkina, Istoriia. Mir v novoe vremia (1879–1918) (St Petersburg: SMIO Press, 1997). S.N. Burin, Novaia istoriia. 1640–1918 Part 2 (Moscow: Drofa, 1998). O.S. Soroko-Tsiupa (ed.), Mir v XX veke (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, AO Moskovskie uchebniki, 1996), p. 84; A.A. Kreder, Noveishaia istoriia. XX vek (Moscow: TsGO AO Moskovskie uchebniki, 1996), pp. 66, 90, 93. L.A. Katsva and A.L. Iurganov, Istoriia Rossii. VIII–XV vv. (Moscow: MIROS, Argus, 1995). See S. Lur’e, Metamorfozy traditsionnogo soznaniia (St Petersburg: Tipografiia im. Kotliakova, 1994); E.S. Kul’pin, Put’ Rossii (Moscow: Moskovskii litsei, 1995); L.V. Milov, Velikorusskii pakhar’ i osobennosti rossiiskogo istoricheskogo protsessa (Moscow: Rosspen, 1998). R.G. Landa, Islam v istorii Rossii (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura RAN, 1995); E.S. Kul’pin, Zolotaia Orda: problemy genezisa Rossiiskogo gosudarstva (Moscow: Moskovskii litsei, 1998); I.B. Orlova, Evraziiskaia tsivilizatsiia. Sotsial’noistoricheskaia retrospektiva i perspektiva (Moscow: Norma, 1998). B.F. Lichman (ed.), Istoriia Rossii vtoroi poloviny XIX–XX vv. (Ekaterinburg: Ural’skii. Gos. Tekhnicheskii Universitet, 1993). Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 8 (1997), p. 16. Itogi, 27 May 1997; as an example, see A.S. Orlov, B.A. Georgiev, N.G. Georgieva and T.A. Sivokhina, Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (Moscow: Prospekt, 1997). Provincial and district self-governing institution for local economic administration from 1864 to 1918; often an institutional vehicle for the liberal movement in Russia – see The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, vol. 45 (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1987), p. 234. P.N. Zyrianov, Istoriia Rossii XIX veka (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1994); E.N. Zakharova, Istoriia Rossii. XIX–nachalo XX veka (Moscow: Mnemozina, 1998). A.V. Ushakov (ed.), Otechestvennaia istoriia XX veka (Moscow: Agar, 1996). Ibid., pp. 292–3, 295.

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68 V.P. Dmitrenko, V.D. Esakov and V.A. Shestakov, Istoriia Otechestva. XX vek (Moscow: Drofa, 1995), pp. 319–20, 400, 633; D. Mendeloff mentioned this in his paper at a conference at the Herzen State Pedagogical University. See also Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 2 (1999), p. 45, and David Mendeloff, ‘Explaining the Persistence of Nationalist Mythmaking in Post-Soviet Russian History Education: The Annexation of the Baltic States and the “Myth of 1939–40”’, in Vera Kaplan, Pinchas Agmon and Liubov Ermolaeva (eds), The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia: Trends and Perspectives (Tel Aviv: Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1999), pp. 185–228. This is also the case for the new third edition of this textbook (Moscow: Drofa, 1999). The page numbers cited here are from this later edition. 69 Ibid., p. 363. 70 A.A. Danilov and L.B. Kosulina, Istoriia Rossii. XX vek (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1997). The same problems exist in the present edition: A.A. Danilov and L.G. Kosulina, Istoriia Rossii. XX vek (Moscow: Drofa, 1999). The page numbers cited here are from this later edition. 71 Ibid., p. 264. 72 Ibid., pp. 264, 394–5. 73 I.I. Dolutskii, Otechestvennaia istoriia. XX vek (Moscow: Mnemozina, 1994).

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13 T E ACHING LITERATU RE IN T HE NEW RUSSIAN S CHOOL Nadya Peterson

A lesson is not a duel between the teacher and a student, but rather a creative laboratory, a writing seminar, a literary circle where, with the help of books, both (!) learn the art of the living word. Evgenii Il’in, ‘Vsia literatura skryta v odnoi detali’1

Teaching as a ‘creative laboratory’ rather than a ‘duel’, where students and teachers perform as equals in a process designed to educate both, is a stated ideal of the new progressive Russian pedagogy. The realization of this seemingly straightforward vision, however, involves a far-reaching transformation of the educational process that is not easily accomplished. This chapter focuses on the text and the means of teaching literature in the new (post-perestroika) Russian schools.2 How do changes in Russian education of the last decade affect the content of school books and the delivery of knowledge? What do teachers and students do in their literature classes? What books do they use? What questions do they ask? What results are they hoping to achieve? How successful are they? Clearly, exhaustive answers to the above questions are beyond the scope of this chapter. Yet, even a cursory look at the way literature is taught in the new Russian schools can bring us closer to an understanding of the extent of social change in post-Soviet Russia. The rigidly centralized system of imparting knowledge, governed by the goal of forming a stable member of a socialist society, has given way to a system whose stated objective is acquisition and internalization of general humanistic and national values. The perestroika reformers of the late 1980s introduced ‘decentralization, differentiation, democratization, and enhancement of the humanities in a humanized school’, in the hope that ‘through learner-based instruction children would grow into critically thinking, selfaware, and democratically inclined citizens to replace the “cogs” and “drones” of the totalitarian system’.3 The truly revolutionary spirit of the reformers’ undertaking should not be underestimated: the school was entrusted with the Herculean task of human 309

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transformation – to be propelled by changes in the entire educational system, including curriculum, structure and governance. Yet the implementation of this momentous change has encountered many more obstacles than the reformers had envisioned. Roughly a decade after the introduction of the reform, Russian educators are still trying to sort out the debris left in its wake.4

The new textbooks – how new are they? Until the mid-1990s the state continued to have a virtual monopoly on the production and distribution of school texts.5 As before, only one text per grade and per subject was recommended to schools and published in sufficient numbers. By the mid-1990s numerous new textbooks were prepared and published to conform with the 1992 reform of humanities education in Russia.6 Two years after launching the reform, schools could choose between books published by the government and those produced under private initiative. The latter were characterized by a ‘broadening of the range of disciplines under the umbrella of “humanities and social sciences”, a cross-disciplinary approach to textbooks, and the inclusion of a strong humanistic element in their content’.7 The former were little different from the texts of the perestroika period, themselves slightly revised versions of the books prepared for the Soviet school before perestroika. Ideological opposition to innovations in the privately published texts (often coming from the educators themselves), flaws in the publishing industry, and growing social stratification led to a situation in which only the books published by the government had a real chance of being adopted and used in the general public schools.8 The establishment in 1998 of a Compulsory Content Minimum of educational programmes marked a new stage in the development of textbooks for literature. It stipulated both the approach to and the content of literature instruction,9 and the programmes based on it reflect this new orientation. The 1988 programme for grades 5–11 sees the goal of literature education as that of ‘students’ mastery of the essence of the Party’s Leninist policy in the area of literature and the arts, acquisition of the art of writing . . . and the inculcation of a Marxist-Leninist worldview, of ideological-political principles, spiritual needs, moral convictions, and artistic taste’.10 A decade later, textbook writers were supposed to be guided by radically different principles: the articulation of humanistic values embodied in works of literature and the rejection of ‘tendentious approaches’ based on political expediency. The primary educational goals in literature became to assist the student in mastering Russian and world classics and to form the ‘culture of artistic perception’, instilling in the process high moral qualities, patriotism, aesthetic sense and imaginative thinking, as well as the culture of speech and communication.11 Are the texts available to the educator today helpful in achieving these goals?

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The three systems In his speech to the All-Union Conference of Educators on 14 January 2000, Minister of Education V.M. Filippov noted that in the past 30 years the number of hours allotted to the teaching of Russian literature and language in schools had been reduced from 800 to 600, with the result that many institutions of higher learning now had to teach Russian language to their freshmen. He also noted that, if in the Soviet school there were 130 textbook titles available to schools, now educators had 1,000 federally approved titles at their disposal. Obviously, there is a broad range of options for educators. Which books do they choose? According to Tatiana Kalganova’s 1999 survey of literature textbooks published in Pervoe sentiabra, a schoolteacher in today’s Russia has access to three ‘systems’ (sistemy) of texts, based on three different methodologies (T.F. Kurdiumova’s, G.I. Belen’kii’s, and A.G. Kutuzov’s). Eighty-six per cent of general public schools use books from the first ‘system’, published in support of Kurdiumova’s educational programme. Out of sixteen texts available in Kurdiumova’s programme only two are published by a press other than Prosveshchenie state publishing house. Notably, the majority appear to be revisions of perestroika texts.12 Kurdiumova’s texts for grades 5–8 employ a thematic approach. In order to facilitate a mastery of literary history, each grade covers the entire continuum of Russian literature, from its origins to the works of contemporary authors. In the ninth grade students are offered a concise course on literary history, which concludes literature education for the compulsory high school years. In grade 10 students focus exclusively on the literature of the nineteenth century, while the programme for grade 11 is a comprehensive course on the literature of the twentieth century. Clearly, the broad popularity of Kurdiumova’s programme can be partly explained by its traditional character, which hardly distinguishes it from the way literature was taught before or during perestroika. Belen’kii’s and Kutuzov’s programmes are used less widely, even though Belen’kii’s text for grade 8 is also offered in Kurdiumova’s system. While Belen’kii’s programme mirrors Kurdiumova’s for grades 5–8, textbooks for upper grade students are somewhat more innovative. Books for grade 9, for example, include questions and tasks aimed at close analysis of original works, and biographical information on the authors is combined with critical articles. In the upper two grades students work on practical tasks which utilize literary criticism in the analysis of works of literature. Kutuzov’s programme for basic high school offers an approach based on literary theory. In grades 5 and 6 students learn about genres, in grade 7 about the role of the protagonist and other characters in literary works; grade 8 focuses on literature and tradition; and grade 9, on author, image, and the reader. The text for grade 5 is written in the form of a lively dialogue between a professor and a little boy.

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The adoption of Kurdiumova’s traditional approach, and of the textbooks based on it, by the majority of general public schools is a clear indication of the slow pace of change in the teaching of literature – despite the existence of competing educational programmes and the publication of textbooks in support of these programmes. To be sure, the new texts attempt to highlight ‘humanistic values embodied in the works of literature’, while the ‘tendentious approaches’ based on political expediency – a thinly disguised reference to Communist ideology – have become a casualty of the new orientation in teaching literature. Yet to conclude that the new books have succeeded in forming a ‘culture of artistic perception’, imaginative thinking, and the culture of speech and communication would be premature.13 Kalganova’s observations on the issue endorse this rather pessimistic view.

What needs to be fixed – an insider’s view The list of flaws found by Kalganova in the new texts on literature is long and dispiriting. She points to three areas where improvement is deemed necessary: the volume of information found in the texts, facilitation of the learning process and methodology. Information offered in the new textbooks often exceeds programme requirements, making it impossible for the student to master the material. Texts for upper grades suffer from an excess of unnecessary facts and names. Gaps in the presentation of literary history impede learning. The cultural context is often absent, which results in a fragmented image of the literary process. Sometimes the attention of the authors is skewed towards formal aspects of the works at the expense of a comprehensive discussion of moral and ethical issues. The books suffer from a pseudo-scientific style of presentation. Publishers want to economize, making the text single-spaced and the typescript uninspiring; they tend to avoid using bold face, and offer few illustrations. Texts do not provide adequate means of self-checking for the learner. A certain lack of methodological vigour is another area of weakness in the new books. Chapter questions and assignments are geared towards verbatim repetition of statements found in the texts. Often the age of the students or their cognitive potential is not heeded, making the assignments impossible to complete. The authors fail to provide consistent materials for reviewing the basic notions involved in the analysis of literature; the cumulative character of information included in the books is not taken into account. The problems noted by Kalganova are not new, even if the texts proclaim themselves as such. Much of the criticism levelled at the new books could be directed at the texts published under Communism. Oversaturation with facts (faktotsentrizm) is perhaps the only problem that cannot be ascribed to the pre-perestroika books, the reason being that writers of literature texts are eager to resurrect names and works long absent from their narratives.14

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Elimination and substitution: a view from the outside The majority of the texts created and used today share two features: 1 2

filling in the blank pages of literary history and elimination of the Marxist teleology from their discourse.

In reply to the programmatic call to focus on humanistic values and to dispense with ‘tendentious approaches’, educators abandon the ideological underpinnings of Soviet literary criticism. The poetry of the Silver Age, books by Soviet authors banned under Communism, émigré literature, folklore and old Russian literature now occupy the space vacated by major works of Socialist Realism, books devoted to the theme of the Revolution, and the writings of Lenin.15 The collection of articles Re-reading the Classics meets the problem of elimination and substitution head on: Only recently in school programmes the history of Russian literature in the second half of the twentieth century was reduced to one or two lines articulating just a few themes – the Great Patriotic War, Lenin’s image, the working class, the kolkhoz village . . . all of which the student had to find in the works of contemporary writers. The names of the recommended authors were chosen cautiously, if not guardedly; many were still alive and it was unknown how a certain writer, even quite a respectable one, might act . . . Today, happily, learning literature in school is based on ethical-aesthetic qualities of the works rather than on their sociological or political expediency.16 The above assessment reconfirms the new orientation in which socio-political factors are no longer relevant in formulating the curriculum. The dangers of the vacuum created by the elimination of the discredited Marxist approach have been aptly described by Iu. V. Egorov: the void (in history textbooks) ‘is filled with whatever is available: from mysticism to occultism to aggressive national chauvinism. Here the deliberate manipulation of historical memory is intertwined with the palpable nostalgia for the good old times of “imperial grandeur”, and with the “syndrome of the damaged superpower” caused by the fall of the USSR.’17 Egorov’s remarks concern history texts published before the adoption of the Compulsory Content Minimum of educational programmes in 1998. His observations, however, can be applied just as easily to the new literature texts.

The texts: pro and con An examination of two sets of recently published textbooks on Russian literature of the nineteenth (one set) and the twentieth century (the second set)

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helps to explain the process of elimination and substitution better; it also provides an answer to the question of how valid the criticism levelled at the new books really is. Immediately apparent about the books under scrutiny is their more attractive packaging and better organization than the literature texts published under Communism. The covers are brighter and glossier, and there are more pictures. The arrangement of the material makes it more accessible to the student, and all of the books provide better opportunities for further study. Nevertheless, if one compares these texts to educational materials published in the west, the critical observations noted above are clearly valid. The texts suffer from an information overload; in some instances the quasi-scientific narrative is eerily reminiscent of pre-perestroika writing; and the singlespaced typescript and the paucity of images make the books appear drab and uninspired. In style and visual presentation, G.N. Ionin’s tenth grade textbook on the nineteenth century, recommended by the Ministry of Education to promote Belen’kii’s programme, provides an example of a text Russian critics find objectionable.18 In terms of accessibility, the books appear much more student-friendly than their pre-perestroika counterparts. In Zhuravlev’s text on twentieth-century literature for grade 11, recommended by the ministry in support of Kurdiumova’s programme, we find helpful end-of-chapter questions, a bibliography of secondary literature on each writer and topic, and a glossary of literary terms.19 Ionin’s book on nineteenth-century literature, its problems of packaging notwithstanding, includes a glossary of literary terms and a bibliography of secondary literature, as well as suggestions for further thinking and reading embedded within the text. And, in a welcome departure from Russian publishing standards, Baevskii’s Istoriia russkoi literatury XX veka (1999), which is not among the books recommended by the ministry, has an index of names and concepts.20 As mentioned above, the inclusion of names and historical details about ‘returning’ authors and their works, as well as the current political context, which had been impossible in the old Communist textbooks, is a shared feature of all literature books produced today. This is strikingly apparent in books dealing with the literature of the twentieth century. For example, in Zhuravlev’s volume we find separate chapters on Andrei Platonov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelshtam, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and even a sub-chapter on postmodernism (albeit referred to as ‘so-called’ postmodernism). Baevskii’s list of ‘new’ authors is much longer and includes Symbolists, Acmeists, the Serapion brothers and émigré writers, as well as Boris Pasternak and Sergei Dovlatov. As in other new textbooks, the resurrection of formerly forbidden topics and names goes hand in hand with the elimination of the themes of the Revolution, of major works of Socialist Realism, and of the writings of Lenin. The 314

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most apparent result is a palpable theoretical and methodological confusion underlying discussions of literary developments and trends. Socialist Realism, the official ‘method’ of Soviet literature and criticism, has become an anathema. The orderly chronological progression from Romanticism through Realism to Socialist Realism – the sacred plot of the Soviet version of literary history – has been disrupted, leaving authors dazed and disoriented. Russian writers and critics of the last decade have been directly engaged with the legacy of Socialist Realism. The myths of the Soviet state have been examined and discarded in a gesture of frustration with ‘failed truths’. In this process the rhetoric of the Stalinist culture, and the Soviet culture and literature it spawned, was exposed, de-familiarized and deconstructed. The deconstruction of this culture focused on its view of history as pre-interpreted and predictable and of the world as knowable and hierarchical. Russian critics, such as Mark Lipovetskii and Evgenii Dobrenko, have written extensively on the continuities and discontinuities of Soviet/Russian literature through the prism of its engagement with Socialist Realism.21 This generalizing and defamiliarizing aspect of contemporary scholarship, however, has not affected textbook writing. The absence of a theoretically sound critical system creates a conceptual vacuum; in most books I have looked at, the story of literature is fragmented into a series of discrete vignettes on individual authors, and presented in loose chronological order without any thematic or historical links. The lack of a cogent ‘plot’ for the development of Russian literature is one of the central flaws of Zhuravlev’s volume on twentieth-century literature. Baevskii makes an initial attempt at an arrangement based on critical trends, at least for preRevolutionary literature. Yet, the moment the narrative reaches the 1930s, the presentation becomes unfocused. When a unified generalizing view is called for, the authors resort to emphasizing the national values of the officially sanctioned Soviet literature and to defending it from the charges of insignificance and irrelevance. Here, as Egorov had warned, historical memory is manipulated, and nostalgia for the glorious past comes to the fore. In a 1998 volume devoted to the teaching of literature, the authors lament the fact that in recent publications and in the study of twentieth-century literature in school one can again observe a tendency to substitute one thing for another, to throw V. Mayakovsky, A. Fadeev, M. Sholokhov, even A. Tvardovskii and others ‘from the steamship of modernity’ and to discredit the literature of the Great Patriotic War.22 The authors’ implicit call for a rehabilitation of Stalinist literature from the accusation of unworthiness is answered by V.A. Chalmaev, one of the contributors to Zhuravlev’s volume. 315

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Individual chapters in this collection vary from passable to good. Chalmaev’s task of providing a cogent overview of the period, however, is virtually impossible to accomplish in the face of a conceptual vacuum. The result is a thinly veiled apologia for the good old times of Stalinism: Evidently, in the 1930s, the minds of the people were not exclusively preoccupied with cement, concrete and the approaching military threat. It might be surprising to discover (after so many shattering ‘revelations’ and curses at this supposedly terrifying decade) that both the poignantly lyrical romances of Vadim Kozin with their somewhat old-fashioned vocabulary . . . and the playful rhythms of the young Odessa jazz musician Leonid Utesov are returning to us from the 1930s . . . We begin to understand – with difficulty, because we do not know enough about this often disparaged decade – that V.I. LebedevKumach’s ‘Song about the Homeland’ [Shiroka strana moia rodnaia] was embraced by the entire country as its first popular anthem. Apparently, then, the image of Russia as Homeland replaced that of Russia as Revolution and made it more noble. The dark prophecies of some émigrés, who said that the time after 1917 was the time ‘after Russia’, did not come to pass . . . One cannot enter the 1930s, even with the knowledge of the tragic character of this period, as if into something which is seen as a cold, dark, senseless tunnel. One should not view [those years] as a complete gap, a black hole, a ‘blank in history’, or as the time of the drastic lowering in the quality of life; and, even less so, as a cessation of movement or an immeasurable defeat of humanism. [Emphasis mine] In the paragraph immediately following, the author brings in Solzhenitsyn to support the idea that the 1930s should be viewed as ‘Stalin’s running start into the future’ (Stalinskii razbeg v budushchee). Chalmaev fails to provide a convincing impartial assessment of the period. What he offers the Russian high school students is an absolution of Stalin’s legacy.23 Perhaps the Russian Ministry of Education is oblivious to the lack of a conceptually and historically sound assessment of Russian literature in the books it recommends for schools. One might be tempted to conclude that there are no success stories in its efforts to promote the new orientation in literature teaching, but E.N. Basovskaia’s nineteenth-century text for grade 10, recommended by the ministry, would seem to contradict such a claim.24 Conceivably, the reason for the book’s effectiveness is its focus on the nineteenth century rather than on the difficult Stalinist era. Another explanation could be Basovskaia’s sole authorship of the text, which allows for consistency in approach and style. Basovskaia’s volume is erudite, yet not condescending to the student. She combines biographical information on the most important representatives of 316

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nineteenth-century literature with observations on literary, cultural and social trends. The style – warm, friendly and humorous in places – is conducive to sparking the learner’s interest in the material. Basovskaia’s device of addressing the student directly transforms the narrative from an authoritative statement into a thought-provoking conversation; above all, it shows the teacher’s respect for the imagination and intellectual independence of her readers. The book is most appropriate for teaching in the new humanities programme. Yet it does not appear on any of the lists of texts most often used in the three ‘systems’. Of course, it is not only the textbooks that contribute to the success of teaching. The teacher’s contribution is of equal weight. Yet the task of promoting learner independence and enhancing the student’s critical acuity becomes much more difficult when the book in use is not suited to the goal.

The lesson: where it all happens A successful lesson is akin to a modern theatrical performance, where both the actors and the audience eagerly participate in a lively improvisational exchange of ideas. As Evgenii Il’in reminds us in the epigraph to this chapter, the ideal lesson is ‘not a duel between the teacher and the student, but a creative laboratory’.25 But the lesson is also firmly grounded both in history and in contemporaneity; it reflects ‘educational traditions and innovations, problems and contradictions of today’s life, successes and flaws of methodological concepts, the teacher’s strengths and weaknesses, and a lot more’.26 The textbook is there to help the teacher navigate through these competing currents; unfortunately it is equally susceptible to ‘the problems and contradictions of contemporary life’. In his discussion of Russian schools under glasnost James Muckle describes a literature lesson he observed in one Moscow school in the late 1980s. The topic was Maxim Gorky, but nothing by Gorky was read; instead the lesson focused on the writer’s biography, titles of his works, and a summary of their content. The style of the lesson Muckle observed was catechistic. Students were asked a number of questions on the material, which they were expected to answer from memory. Muckle further notes that many of these questions invited an expression of opinion or literary judgment, but it was quite clear that it was not the children’s opinion or judgment that was being sought. The only acceptable answers were worded in a way which was obviously being rehearsed from lesson to lesson.27 A similar expectation of regurgitating previously memorized responses is apparent in some new textbooks. In Zhuravlev’s volume, study questions at the end of the chapter aim at 317

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eliciting recitation of a memorized text. The question to the discourse on Stalinist literature quoted above reads: ‘Why should the 1930s not be viewed as a complete gap, a black hole, a “blank in history”?’ Baevskii’s book is even more explicit in its catechistic approach. In the preface to the book the author states: The book before you is a concise history of twentieth-century Russian literature. It contains a great number of statements that pupils are advised to commit to memory or remember as close as possible to the text. For example: In literature, tradition is passed on from grandfather to grandson, rather than from father to son . . . The Parisian Note is Acmeism transported with its meagre émigré baggage from the shores of the Neva to the shores of the Seine.28 The authority of the textbook cannot be questioned; the student is expected to memorize the sentence without understanding the origins of the concepts or their relative merit. Apparently, Muckle’s assertion that the children he observed in the Russian literature class were learning ‘that the study of literature is a branch of knowledge as exact as any of the natural sciences, in which factual details of a writer’s biography and approved assessments of his work can be learned off by heart in order to demonstrate “success” in mastering the subject’, is still valid.29 Emigré students, graduates of Russian post-perestroika high schools, who take literature courses at Hunter College in New York City, where I have been teaching for the last five years, are crippled by their schooling in very significant ways. They have difficulty in arriving at conclusions on their own; for the majority, discussion and debate are foreign, as is challenging the authority of the teacher or the printed word. Cheating is common, because memorization of lecture notes and rehashing of the teacher’s ideas are the perceived way of learning the material. Inability to engage in independent critical thinking is one of the greatest disadvantages that these students have, and it is, clearly, the result of living and learning in the former Soviet Union. The aim of teaching literature should be to equip the student with these crucial skills, but thus far Russian schools do not appear to have been successful in doing so. The collapse of the ideological edifice supporting the structures of the Soviet state led to the expectation that a democratic and decentralized educational system would shape a new generation of Russian children, transforming them into full-fledged citizens of the democratic world. In the minds of the perestroika reformers, teaching of the humanities was to play a crucial role in this anticipated transformation. The textbook was to be the script for the gradual process of change, and the lesson its actualization. Yet Russian educators still appear to be far from accomplishing this momentous undertaking. The move to replace all references to the tainted legacy of Leninism and 318

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Stalinism with a catalogue of ‘returning’ names and events in Russian literature created a conceptual vacuum, now filled in some books with a vindication for the Stalinist past. The focus on the image of the Homeland and its triumphs at the expense of an objective and fair overview of the history of Russian literature leads to a distorted view of the country’s past, which is then passed on to the younger generation. The catechistic approach to learning is still used in Russian textbooks and classrooms. Nevertheless, one should not discount the efforts of progressive educators and some real achievements of the reform movement in education. The debates on the goals and ways of teaching which appear continuously in the pages of educational journals such as Pervoe sentiabria and Uchitel’skaia gazeta; the undeniable successes of the gimnaziia and litseii (which, in their choices of instructional materials, are not limited to those recommended by the ministry); and, finally, the opportunities for teachers to experiment in their classrooms and to express their opinions openly are clear indications of a system that is vibrant with the spirit of change. Boris Lanin, writing in Pervoe sentiabria about the future of the Russian school, is clearly aware of the dangers of elimination and substitution when he admonishes educators not to be fixated on ‘pseudo-patriotic demagoguery, on an undefined spirituality that has replaced the former Communist ideology (ideinost’)’.30 If Basovskaia’s volume on the nineteenth century is an indication of a trend in textbook publishing, rather than a pleasant exception, then success in the teaching of Russian literature is within reach.

Notes 1 Evgenii Il’in, ‘Vsia literatura skryta v odnoi detali’, Pervoe sentiabria 14 (1999). 2 In this chapter I focus exclusively on general public schools (obshcheobrazovatel’nye shkoly). Private schools appear to have more leeway in the choice of textbooks and programmes for their literature instruction, undoubtedly the result of the schools’ greater financial independence. See Elena Lisovskaya, ‘Analyzing New Russian Textbooks: Governmental Programs and Private Initiatives’, in International Journal of Educational Reform 4 (October 1997), pp. 431–2. 3 Maria Bucur and Ben Eklof, ‘Russia and Eastern Europe’, in Robert F. Arnove and Carlos Alebrto Torres (eds), Comparative Education: The Dialiectic of the Global and the Local, (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), p. 382. 4 See Elena Lenskaia, ‘A Decade of Reforms of Education in Russia: Conflicting Messages?’ Unpublished paper prepared for Post-Soviet Education Conference at Indiana University, 16–18 June 2000. 5 See Elena Lisovskaya, ‘Analyzing New Russian Textbooks’, pp. 428–9; also Janet G. Vaillant, ‘Reform in History and Social Studies Education in Russian Secondary Schools’, in Anthony Jones (ed), Education and Society in the New Russia (Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), p. 153. 6 The goals of the reform were humanization and emphasis on the humanities in education and the creation of a new generation of textbooks and instructional materials oriented towards national and international cultural values of modern democracies. It was set in motion by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, the State Committee on Higher Education of the Russian Federation,

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7 8 9

10 11 12

13 14

15

16

17 18

the International Fund ‘Cultural Initiative’, and the International Association of Development and Integration of Education Systems, and sponsored by George Soros. See Lisovskaya, ‘Analyzing New Russian Textbooks’, p. 429. Ibid., p. 430. Ibid., p. 432. In addition to filling in ‘blank pages’ of literary history, the content minimum offers ‘the ideals of humanism and ‘narodnost’’ of Russian literature, its patriotism and universal humanity (vsechelovechnost’)’ as the essential concepts for the study of Russian literature. See ‘Obiazatel’nyi minimum soderzhaniia srednego (polnogo) obshchego obrazovaniia. Obrazovatel’naia oblast’ Filologiia’. Webpage of the Russian Ministry of Education: http://www.informika.ru/text/school/p_min/ pr56-1-1.html. Tatiana Kalganova, ‘Shkol’nye uchebniki po literature’, Pervoe sentiabria 29 (1999), p. 1. Ibid., p. 2. The majority of books written in accordance with Belen’kii’s programme are published by Mnemozina; most of the books in support of Kutuzov’s programme are published by Drofa and are generally recommended for schools specializing in the humanities (Kalganova, ‘Shkol’nye uchebniki po literature’, pp. 2–3; Moskovskii Komitet Obrazovaniia Webpage: http://www.sps.msk.ru, pp. 1–2). My overall discussion of the three ‘systems’ in educational textbooks draws heavily on Kalganova’s summary. Two sets of textbooks were created at this stage. One was designed for general public schools and the other for schools with profiles in these subjects (s uglublennym izucheniem predmeta). According to Kalganova, the current types of instructional materials in the teaching of literature are the following: textbook–anthology (uchebnik–khrestomatiia); textbook; anthology and handbook (posobie dlia uchashchikhsia), where theoretical information is combined with exercises (used in all grades); workbook with basic questions and assignments for study (used in grades 9 and up); exercises and didactic materials; and workbooks. The following Russian writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who did not appear in the old textbooks, are included in current programmes and textbooks: V. Zhukovksii, P. Viazemskii, I. Kozlov, A. Kol’tsov, A. Del’vig, K. Batiushkov, N. Leskov, Ia. Polonskii, E. Baratynskii, I. Nikitin, A. Maikov, A.K. Tolstoi, L. Andreev, N. Karamzin, G. Uspenskii, N. Pomialovskii, K. Bal’mont, I. Annenksii, M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, A. Akhmatova, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov and some others. Eliminated from the old textbooks are: M. Prilezhaev’s, ‘Zhizn’ Lenina’; A. Tvardovskii’s ‘Lenin i pechnik’; M. Isakovskii’s ‘Duma o Lenine’; Lenin’s articles on the three stages of the liberation movement in Russia; Maxim Gorky’s Mother; D. Furmanov’s Chapaev; The Rout by A. Fadeev; N. Ostrovskii’s How Steel Was Tempered; and Lenin’s articles: ‘Lev Tolstoi as the Mirror of the Russian Revolution’, ‘L.N. Tolstoi and the Contemporary Workers Movement’, ‘Party Organization and Party Literature’, and ‘On Proletarian Culture’. S.F. Dmitrenko (ed.), Perechityvaia klassiku: Novoe v shkol’nykh programmakh: sovremennaia russkaia proza v pomoshch’ prepodavateliam, starsheklassnikam i abiturientam (Moscow: Moscow State University, 1998), p. 3. This, like all other translations from the Russian sources, is mine. Iurii Vasil’evich Egorov, ‘Komu ty opasen, istorik?’, in The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia: Trends and Perspectives (Tel Aviv: Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1999), p. 23. G.N. Ionin, Russkaia literatura XIX veka (Moscow: Mnemozina, 1997, 1999).

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19 V.P. Zhuravlev (ed.), Russkaia literatura XX veka. Uchebnik dlia 11 klassa (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1997, 1999). 20 V.S. Baevskii, Istoriia russkoi literatury XX veka: Kompendium (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury, 1999). 21 See, for example: Evgenii Dobrenko, Metafora vlasti: literatura stalinskoi epokhi v istoricheskom osveshchenii (München: Otto Sagner, 1993); idem, Izbavlenie ot mirazhei: sotsrealizm segodnia (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1990); idem, Formovka sovetskogo pisatelia: sotsial’nye i esteticheskie istoki sovetskoi literaturnoi kul’tury (Sankt-Peterburg: Akademicheskii proekt, 1999). Also Mark Lipovetskii, Russian Postmodernist Fiction (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999) and I.S. Skoropanova, Russkaia postmodernistskaia literatura (Moscow: Nauka, 1999). 22 S.Z. Tikeeva and N.I. Onufrieva, ‘Vvedenie’, in Russkaia literatura XX veka v vuze i shkole: monografiia (Sterlitamak, 1998), pp. 3–6. 23 Zhuravlev, Russkaia lieteratura XX veka. For more on the nationalistic slant of Russian textbooks, see Elena Lisovskaya and Vyacheslav Karpov, ‘New Ideologies in Postcommunist Russian Textbooks’, pp. 522–43. 24 E.N. Basovskaia, Russkaia literatura vtoroi poloviny XIX veka. Uchebnoe posobie dlia 10 klassa srednei shkoly (Moscow: Olimp, 1998). 25 See note 1. 26 Aleksei Azevich, ‘Dumy nashi, dumy . . .’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 40 (5 October 1999), or http://www.ug.ru/99.40/index.htm. 27 James Muckle, Portrait of a Soviet School under Glasnost (London: Macmillan, 1990), p. 101. 28 Baevskii, Istoriia russkoi literatury XX veka, p. 6. 29 Muckle, Portrait of a Soviet School, p. 101. 30 Boris Lanin, ‘Kakoi budet literatura v 12-letnei shkole?’, Pervoe sentiabria 29 (1999).

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14 T HE C ONDUCT OF LES S ONS IN THE RUSSIAN SCH OOL Is real change on the way? James Muckle

Emerging recognition of the importance of the subject The behaviour of Russian teachers in their classrooms and the manner in which they expected their pupils to behave was once at best cursorily treated and for the most part neglected by researchers and writers about the Russian or Soviet education systems. There is now a growing realization that what goes on in lessons is crucial in understanding the nature, ethos and spirit of the education system – any education system. What happens in Russian schools today may rightly be expected to betray the underlying attitudes and assumptions of teachers in the new age. The purpose of this exploratory chapter is to consider what appears to be going on inside the Russian classroom today, and what leading educators and theorists believe should be taking place there.

Classroom research In Britain ‘classroom interaction research’ became popular in the 1970s. For Russia, we have evidence of what went on in classrooms in earlier times, admittedly anecdotal, but valuable none the less. Some memoirists recorded impressions of their own schooldays1 and innovative teachers recounted their own lessons and spread propaganda for the new approaches they sought to introduce.2 I myself published the first reasonably systematic accounts by a westerner of classroom interactions in the Soviet school in the 1980s;3 a more recent, more far-reaching German–Russian study relates to the early 1990s.4 It is difficult for anyone who is or has been a practising schoolteacher not to see schools from the classroom outwards. This has the advantage that the ‘real’ business of schooling never passes from sight. Its disadvantage is that research into teacher and pupil behaviour in the classroom is beset by problems of perception and the difficulty of recording what goes on and of 322

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interpreting it. The researcher should not be discouraged by these problems, but we should be aware that no classroom observer can be entirely objective if anything worthwhile is to be discovered.

Classroom practice in context It is scarcely necessary to point out that the manner in which lessons are conducted owes more than a little to the way children are tested and assessed, to the assumptions made by those who compile curricula, to the leadership of the school and the education system, and to the conception of knowledge held by society. At certain times in history psychologists’ insights into the way children learn have come at the bottom of this list. Some educators claim that the way learners are treated in a classroom is a human rights issue. Philosophers dispute whether education itself is a ‘human right’, and some declare that it is something to which we aspire, rather than an inalienable right like that to food or shelter.5 A matter more relevant to our present discussion is raised by Articles 27 and 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), classed as a ‘universal consensual agreement’, which claim the child’s right to ‘human dignity’ in relation to school discipline and preparation for ‘responsible life in a free society’. These aspirations – let us call them that – are strongly relevant to classroom practice. We have all seen lessons – not only in Russia – in which the development of respect for fundamental freedoms was encouraged, if at all, by their being denied in class, when children’s right to human dignity was infringed and where by no stretch of the imagination were pupils being prepared for responsible life in a free society. We should keep in mind that ‘traditional’ does not mean ‘bad’ and ‘innovative’, ‘good’. This discussion will be value-laden, but not to the extent of rejecting all but modern methods. Some questions may be posed. First, what do we expect from education in a free society? Pupils and students need to know facts, formulae, words and names, which may best be learned in the first place by rote. They need certain skills, such as speaking and understanding foreign languages, singing or playing an instrument, painting, modelling, making things. Mastery of their native language is essential. They must learn to be critical, sceptical of received ideas, to seek and assess evidence, to argue a case, to make rational judgements and to know to what extent they are unable to do so. They need understanding of the natural world in its broadest sense, as well as of technology, and they must learn to discover knowledge. They must be able to present their findings and judgements in written and oral form. They must be aware of the whole world of ideas, the environment, the arts. Their emotions and aesthetic sense need developing too, as does the ‘spiritual’ side of their nature, however we define that. Second, what are the consequences of this for the way in which ‘instruction’ is carried on in the classroom? It must be emphasized that we are speaking of a free society, not one in which an official approach is laid down and followed 323

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in every important respect. Classroom interaction must – in a liberal society – be open, even if the teacher is firmly in control of the progress of the lesson and is working in a ‘traditional’ way. The lesson may include times, perhaps lengthy periods, when the teacher is imparting information. There may be questioning of the pupils or students. Discussion among pupils, involving the teacher or not, will take place. Pupils may work individually on materials provided by the teacher or found by them from some other source. Students may work in pairs or in groups under the direct or indirect supervision of the teacher. The subject matter may have been selected by the teacher, or may to some degree have been chosen by the learners. Conclusions reached at the end of the process will often be adjudicated by the teacher and conform fully to his or her views, but sometimes debate will be open-ended, no consensus will be reached, or the students may disagree with each other and with the teacher. Such outcome may be considered ‘educational’, especially if the process by which it was reached involved learning to think and argue. And in a free society, students, like Dostoevsky’s underground man, must be free even to deny, against all the evidence, that two twos are four.6 If freedom does not mean that, it does not mean very much!

The history of teaching methods in Russia Discussion of Russian lessons today must take place against the background of Russian classroom ‘culture’ of bygone ages. Surprising as it may seem, some Russian educators do not recognize that the Russian classroom ethos is any different from that in other countries. They consider the traditional Russian approach to be universal, while outsiders have no difficulty in detecting a distinct national flavour to the urok (lesson). Let us look first at what we know about Russian pedagogy, both traditional and innovative, of the past. This knowledge derives from the writings of theorists and practitioners, and from the educational press. A real feeling for what went on can best be obtained from the memoirs of several Russian literary figures who wrote thoughtfully, some of them at length, others only briefly, about their schooldays and their teachers. The whole nineteenth and early twentieth century is covered by such writers as Aksakov, Korolenko, Kushchevskii, Aleksei Tolstoi, Lev Tolstoi, Erenburg, Veresaev and Chukovskii. The impression these writers convey is on the whole lamentable. Stupid rules and regulations, brutality, prejudice and partiality on the part of teachers, school leaders and administrators, and particularly the view of the lesson as a formal, often rigid, performance in which pupils typically ‘shone’ only if they had studied the subject matter by themselves outside school. The lesson was thus a testing-ground rather than an opportunity for learning. That this jaundiced view of tsarist education is not exclusive to the recipients of instruction is proved by the manifesto of the Union of Secondary School teachers of 1905:

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Completely lacking confidence in the pedagogical tact of the teacher, the system vetoes informal relations with the pupils, thereby annulling the opportunity for a varied and sophisticated discussion of academic questions and current issues. This political tendency has been especially harmful to the teaching of history and literature, eliminating the vital and serious issues, representing the rest in a false and superficial light. Censorship of the teacher’s speech is closely bound to censorship of textbooks.7 This black picture clearly indicts the state with encouraging lacklustre teaching and a stultifying classroom atmosphere. One might hope that it is not the whole story, though it would seem to be a fair representation of what many schools, even leading ones, were like before the 1917 Revolution. Several Russian educators pressed a different policy. V.F. Odoevskii (1803–69), one of the first Russian teachers to realize the importance of children’s stages of development, believed that education should be absorbing, attractive and enjoyable to children, without – it was necessary to add in the nineteenth century – being merely entertaining. K.D. Ushinskii (1824–71), while maintaining that children must be taught that learning was work, argued that motivating pupils was important, and that a variety of activities in the classroom was essential in achieving this end. Lev Tolstoi was influenced by Froebel and Pestallozzi, and his activity in the education of peasant children is the subject of continued interest abroad, as well as in Russia, though his pedagogical work was confined to a very few years around 1860. Tolstoi’s educational arrogance can perhaps be excused by the strength of the stupefyingly rigid tradition he opposed. Some of these men achieved high office in education in the Russian Empire, but often they lost it in the face of opposition from the martinets and controllers of thought; Tolstoi’s school was raided by the police. ‘Progressive’ educational practices were perceived as being extremely dangerous politically, as indeed they are. Yet, the same memoirists who deplored the education they received in famous schools often divulged that there was one schoolmaster, sometimes more, with whom they carried on a lifetime friendship. There must have been some good teaching in the Russian gymnasiums, even if it was ‘traditional’. The liberating effect of stimulating ideas presented by a fine mind in a classroom setting cannot be gainsaid.

The Soviet classroom Most important for understanding what is happening in Russian classrooms today is the ethos of the Soviet classroom. Here again, the picture is not uniform, though a predominant culture may be perceived. We are now into the period of living memory; many non-Russian readers of these lines will have attended lessons in Soviet schools, and may have strong impressions of their 325

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‘flavour’. Yet the 1920s was a period of experimentation with open, free systems of classroom organization. One of Ognev’s famous books,8 which relate to the 1920s, paints a vivid picture of life in a secondary school at the time when a chaotic version of Helen Parkhurst’s ‘Dalton Plan’ was being introduced. If the debate described in the novel reads more like adolescent political hectoring than real discussion, then at least we learn that the authority of the teacher, of knowledge and of the system as a whole was thoroughly questioned. According to conventional wisdom, such experimentation was dropped in the 1930s, discipline re-established, and the ‘Soviet’ system as we know it firmly rooted. This is doubtless true in general. Forward-looking luminaries of the Soviet education system such as V.A. Sukhomlinskii and V.V. Davydov, while praised as a matter of routine in later Soviet years, were actually regarded in their day as subversive and their ideas quietly sidelined. Nevertheless, A.I. Adamskii, one of the leading ‘teacher-innovators’ of the 1980s and 1990s, reminds us that the tradition of creative and developmental education was alive, if only just, from the 1950s onwards.9 My own investigations of classroom interactions in the Soviet school took place between 1980 and 1988.10 Outside of the foreign language classroom I found few examples in the earlier part of this period of children being allowed any real freedom of thought, or of working independently or in groups, and even in language lessons the practice was severely disapproved of by some experts. The spirit of the Soviet lesson before glasnost I summed up in the following terms: There was a strong emphasis on factual content, a reluctance to admit to controversy or uncertainty on any point, a consequent tendency to reduce aesthetic or what one might call philosophical subjects to a catalogue of stereotyped statements, little consideration of the child as recipient of all this, a strongly formal atmosphere, and stress on classroom rituals which amounts sometimes to turning the lesson into a ceremony. The subject matter most of all and the teacher in second place are firmly in control of all that happens. Children’s ideas are accepted if they conform to teacher expectation, but are otherwise rarely explored. So, at least, it seems to the visitor, who is likely in the very nature of things to find the teacher on his or her best behaviour.11 That was before glasnost. Change did not begin abruptly in 1985 when the notion was first promulgated. The window did not open all at once: a draught was blowing for some while before. It was prised wide open, it seemed to me, by primary teachers, foreign language teachers and proponents of arts education. The early 1980s were a time when innovative Soviet teachers, such as Shatalov, Lysenkova and Adamskii, became more visible. At this time Shalva Amonashvili began publishing his books on primary education, which were seen as controversial by the old guard and exciting by the hundreds of thou326

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sands of parents who bought them.12 Moves for reform were not by any means unopposed. Traditionally-minded educators protested that relatively modest adjustments of attitude and practice were all that was required; there was supposed to be nothing basically wrong with the system. Soviet success in the exploration of space was and still is endlessly quoted as proof of the high quality of the education system: the fact that very little else worked or that services were barely of an acceptable standard was ignored. Reformers were accused of spoiling it for everybody else: if children were to express their own ideas, that would make it more difficult for the ‘real’ teachers who seated them in rows and told them the ‘correct’ answers. Also, some teachers, on realizing that the old interpretations of historical and political events were no longer acceptable, taught new ones – by rote, as ever. We should not underestimate the problems for the traditional, particularly older, teacher. It is far from clear that many wish to change their ways. The ‘goose-stuffing’ method is easy to do, easy to test; it was the ‘Soviet way’ and, as we have seen, it was held to have been very successful. To organize lessons and sessions in a participative way is difficult, and may be irksome for the teacher who enjoys preparing and presenting a lecture. New approaches create problems for the in-service development of teachers, which are widely acknowledged. Even more difficult is the change consequent upon educational aims of a new type. The famous composer Dmitrii Kabalevskii, who went into schools at the age of seventy to work out a comprehensive new system of music education, began by irritating the traditionalists when he called his lessons ‘music’ instead of ‘singing’. Even this was too much for some to bear! One can, however, imagine the consternation when it was declared that the principal aims of his teaching were to interest children in music as a living art form and to encourage them to seek musical experience outside of school. How could one test that such aims had been achieved? The goals of Russian music teachers had always been more concrete, such as teaching the meaning of ‘allegro’ or ‘staccato’. Such things are easy to teach by rote and it is very easy to test whether they have been learned. There was ferocious opposition; even the Institute for Research into Arts Education of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APN), decidedly uneasy at what the grand old man of Soviet music was doing, allegedly wasted a million rubles on useless projects which were intended mainly to undermine Kabalevskii’s work.13

The new era How much of the spirit of the Soviet lesson has survived into the new age? In answering this question we should first consider the work of the Russian–German team led by Detlev Glowka. Their investigations, carried out in 1992–93, provide a very illuminating picture of life in schools at that time. Here is a catalogue of findings which comprise a bird’s-eye view of classroom practice. Inductive working, learning by doing, is virtually unknown in the 327

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Russian classroom. The team ‘gained the impression that any instruction . . . is regarded by most Russian children almost as inescapable necessity [Schicksal – fate] which can at best be only marginally changed, and which simply has to be accepted’. They felt that the western child-oriented approach was replaced in Russia by the warmth and motherliness of the teacher, which made less palatable material acceptable. On the moral side, it was observed that many Russian teachers were still trying to ‘save children’s souls’ (p. 154), by imposing ‘desirable’ values. In combination with traditional Russian authoritarianism, this ‘bodes ill for the democratization of the instructional style’. Russian children seem more relaxed in class than German ones: this the team explains by the fact that an authoritarian manner imparts a feeling of security. Russian children have a carping, critical attitude to each others’ classroom contributions (while German pupils are much more supportive). Competition is much more obvious in the Russian class than in Germany, despite the collective ethos; Russian teachers praise much less than Germans, but make much clearer the extent to which their expectations have been reached. A strong point is made of the fact that Russian teachers place their pupils under great emotional pressure. The researchers give an example of a lesson on Beethoven and the Moonlight Sonata in which, ‘if it had been technically possible, the teacher would have made the moon rise in the classroom’. Published lesson notes, it may be added, often advise the teacher to speak to the children emotsional’no (emotionally) about some issue. In the teaching of Russian the division between language and literature seemed to be absolute. Only the ‘high style’ of language was acceptable as matter for study. Colloquial speech was not only discouraged in classroom exchanges, but was unthinkable as a topic for investigation. Children’s language in lessons was monologisch and formal. In literature, a rigid canon of acceptable works exists. Pupils are told about texts, while the literary works themselves are not central to the teaching, are rarely present in the lessons, and the children do not work on them in class. Philological issues are secondary; biographical ones predominate, along with ready-made assessments of literary works. Content predominates. There is little discovery of literature, but much confirmation-learning. Perhaps most revealing was the reaction of the Russian members of the team of educators in this project: they found German literature lessons ‘cool’, ‘distant’ and ‘lacking in moral power and human warmth’. This tells us a very great deal about the way the Russian literature lesson is meant to be conveyed. It should be reiterated that good teaching may be either traditional or innovative. A thoughtful teacher will make use of a variety of approaches, according to the aims of particular lessons. If it can be shown that post-Soviet schools both allow and encourage contrasting styles of teaching, we shall know, in the words of the question posed in the title of this chapter, that productive change is on the way. The Russian professional press provides some evidence of this, examples of which now follow. 328

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That there must be change is not disputed by leading Russian educators. Democratic ideals require that education be ‘humanized’ – a key word in Russian education for the last ten or fifteen years. ‘As long as the classical didactic model . . . keep[s] repeating [itself], all we are going to have is what we already have’, writes the deputy director of the Institute for Development of Vocational Education.14 Plenty of writers on education understand the difficulties, know something of what is necessary and argue for change. Their views are not uniform, their emphases are different, and their manner is diverse. However, certain themes recur. That of multi-level instruction is commonly raised. I first encountered open discussion of this with foreigners – and not foreigners of a particularly high professional status, namely a group of my own students – in 1988, in relation to mathematics teaching. V.A. Karakovskii15 advocated differentiated instruction in his progressive Moscow school. N. Ivanova more recently recommends the approach, again in mathematics.16 Soviet education was criticized for its lack of concern for the developmental stages of the child. This was despite apparent respect for the work of the psychologist Vygotskii. His great western counterpart Piaget, sometimes wrongly regarded as being in opposition to Vygotskii, reportedly saw little in the latter’s writing which conflicted with his own monumental work (though it was often misunderstood or only partly understood) on child development. To concentrate on the child as an individual is to ‘humanize’ education in the post-Soviet sense of the word.17 Now there is plenty of evidence that Russian teachers seek to place the child at the centre of their efforts, rather than stuff knowledge into ‘little pitchers’, as Charles Dickens put it in Hard Times. A significant example comes from a rural school in the Republic of Karelia, where one teacher, a disciple of El’konin and Davydov, succeeded in winning over at least some sceptical colleagues to the notion of developmental education.18 I have visited this school, and can vouch for the fact that it is in a deprived, poverty-stricken village, though in close touch with the local teacher-training university (the Karelian State Pedagogical University at Petrozavodsk). If the idea can take root in the village of Chalna, it can probably do so in many other places. A significant fact in this regard is that D.B. El’konin and V.V. Davydov’s system dates back to their experiments during the school year 1962–63, deep in the Soviet era, and interest in it today represents continuity with earlier innovative moves as well as a fresh departure. Several writers appeal for a creative approach by teachers. In the article mentioned above, Ivanova tries hard to persuade timid teachers to be adventurous rather than safe.19 Khutorskoi advocates a system in which pupils share in the formulation of their own syllabuses according to their interests.20 He comments that many of the winners of school olimpiady, the inter-school prize competitions so beloved of Russian education, are classed as ‘difficult’ pupils: the olimpiada, apparently, is an opportunity for them to break out of the mould and shine. This may not always be the case: the syllabus for the 329

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Russian-language olimpiada of 1999 contained a new creative section of great interest, but it was an extra, vne konkursa – the dull old grammar-grind sections were decisive. Several articles show teachers reflecting seriously on the content and form of various teaching styles. A. Gin21 writes in a way that shows he is trying to make the traditional lesson more challenging by involving the class in its conduct. E.S. Antonova22 grapples with the standard way of separating Russian language from literature, which we have already commented upon, and argues that children will understand the importance of language in communicating ideas when they fully appreciate its crucial role in literary expression. A similar line is taken by A.A. Murashev,23 who deplores the teaching of grammatical rules as a first step, before children have acquired an intuitive appreciation of grammar and syntax from good models. Karakovskii advocates imaginative project work. L.A. Shipacheva promotes all sorts of humorous, entertaining but productive ways to enliven native language teaching – problem-solving, role-play, word games, puzzles, drama, competitions – and to stimulate interest in linguistic issues and establish the conviction that language matters.24 A.A. Miroliubov recognizes the need for varied methodology in foreign language teaching, depending on the age of the children and the nature of the course they are taking.25 Narodnoe obrazovanie, for example, contains several articles on the use of field work in instruction.26 While this idea is accepted in the west, children’s own practical activities are far less common in Russia. Even in the science classroom demonstrations of experiments by the teacher have always been much more common than practical work carried out by the children themselves; ‘excursions’, however, have always been popular (though they are usually occasions for the children to look rather than do). E.V. Korotaeva27 goes into some detail on group work in the classroom, and her advocacy of it is all the stronger because she does not fail to point out its dangers and difficulties. The advantages she lists include team-building, social education and interpersonal skills, motivation of pupils from their involvement in the learning process, and the development of analytical skills. This concept differs greatly from ‘goose-stuffing’. Many of the writers quoted above are prominent theorists, but a fair smattering of practising classroom teachers is to be found among them. It should now be clear that leaders of the Russian teaching profession are arguing for significant change in classroom behaviour and that some at least are putting it into practice. A recent interesting example of comparative research deserves attention. Carried out by a young university teacher, it throws light on the feelings of individual young schoolteachers in Russia about change in the system. Michele Schweisfurth28 examined teachers’ attitudes to the way they should teach in Russia and in her native South Africa, based on the hypothesis that there might be similarities in these two countries, which are both facing societal change. Indeed there were. Schweisfurth found some unease about any total rejection of the past in both content and form of teaching. Some 330

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teachers were defensive, even ashamed, of their previous role in promoting Communism (or apartheid). Many Russians preferred the collectivist ethic to modern individualism and selfishness. Some, even young, teachers were ‘unaware and unquestioning of . . . their practice’ and some wanted a new ideology to promote in place of the old – and, presumably, by the same methods. Some appeared to comply with new requirements strategically; some denied the impact or even the reality of the intended reforms; some ignored reform and merely re-named time-honoured practices. Schweisfurth concludes that teachers give qualified support to reform, but ‘they could use as much support as possible to help them to produce effectively these difficult – perhaps traumatic – transformations’.29 Some of the foregoing information may seem a little discouraging, since it appears to show that the desire for change and the ability to effect it are not universal, even if awareness of the need for it has been raised. It would be as well to remember that the impact of education is not always the expected one. Teachers in the Soviet age set out to produce political conformism in their pupils, but when perestroika arrived many young people were well equipped to discuss the new situation. Larry Holmes’ recent study of Moscow School No. 25 in the 1930s found, despite the fact that Communist orthodoxy was very highly prized, that pupils ‘believed that especially their classes in literature inspired critical thinking and humanist values necessary for a later [my emphasis – J.M.] re-evaluation of the Soviet system’.30 The crucial question for education in Russia today is not merely ‘is it innovative or traditional?’, so much as ‘does it – whatever the style – promote critical thinking?’

Conclusions It sounds disparaging (although this is far from my intention) to say that such conclusions as the above are unsurprising. This simply means that they are what one might reasonably expect in the circumstances. Russia has endured two or three centuries in which strict conformity has been demanded in the content and presentation of education. Some, but not all, rebelled against this notion at different times, but rebellion was in the past usually quelled. Now, all of a sudden, teachers brought up in this tradition are being asked to change their behaviour radically and to work towards democratization in education as in society. We cannot be surprised if some accept new requirements more enthusiastically than others, if many have great difficulty in mending their ways, if some resist strongly, either on genuine intellectual grounds or out of prejudice. Reform in Soviet education failed again and again. Is post-Soviet reform going to be any different? We must not expect too much. Educational change in other countries is often slow to materialize. In England change in teaching methods and approaches has come about in the last fifteen years because of significant reforms in the examinations and assessment system, which made it impossible for teachers to 331

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continue in the old ways. Prior to that, the enforced introduction of comprehensive education and unstreamed classes made a reconsideration of teaching methods inevitable. The publication of attractive teaching materials and the arrival of new technology have also had a part to play in the reform of methods in England. A rigorous, though unpopular, new inspection regime has opened the ‘secret garden’ of the classroom to the outside in a way that was once far less common. So what of Russia? A few factors are conducive to more rapid change. There the ‘open lesson’ has always been more part of the educational environment and teachers have always expected to discuss what they are doing with colleagues. The regular in-service training courses have always been mightily unpopular, but they do make it difficult for a teacher to go through a career without ever questioning his or her attitudes. While there are doubtless many conservative practitioners, there are also many who respond to new ideas. On the other hand, funding of education in Russia is so inadequate at present that it will be hard for schools to implement new approaches and to buy the new courses and textbooks that will accelerate reform of teaching. Assessment methods will doubtless prove important.31 Fine ideals of democratization and humanization will oil the wheels, but will only go so far. Change in the classroom will be real only if all other aspects of the system encourage and require it.

Notes 1 James Muckle, ‘Secondary Education in Russia: Some Eyewitnesses Relate Their Experiences’, in Janusz Tomiak (ed.), Thomas Darlington’s Report on Education in Russia (London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1987), pp. 34–43. John McNair, ‘The School as Prison: The Myth of the Gymnaziums in Russian Literature’, Irish Slavonic Studies 11 (1990), pp. 57–72. 2 Lev Tolstoi is a particularly well-known example; see the articles on education in L.N. Tolstoi, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. VIII (Moscow, 1959). 3 James Muckle, ‘The Foreign Language Lesson in the Soviet Union: Observing Teachers at Work’, Modern Languages 3 (1981), pp. 153–63; ‘Classroom Interactions in Some Soviet and English Schools’, Comparative Education 3 (1984), pp. 237–51; ‘Learning in Class: What Lessons in the Soviet School Are Like’, ‘English Lessons I and II’, in James Muckle, Portrait of a Soviet School under Glasnost (London: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 98–144. 4 Detlef Glowka et al. (eds), Schulen und Unterricht im Vergleich: Russland/Deutschland (Münster/ New York: Waxmann, 1995). 5 The issue of education as a human right is discussed by Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (London: Duckworth, 1977). 6 F.M. Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, translated by Michael R. Katz (New York: Norton, 1989), Chapter 3. 7 Quoted and translated by James C. McClelland, Autocrats and Academics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1979, p. 30. 8 N. Ognyov [pseudonym of M.G. Rozanov], The Diary of a Communist Schoolboy (London: Gollancz, 1928), and The Diary of a Communist Undergraduate (London: Gollancz, 1929). The first of these was reissued in English as Kostya Ryabtsev’s Diary (Moscow: Progress, 1978). 9 A.I. Adamsky, ‘Democratic Values in Russian Education 1955–93: An Analytical

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10 11 12

13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31

Review of the Cultural and Historical Background to Reform’, in David N. Aspin, Judith D. Chapman and Isak D. Froumin (eds), Creating and Managing the Democratic School (London/Washington DC: Falmer Press, 1995), pp. 86–99. James Muckle, works cited above. Muckle, Portrait of a Soviet School under Glasnost, p. 104. Shalva Amonashvili, Zdravstvuite, deti (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1983), and Kak zhivete, deti? (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1986). The print-runs were 400,000 for the former and 500,000 for the latter, indicating the expected level of interest at a time when the sales of a book were a matter for state planning. See B. Volkov, ‘Protivostoianie tsenoi v million’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 20 February 1986, p. 3. A. Gladunov, contributing to a discussion reported in ‘On Humanization and Humanitarization. In Short, How Things Are . . .’, Russian Education and Society 1 (1999), pp. 26–41, this quotation p. 29. Translated [‘O gumanizatsii, gumanitarizatsii: slovom, o sostoianii . . .’] from Alma Mater 8 (1997), pp. 17–21. V.A. Karakovsky, ‘The School in Russia Today and Tomorrow’, Compare 3 (1993), pp. 277–86. N. Ivanova, ‘Tvorcheskoe dos’e uchitelia’, Narodnoe obrazovanie 7–8 (1999), pp. 22–4. The view is put by several contributors to the discussion ‘On Humanization and Humanitarization’, pp. 31ff. N. Dolgova and I. Danilova, ‘Self-Assessment Russian Style’, Education in Russia, the Independent States and Eastern Europe (ERISEE)2 (1998), pp. 73–6. See note 16. A. Khutorskoi, ‘Vykhod iz kapkana: evristicheskoe obuchenie kak real’nost’’, Narodnoe obrazovanie 9 (1999), pp. 120–6. A. Giri, ‘Sovremennyi urok: problemy i poiski’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 5 October 1999, pp. 8–9. E.S. Antonova, ‘Znat’ ili ponimat’?’, Russkii iazyk v shkole 3 (1999), pp. 10–18. A.A. Murashev, ‘Obuchenie russkomu iazyku i gramotnost’’, Russkii iazyk v shkole 6 (1999), pp. 3–11. L.A. Shipacheva, ‘Nestandartnye zadaniia na urokakh russkogo iazyka’, Russkaia slovesnost’ 5 (2000), pp. 16–19. A.A. Miroliubov, “New Perspectives on the Study of Foreign Languages in the Schools’, Russian Education and Society 1 (1999), pp. 64–70. Narodnoe obrazovanie 10 (1999), pp. 152–64. E.V. Korotaeva, ‘Interaktivnoe obuchenie’, Russkii iazyk v shkole 5 (1999), pp. 3–8. Michele Schweisfurth, ‘Teachers and Democratic Change in Russia and South Africa’, ERISEE 1 (2000), pp. 2–8. See also Michele Schweisfurth, Teachers, Democratisation and Educational Reform in Russia and South Africa (Oxford: Symposium, 2002). Ibid., p. 8. Larry E. Holmes, Stalin’s School: Moscow’s Model School No. 25, 1931–37 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), p. 104. When the earliest version of this chapter was presented in Bloomington, my view was parodied by a Russian participant in the conference as representing a ‘typically English view that a change in assessment methods can cure any methodological problem’. This grossly misrepresents and exaggerates my view, but in general I am unrepentant. It is patently obvious that the traditional Russian oral exam, for which pupils are drilled in answers learned by rote, had a disastrous effect on learning, on real achievement and indeed on the whole concept of education which pupils take with them into life. A change in such examination methods could only be for the better.

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AP P ENDIX A Russian education system

Source: OECD, Reviews of National Policies in Education: the Russian Federation, p. 170. Copyright OECD, 1998.

334

AP P ENDIX B Russian general school system

School years

1992/93

1993/94

1994/95

1995/96

1996/97

Number of pupils (thousands)

20,503

20,565

21,104

21,521

21,682

Number of state schools

68,270

68,110

68,187

68,446

68,259

Among them: Primary schools

17,215

17,231

17,142

17,124

16,769

Basic schools

14,539

14,145

13,944

13,755

13,596

7,026

6,849

7,525

8,200

8,097

368

447

525

540

1998/99 1999/2000

2000/01

2001/02

Schools with expanded curricula Non-state schools School years

1997/98

Number of pupils (thousands)

21,683

21,429

20,641

19,821

19,190

Number of state schools

67,862

67,321

66,367

65,899

65,665

Among them: Primary schools

16,332

15,781

15,346

14,848

14,237

Basic schools

13,378

13,198

12,808

12,586

12,401

7,580

6,159

5,596

5,316

5,298

570

568

Schools with expanded curricula Non-state schools

Source: http://www.edu.ru/index.php?page_id=114.

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662

AP P ENDIX C Core curricula of the Russian school system1

Field

Subject

Number of hours per week I

Philology

II III

I

II III

Russian language 3 as state language

3

3

3

3

Languages and literature

6

5

5

6

5

5

5

4

Mathematics Mathematics Information technology Social sciences

History Civics Geography Environmental studies

1

1

1

X

XI2

5

4

4

5

5

4

4

4

5

6

5

5

2

4

6

6

6

6

IV

V

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

6

5

5

8

7

7

5

4

4

4

5

5

5

2

4

2

1

2

VI VII VIII IX

2

Natural sciences

Biology Physics Chemistry

Art

Music and fine arts

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

Physical education

Sport Personal safety and living skills

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

3

3

Technology

Technology 2 Manual, agr. and industrial arts Mechanical drawing

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

3

2

2

5

5

2

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5 12

12

Subjects chosen by pupils from a list of compulsory courses, electives, individual and group studies (6-day study week)

5

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APPENDIX C

Field

Number of hours per week I

Maximum course load for 6-day study week

I

II III

IV

V

VI VII VIII IX

X XI2

25 25 25 22 25 25 25 31 32 34 35 35 36 36

Subjects chosen by pupils 2 from a list of compulsory courses, electives, individual and group studies (5-day study week) Maximum course load for 5-day study week

II III

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

9

9

22 22 22 20 22 22 22 28 29 31 32 32 33 33

Source: http://www.mschools.ru/old/basis_plan.htm. Notes 1 Approved by the Russian Ministry of Education (supplement to the decree of the Ministry of Education of RF no. 322 of 9/2/1998) 2 Figures are for three-year primary school (I, II, III), four-year primary school (I, II, III, IV) and basic and complete secondary school (V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI).

337

GLOSSARY

Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APS) as of 1992, the Russian Academy of Education Compulsory Content Minimum of Education (Obiazatel’nyi minimum soderzhaniia obrazovaniia) referred to sometimes as the core requirements; The main normative documents (1998 for primary schools and 1999 for secondary schools) establishing a level of knowledge and preparedness which school graduates must be provided and which should be demonstrated by proficiency exams at the end of study. The Compulsory Minimum for secondary school determines the requirements of the unified or standardized state matriculation exams (edinyi gosudarstvennyi ekzamen). Kul’tprop the Culture and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Modernization Programme a programme to develop the Russian educational system, based on the ‘Concept of Modernization of Russian Education to 2010’, prepared by the Education Ministry of Russia in cooperation with other federal agencies and approved by the Government of the Russian Federation in 2001. A later component, the Modernization of Pedagogical Education, was approved in 2003. Narkompros see People’s Commissariat of Education olimpiada (pl. olimpiady) nationwide inter-school educational competition pedology a field which originated in the west but achieved special importance in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. It focused on the consequence of inheritance and the social environment on children’s development, and, in so doing, combined elements of biology, psychology, pedagogy and sociology. Pedology continued to be popular into the early 1930s, but in the wake of shifts in Soviet educational policy was banned by a CPSU Central Committee decree of 4 July 1936. Interest in pedology was renewed in the 1990s. People’s Commissariat of Education (Narodnyi komissariat prosveshcheniia – Narkompros) also translated as People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment, established 1917; since 1946 the Ministry of Education. raspredelenie a planned, centralized and state controlled system of allocation of 338

G L O S S A RY

graduates of technicums and higher educational institutions to places of work, including schools. Graduates thereby compensated the state for the free education and living stipends they received in state institutions. The system was abandoned in the post-Soviet period. In the late 1990s interest was rekindled in state raspredelenie, especially for graduates of pedagogical institutions, since fewer than half of pedvuzy graduates ever teach. state standards the set of norms and requirements which define compulsory minimum for the content of education, maximum permissible course load and the required level of preparation for graduates. Temporary Scientific Research Group – Shkola (Vremennyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii kollektiv – Shkola; VNIK – Shkola) an ad hoc research team headed by Edward Dneprov; set up in 1988 at the State Committee of Education to develop a programme for restructuring school curricula and teaching methods. Taking part in this effort were members of the Academy of Sciences, academics in institutions of higher education and teachers. In 1990 the Centre for Innovation at the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Science was formed on the basis of VNIK. uniform salary scale (edinaia tarifnaia setka – ETS) introduced in 1993 (and revised in 1995). This system set salaries uniformly throughout the country on a scale of 1–18 with new teachers beginning at 7 (later, 8) and progressing to level 11 according to years employed, or position occupied, and on to higher levels based on teacher appraisal. VNIK – Shkola see Temporary Scientific Research Group.

Types of schools avtorskaia shkola an experimental state institution based on a psychological–pedagogical and/or organizational–pedagogical concept formulated by an individual or collective. Avtorskye shkoly were designated as such by nationwide competitions. The term was used extensively at the end of the 1980s. These schools are typically known by the names of their conceptual authors – the more famous of them include the Karakovskii, Iamburg, Davydov and Tubel’skii schools. basic school (osnovnaia obshcheobrazovatel’naia shkola) incomplete (lower) secondary school (grades 5–9). In practice the basic school includes the primary school (the first four grades) and therefore provides a primary and basic educational curriculum. The basic school is compulsory; its graduates can continue their education in a complete secondary school, lower vocational or secondary vocational schools. general school (obshcheobrazovatel’naia shkola) termed also regular/general public/comprehensive – as distinguished from a vocational school. In accordance with the Law on Education the general school in Russia consists of three levels: primary school (nachal’naia obshcheobrazovatel’naia shkola – grades 1–4); basic school (osnovnaia obshcheobrazovatel’naia 339

G L O S S A RY

shkola – grades 5–9); and complete secondary school (polnaia srednaia obshcheobrazovatel’naia shkola – currently grades 10–11 with plans to include a twelfth grade). The first two levels are compulsory; complete secondary education is not compulsory and can be obtained either in general or in vocational schools. gymnasium (gimnaziia) secondary school in pre-revolutionary Russia, emphasizing primarily classical – both Greek and Latin – education. Gymnasiums were abolished in Soviet Russia (1918) and re-established in late 1980s as secondary schools with expanded courses in humanities. kolledzh institution launched in the Russian Federation at the beginning of the 1990s. They usually consist of reorganized technicums (sometimes even a PTU with an upgraded curriculum). lyceum (litsei) nineteenth-century Russian educational institution with various curricula: some were intermediate between secondary school and college, some corresponded to university faculties. The lyceums were reestablished in Russia in the late 1980s as secondary general or vocational schools with expanded curricula in natural sciences and technology. pedvuz (pl. pedvuzy) higher education teacher training institutes. In the 1990s a significant portion of these, in particular in major cities, were transformed into pedagogical universities. primary/elementary school (nachal’naia obshcheobrazovatel’naia shkola – grades 1–4) provides primary education. The primary school is the first level of general education, usually it is part of a basic school (small village primary schools are the exception). professional’no-tekhnicheskoe uchilishche (PTU) lower vocational schools for preparation of qualified workers. As of 1969 the PTU began to provide secondary general in addition to vocational education. secondary school (sredniaia obshcheobrazovatel’naia shkola) also referred to as complete/upper secondary school/high school. It provides a primary (grades 1–4), basic (grades 5–9) and complete secondary (grades 9–11) education. In such a school, a pupil can enter the first grade and remain there to complete the eleventh grade. According to the Law on Education, a complete secondary education is not compulsory. special schools (spetsshkoly) a term used to describe both schools for children with special needs and schools with expanded curricula in one or several subjects (shkola s uglublennym izucheniem otdel’nykh predmetov). The latter also includes schools for the gifted. technicum secondary vocational school; offers secondary technical or economic professional education. In the 1990s a significant number of former technicums were turned into colleges. vuz (pl. vuzy) (vysshee uchebnoe zavedenie) Institution of Higher Education, including both university and specialized (technical, pedagogical and medical) institutes.

340

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abortion 157 Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APS) (Russian Academy of Education as of 1992) 225 Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR (estab. 1943) 114 Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR (APS) (estab. 1966) 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 120, 123, 341 Adamskii, A.I. 55, 245, 270, 326 Afanas’ev, Iurii 296 Akhiezer, Aleksandr 299 Akhmetova, I.F. 140 Aksakov, Sergei Timofeevich 324 Aksenova, Kseniia Ivanovna 71 Alaev, Lev 296 alcohol abuse 156, 157, 167, 168, 169, 170 Aleksandr Nevskii 276 alienation 138–40 Allilueva, Svetlana 65, 75 All-Russian Conference of Educational Workers (January 1941) 85 All-Union Conference on the Problem of History Teaching (Tallinn, 1988) 250 All-Union Congress of Educators (1987) 132 Amonashvili, Shalva Aleksandrovich 116, 139, 234, 326 Anderson, Benedict 237 Annales school of history 295 Antireligioznik 72, 73 Antonova, E.S. 330 Asmolov, Aleksandr G. 141, 229 Association for Assistance to School Councils 133 Astrakhan 167 attendance see school attendance

avtorskaia shkola (authorial school) 102, 342 Baevskii, V.S. 314, 315, 318 Bailey, Charles R. 30, 31 Barabanov, Vladimir 300 Barg, Michael 295 Barker, Ernest 31 Barnard, H.C. 30 Bashkortostan 306n Basovskaia, E.N. 316, 319 Batsyn, Vladimir K. 236, 251, 257, 302 Belen’kii, G.I. 311, 314 Belorussians 279 Benz, Rudolf 75 Bessan, Gennadii 192 Bessmertnyi, Iurii 292 Bibler, Vladimir Solomonovich 119 biology 63, 73, 294, 339, 341 Bismarck, Otto von 199 Blonskii, Pavel Petrovich 129 Bogdanov, Andrei 91, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287 Bogoliubov, L.N. 225 Boitsov, Mikhail 243, 267n, 269, 292, 293, 305n Bologna Convention 14 Bolotnikov, Ivan 275, 284 Bolotov, Viktor 224, 271n Bolshevik Revolution 4, 7, 24, 26, 27, 32, 38, 49, 50 Bolsheviks 33, 34, 51, 61, 202, 303 Bolshevism 301 Bonner, Elena 79, 87 Bourdieu, P. 221 brain drain see migration Brandeis, Louis 241 Brezhnev regime 6, 138

341

INDEX

Brezhnev, Leonid 6, 18, 138, 203 Briansk Oblast 163 Brinton, Crane 28 Briukhovetskii, Fedor Fedorovich 109, 113 Bronfenbrenner, Urie 112 Bubnov, Andrei Sergeevich 35, 57, 58, 60, 65, 83, 84, 87, 99, 100 Bunakov, Nikolai Fedorovich 109 Bush, George Jr 104, 126 Catholic Church 29, 31 Central Asia 206 Central Committee of the CPSU 11, 35, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 72, 73, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 181, 191, 201, 341; 1988 Plenum 166; Schools Department 35, 60 Centre on Complex Personality Formation 117 Chalmaev, V.A. 315, 316 Chalna 329 charter schools 104 Chechnya 235 Chekhoev, Anatolii 187 Chepurnova, Elizaveta Mikhailovna 71 Chernikova, Tatiana 267n Chernobyl 163 Chernyshevskii, Nikolai 108, 109 China 251, 296 Chukovskii, Kornei Ivanovich 324 civics (grazhdanovedenie) 3, 9, 10, 179, 190, 221–46, 254, 339, 352; defined 224; foreign models 228, 239; interdisciplinary approach 230; international projects 227; issuesbased approach 231; textbooks for 140–2, 224–7, 230, 231, 237–9, 225; see also under curriculum civil society 38, 41, 221, 224–8 Civil War 32, 33, 34, 63, 302 classroom and school conditions 15, 42, 82, 136, 199 classroom interaction and practice 2, 3, 4, 14, 16, 35, 114, 200, 207, 213, 230, 237, 319, 322–33; in Stalinist school 56–101 passim; see also humanization of education; memorization and rote learning Clinton, Bill 104 co-education 63 collectivism 111, 112, 138 collectivization 32, 34, 57, 79, 201, 202

Comer, James 125 command pedagogy 76 Communard movement 112, 125, 233, 234 Compulsory Content Minimum of Education 262, 270n, 300, 310, 341 compulsory education 32, 35, 39, 62, 73 Comte, August 295, 296 Concept of History Education in the Institutions of General Education of the Russian Federation 262, 263 Concordat of 1801 32 Condorcet, Marquis (Marie Jean Antoine Nicholas de Caritat) 30 Congress of Educators (1988) 117 constitution (1936) 62, 72; of the Russian Federation 254; study of and civic education 221 Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) 323 corruption 8, 10, 15, 19, 38, 145, 168, 241 Cossacks 276, 279 Council of Europe (CE) 183, 222 Counts, George 75 Creative Union of Teachers 117, 120, 207, 216 crime 162, 164, 167, 168, 169, 241 Culture and Propaganda Department (Kul’tprop) 60, 90, 341 curriculum 2, 3, 4, 6, 8; central vs. regional control of 224, 235, 240; civics 238, 240; experimentalist 90; gymnasium-based 35; hidden 86, 233, 234; history 89, 247, 249, 256, 258, 260, 267, 287, 296, 300; humanizing of 12; learner-centered 123, 143, 150; literature 310, 313; model 300; national vs. regional content in 11, 166, 235, 236, 238, 240, 255, 263; reform of 9–11, 106, 153, 267; of Russian schools in Estonia 184, 185; Soviet 180, 181, 249, 251, 256, 260; subjectsegregated 103; teacher-centered 73 Dalton Plan 39, 326 Danilov, Aleksandr 303 Danilov, Viktor 302 Danilova, Liudmila 302 Daunou, Pierre Claude François 29, 30 Davydov, Vasilii Vasil’evich 113, 115, 119, 326, 329, 342; see also El’koninDavydov Method decentralization of educational authority

342

INDEX

8, 9, 10, 38, 39, 40, 120, 134, 200; 1930s 35; in US education 104 de-ideologization 38, 39 Deleuze, Gilles 292 democratization of education 129–52; see also humanization of education demographic change 6, 153–75 Denmark 192 de-statization (razgosudarstvlenie) 38, 42 developmental teaching (razvivaiushchee obuchenie) 115, 119 Dewey, John 4, 129, 140 Dialogue of Cultures 119 discipline 4, 5, 35, 130, 133, 201, 204, 206, 215, 323; Makarenko’s views on 65, 74, 77, 78; in Stalinist school 58, 59, 63, 86, 326; in vocational schools 6, 199 divorce 157, 160; see also family structure Dmitrenko, Vladimir 303 Dneprov, Edward 7, 17, 37, 119, 135, 146, 149, 200, 224, 263 Dobrenko, Evgenii 315 Doctors’ Plot 64 Doctrine on Education 122 Dolutskii, Igor 260, 303 Dostoevsky School-Commune 114 Dostoevsky, Fedor Mikhailovich 237 drop out rates 39, 66, 67 drug abuse 156, 157, 167, 168, 169, 170 Druzhnikov, Iurii 79 Dzerzhinskii Commune 76 Ecole Normale Supérieure 31 ecological school see noosphere economy: and financing of education 9, 11–13, 15, 131, 303; market 2, 131, 145, 221, 224, 233, 250; post-Soviet 1, 2, 36, 38, 42–5, 46, 48, 120, 123, 145, 157, 159, 160, 161, 164, 169, 170, 222, 225, 229, 253; reform of 43, 44, 45, 253; Soviet 1, 4, 5, 7, 32, 57, 69, 110, 118, 296; and teachers 168, 197–209, 212, 214; see also New Economic Policy (NEP) education legislation see legislation on education Educational Resource Information Center Clearinghouses (ERIC) 107 educational traditionalism 35 Edwards, Crane 28 Egorov, Iu.V. 313, 315 Eidelman, Tamara 267n

Eisenstadt, S.N. 27, 295, 299 Ekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) 153, 167, 232 El’konin Daniil Borisovich 113, 115, 120, 329 El’konin-Davydov Method 115, 120 Elias, Norbert 295, 297, 299 enrolment see school enrolment environmental pollution 156, 162, 163 Epshtein, Moisei Solomonovich 82, 99 Erasov, Boris 295 Erenburg, Il’ia 324 Esakov, Vladimir 303 Estonia 7, 176–93, 251; depicted in Russian texts 276; interwar period 178; Nazi occupation of 180; nonRussian minorities in 179 180; russophones in 176–93; Soviet occupation of 180; teachers in 188, 190 Estonian Communist Party 181 Estonian Constitution (1920) 179 Estonian language 176–90, 341; and nonRussian minorities 182; out of school programs 192; and Russian minority 180, 181, 182, 190; in university 183; see also Estonian legislation Estonian Language Inspection Board 188 Estonian Language Strategy Centre (Eesti Keelestrateegia Keskus) 186 Estonian legislation: on language 176, 177, 183, 186, 187, 190; Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Education 177, 185, 187, 188; Law on Citizenship (1995) 183; Law on National Minorities (1925) 179 Estonian Ministry of Education 179, 186 Estonian SSR Council of Ministers decree (1979) 181 Estonian United People’s Party (Eesti Ühendatud Rahvapartei) 187 Estonianization (eestistamine) 188 Eureka initiative 7, 117, 119, 121, 206, 232 European Union (EU) 183 Ewing, Tom 73, 74 examinations and tests 11, 35, 45, 70, 104, 141, 223, 240, 323, 327, 331; in history 247, 273; in Stalinist school 57, 58, 60, 66, 80, 81, 94n, 99n; standardized 11, 12, 14, 16, 45, 104, 341 experimental schools 9, 148, 150n, 232,

343

INDEX

240; see also avtorskaia shkola; Univers School experimentation and innovation in education 7, 9, 15, 17, 28, 37–42, 45, 47, 51n, 138, 142–7, 148, 167, 184, 207, 212, 214, 216, 232, 233, 238, 240, 243n, 317, 319, 322, 323, 324, 326, 328, 329, 331; Russian tradition of 2, 3, 5, 6, 33, 35, 56–7, 97n, 102–28, 326, 329; in Stalinist school 75, 76, 90n Ezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich 83 Factory Apprenticeship Schools (fabrichno-zavodskaia uchenichestvo) see vocational schools Family Schools 110 family structure 160–1 fascism 301 Federal Program of Experimental Sites 121 Filippov, V.M. 18n, 53, 207, 208, 263, 270, 311 financing of education: 1930s 61, postSoviet 39 Finns 180 First Educational Conference of the Russian Republic’s Schoolteachers 63 Fischer, George 87 Fishman, Joshua 186 Fitzpatrick, Sheila 27, 32 Fomenko, Anatolii 273 Foucault, Michel 221 Fradkin, Feliks 56 France 26, 47, 49, 62, 90, 172, 202, 218, 301; teachers in 198, 201 French Revolution 24, 26, 27, 28–32, 38, 49, 50 Froebel, Friedrich 325 Froumin, Isak 118, 119, 206, 207, 216, 239 Furet, François 27, 28 Gazman, O.S. 144, 146, 233, 234 Georgia 7; teachers flight from 212 Germany 37, 62, 98, 158, 192, 202, 206, 328; teachers in 198 Gershunskii, Boris 42 Gin, A. 330 glasnost 125, 127, 223, 247, 272, 317 Glowka, Detlev 327 Golovotenko, Andrei 257 Gorbachev, Mikhail 1, 3, 7, 18, 36, 102,

140, 200, 219, 223, 226, 230, 241, 256, 266 Gorky Colony 76 Gorky, Maxim 79, 98, 317 grading and marks 4, 16, 34, 57, 58, 59, 116 grazhdanovedenie see civics Great Britain 332; school reform in 103; teachers in 198 Gref Program 44 Gref, German 16, 44, 54 Groza, Nina Iosafovna 65, 71 Guattari, Felix 292 Gumilev, Lev 237 Gurevich, Aaron Iakovlevich 293 Gurevich, David Iakovlevich 71 Haken, Heinrich 292 Harvard Interview Project 64 Head Start 104 health and health care 11, 59, 121, 154–9, 162–71 passim, 197, 207, 215; comparisons with US 156 higher educational institutions see pedvuzy; universities; vuzy Hillig, Goetz 77, 78 history teaching 10, 62, 236, 237, 247–71; analytical approach 258; anthropological method 293; civilization-based approach 259, 295–300; class-based (Marxist) approach 296, 300; dissociation from ideology 249, 254; in Estonia 251; Eurocentrism in 296, 297; linear approach 261, 291, 292, 295, 296, 297; multiculturalism in 250, 251, 253ff; natural history of revolutions 30, 50; synergetic approach 293–5 history textbooks 10, 35, 142, 228, 236, 239, 245, 247–308, 291, 293, 295, 297, 299–304, 313; nationalism and patriotism in 45, 59, 63, 238, 264, 274–7, 284, 285, 286, 298 HIV/AIDS 155, 157, 158 Holmes, Larry 331 homelessness 162–3 humanities education 2, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 37, 38, 39–40, 62, 135, 136–8, 140–2, 143–6, 222, 253, 263, 291, 304, 309, 310, 311, 318, 319n, 320n, 329, 331, 332 humanization of education 23, 37, 38,

344

INDEX

47, 134, 135, 137, 140, 144, 146, 147, 148, 207, 223, 224, 225, 229, 233, 249, 250, 252, 253, 255, 257, 309, 312, 313, 319n, 320n, 329; see also democratization of education Hunter College 318 Husband, William 200 Iakovleva, Antonina Nikolaevna 87 Ianin, V.L. 281 Iaroslavl’ 67, 155, 252 Ida-Virumaa 188, 189 Ida-Virumaa County 189 Ignat’iev, Pavel Nikolaevich 32 Il’in, Evgenii 317 Illarionov, Andrei 44 immersion (pogruzhenie) 117, 178, 184 India 251, 296 innovation 102 Institute of General Schools at the Russian Academy of Education 258 Institute of Psychology of APS 115 Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences 265 Institute of the History of the USSR, Russian Academy of Sciences 253 Institute of World Economy and International Relations 265 Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences 265 Ionin, G.N. 314 Ireland 228 Isakov, Sergei 187 Islam 10, 296, 299 Italy 228 Itogi 302 Iusfin, S.F. 133 Ivanov, Sergei 187 Ivanova, N. 329 Iznensk 82 Jaspers 295 Jena Plan 39 Jensen, Sven Sodring 248 Kabalevskii, Dmitrii 327 Kadrina (Estonia) 185 Kaganovich, Lazar’ 57, 58 Kairov, Ivan Andreevich 72 Kaldma, Kirsti 189 Kalganova, Tatiana 311, 312, 320 Karakovskii, V.A. 118, 329 Karl Liebknecht School 72

Karlsson, Lass-Goran 51, 248, 253, 258, 266n Kas’ianov, Mikhail 10, 263, 287 Kasprzhak, A.G. 145 Kassil’, Lev 70 Katanadov, Sergei 270 Katsva, Leonid 255 Kerr, Stephen 216, 217 Khachaturian, V.M. 298 Kharitonovich, Dmitrii E. 293 Kharkov 111 Khimki 209 Khrushchev, Nikita 93, 218, 302 Khutorskoi, A. 329 Kimmel, Michael 50 Klokova, Galli 299 Kohtla-Järve 178 Kolbanovskii, V. 76, 77, 96n, 98n kollektiv (school community) 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 148, 213, 234, 239, 342 Kolosova, E.M. 137 Komsomol see Young Communist League Kondakov, Sergei 299 Konrad, Nikolai 295 Korneichik, Timofei Denisovich 76 Korolenko, Vladimir Galaktionovich 324 Korotaeva, E.V. 330 Kostroma 207 Kosulina, Liudmila 259, 303 Kovtun, Galina 209, 210 Krasnodar 113, 117 Krasnoiarsk 41, 133, 294 Krasnoiarsk School No. 100 145 Kreder, Aleksandr 259, 301 Kreitzberg, Peter 188 Kudrin, Aleksei 44 Kuibyshev (Samara) 66, 67 Kul’pin, Eduard 302 Kul’tprop see Culture and Propaganda Department Kuptsov, V.I. 225 Kurdiumova, T.F. 311, 312, 314 Kursk Pedagogical University 261 Kushchevskii, Ivan Afanas’evich 324 Kutuzov, A.G. 311 Labour Reserves System 68, 69, 94 Lamaist communities 299 language education 37, 66; see also Estonian language; Estonia, Russianspeakers in

345

INDEX

Lanin, Boris 319 Lasnamäe 187 Latvians 276 Lazukova, Natalia 300 League of Militant Atheists 72, 73 learner-based approach 5, 9, 309 legal education 140 legislation on education 3–4, 8, 207, 208; Law on Education (1992) 8, 37, 41, 96–7, 200, 203, 208, 224, 235, 253; Law on Special Education 40; see also Estonian legislation Leonhard, Wolfgang 62, 64, 87, 92 Leonova, Ol’ga Fedorovna 75, 95n Levin, Henry 125 Lewenstein, Henry-Ralph 72, 75, 87 Lewin, Moshe 80, 202 Ligachev, Fedor 166 Likhachev, B.T. 147 Lipetsk Oblast 246n Lipovetskii, Mark 315 literacy 4, 6, 31, 33, 61, 62, 68, 81, 104, 109, 201, 204, 215, 257, 264 literature teaching 62, 309–21 literature textbooks 310–14, 317, 319–21; Soviet vs. post-Soviet 314 Lithuania, suicide rates in 163 local/regional history (kraevedenie) 39, 235, 251, 255, 261, 293 Lotman, Iurii 292 Lukin, A.I. 85 Lunacharskii, Anatolii 33, 35, 51, 56, 57 Lur’e, Svetlana 302 Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich 63, 92 Lysenkova, S.N. 116, 326 Makarenko, Anton Semenovich 76–9, 96, 97, 109, 111, 112, 163, 233 Marchenko, Oksana 241 Marx, Karl 261 Marxism 262, 295 Marxism–Leninism 6, 222, 224, 232, 235, 319 Maspanov, Nikolai 193 mathematics education 6, 18n, 40, 42, 57, 62, 64, 113, 115, 126n, 129, 329, 339 Matveev, V.F. 117, 234 Matvienko, Valentina 208 media 43, 44, 162, 164, 167, 169, 170, 177, 222, 223, 230; sex and violence in the 164, 169 Mel’nikov, I. 270n

Memorial 231 memorization and rote learning 5, 9, 14, 34, 60, 80, 90, 99n, 105, 317, 318, 323, 327, 333n Mendeleev, Dmitrii 108 mental health 158–9, 169 Merridale, Catherine 18n Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich 63 migration 15, 159, 160, 161–2, 171n, 180, 206 Milov, Leonid 302 Ministry of Education 8, 10, 11, 16, 19, 42, 44, 88, 121, 141, 143, 153, 167, 181, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 202, 208, 211, 214, 222, 223, 230, 232, 240, 254, 256, 261, 262, 264, 265, 287, 314, 316, 341, 342, 345; creation of 4; of Soviet republics 252 Ministry of Health 167 Ministry of Labour 208 Mirabeau, Honoré 29 Miroliubov, A.A. 330 Mishina, I.A. 228, 259, 297, 298 Modernization of Pedagogical Education see Modernization Program Modernization Program 16, 207, 208, 214 Moldavia 251 Molotov, Viacheslav 65, 81 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 303 Montessori schools 39 Montessori, Maria 129 Morgan, Lewis Henry 295, 296, 341 Morozov, Pavel 76, 78, 79, 110 mortality rates 154, 160, 171n Moscow Association of History Teachers 300 Moscow Institute of Development of Educational System (MIROS) 267, 267n Moscow International Fund 231 Muckle, James 317, 318 multiculturalism 166, 257 Murashev, A.A. 330 Mustamae 189 Mustvee Russian school 185 mutation (as model of educational change) 23–6, 30–5, 40, 41, 42–8, 49n Napoleon I 27, 28, 31, 50 Napoleonic reforms 32 narcotics see drug abuse

346

INDEX

Narkompros see People’s Commissariat for Education Narva 178, 180, 187, 189, 192 National Doctrine of Education 44 Nazism 301 Neill, Alexander 109 Nekrich, Aleksandr 71, 87 New Economic Policy (NEP) 4, 5, 32, 33, 34, 218 New Soviet Man 110, 222 Nikitin, A.F. 140, 220, 227, 229, 230, 238 Nizhnyi Novgorod 167 noosphere 294 Nosovskii, Gleb 273 Novgorod 206 Novgorod Velikii 246 nutrition 157, 169 Obukhov, V.M. 140 October Revolution see Bolshevik Revolution Octobrist Youth Organization 112 Odessa 77, 85 Odoevskii, V.F. 325 Ognev, N. (M.G. Rozanov) 326 olimpiada 232, 329, 341 Omsk 167 Open Estonia Foundation 192n Open Society Institute 9, 41, 120, 231; textbook initiative 140 Open University 232 Ordzhonikidze (Stavropol’) 84 Orel 215 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 197 Orlova, Raisa 87 orphans see family structure Orthodox Church 3, 4, 8, 10, 73, 235, 274, 277, 280, 285, 299; value of collective in 110 Ostrovskii, Valerii 93, 259, 260 Panfilov division 303 Parkhurst, Helen 326 Partushev, Aleksandr 295 patriotism, educating for 10, 45, 59, 108, 147, 231, 235–9, 242, 264, 265, 274, 276, 277, 287, 303, 310, 319, 320n Pavlenko, Nikolai 277, 279 Pavlysh 112–13 pedology 73, 84, 90, 96, 113, 341 pedvuzy 205, 211, 212, 214, 215, 342, 343 pensioners 9, 206, 212

Penza Oblast 167 People’s Commissariat for Education (Narkompros) 33, 34, 51, 56–60, 63, 65–8, 72–90, 90, 341 perestroika 1, 15, 20, 36, 88, 102, 116, 117, 122, 144, 199, 205, 206, 216, 217, 218, 223, 224, 226, 233, 236, 238, 247, 264, 272, 273, 302, 309, 310, 311, 312, 314, 318, 331 Perovskii, Evgenii Iosifovich 73 Pervoe sentiabria 319 Pestallozzi, Johann Heinrich 325 Peter the Great 276 Pettee, George Sawyer 28 PHARE see European Union (EU) Piaget, Jean 329 Piatakov, Grigorii Leonidovich 62 Pioneers’ youth movement 45, 79, 98, 112, 145, 222, 233 Plokhova, M.G. 56 pollution see environmental pollution Poltava 111 Poskonin, Vladimir 259 Potemkin, Vladimir Petrovich 85 poverty 1, 17n, 42, 162–3, 208, 209, 219n, 329 Preobrazhenskii, Aleksandr 18, 274, 276, 277 preschool 6, 11, 12, 39, 155, 156, 167, 305n Prigodich, E. 244n Prigogine, Ilya 292 Primor’e 210 private education 4, 9, 39, 40; Dneprov as advocate of 8, 19n Prosveshchenie State Publishing House 311 Provisional State Standard in History 258 Prozumentova, G.G. 143 psychology 110, 114 Pugachev, Emil’ian 280 Pushkin, A.S. 237 Putin, Vladimir 16, 17, 36, 43, 44, 46, 48, 54, 199, 207, 208, 213, 240, 263 quality of life 162 Rachinskii, Sergei Aleksandrovich 109 Rägo, Richard 179 Rannut, Mark 181 raspredelenie 5, 199, 205, 212, 341, 342 Razin, Stepan 275, 279, 284, 288

347

INDEX

regional history see local/regional history Reisner, Lev 295 religion 10, 36; anti-religious campaign 72, 73; see also Catholic Church, Orthodox Church Research Institute on Problems of General Upbringing 113 Rives, Solomon Markovich 77, 97n Road to Life 76, 77 Robespierre, Maximilien de 30 Roosevelt, Priscilla 18 rote learning see memorization and rote learning Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 221, 239 rural schools 20n, 90, 161, 166, 203, 205, 214, 215, 220; civic education in 232 Russian Academy of Education 43, 225; see also Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APS) Russian Academy of Fine Arts 294 Russian Association of Innovative Schools 232 Russian Foundation for Legal Reform 230 Russian language education see language education Russian nationalism 73, 235 Russian Orthodox Church see Orthodox Church Russian Party in Estonia (Vene Erakond Eestis) 187 Russian Revolution see Bolshevik Revolution russophones see under Estonia Rybakov, Boris 18, 274, 276, 277 Sadovnichii, V.A. 270n salaries see teachers’ salaries and social status Samara Oblast 164 Samara 82, 215, 244n Saratov 66 Scandinavia 251 school attendance 35, 61, 67 school community see kollektiv school conditions see classroom and school conditions school enrolment 12, 13, 29, 39; in Estonia 176, 178; under Stalin 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 91n, 94n School No. 25 (Moscow) 64–88, 331 School No. 91 (Moscow) 115 schools see charter schools; classroom

and school conditions; experimental schools; Factory Apprenticeship Schools, Family Schools; Montessori schools; noosphere; rural schools, Russian Association of Innovative Schools; specialized schools; vocational schools Schools Department see Central Committee Schools for Working and Rural Youth 68 Schweisfurth, Michele 330 self-governance see democratization Semina, Lidiia 244n Serebrianii, Sergei 295 sex 63, 158, 168, 169, 170; see also media sexually transmitted diseases 157, 158 Shabanova, Raisa 210 Shatalov, Viktor Fedorovich 116, 326 Shatskii, Stanislav Teofilovich 111, 114, 129 Shchedrovitskii, Georgii Petrovich 116, 149 Shchetinin, Mikhail Petrovich 117, 245 Shemiakin, Iakov 298 Sheregi, Frants 208, 211, 212 Shestakov, Vladimir 303 Shevyrev, Alexander 267n, 300 Shimbirev, Pavel Nikolaevich 77 Shkola see Temporary Scientific Research Collective ‘School’ Shmidt, Otto Iul’evich 65 Shnekendorf, Z.K. 143 Shokhin, Andrei Pavlovich 83, 84, 100 Shturman, Dora 87 Shukurov, Rustam 244, 293 Sillamäe 185, 189 Simferopol’ 167 Skatkin, M.N. 114 Skocpol, Theda 27 Smelser, Neil 52n Smirnov, A. 77 Smirnov, Vladislav 259 social pathologies 162 Socialist Realism 313, 314, 315 Sokolov, Ia.V. 140, 227, 228, 230, 238 Soloveichik, Simon 229, 232, 234 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 316 Soroka-Rosinskii, V.N. 114 Sorokin, Pitirim A. 28, 295 Soroko-Tsupa, Oleg 259 Soros, George see Open Society Institute Sozvezdie House of Children’s Creativity 294

348

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special education 12, 40, 104, 131, 154 specialized schools 42, 122 Spencer, Herbert 296 Spengler, Oswald 295, 299 Stalingrad 67 Stalinism 5, 18, 65, 80, 92, 203, 217, 315, 316, 319 Stalinist education 5, 56–101, 113, 222, 226, 266n Stalinist terror 60, 83, 84; in Narkompros 84; and teachers 64 standardized exams see examinations and tests State Committee for Education 250 State Committee for Youth Affairs 231 State Committee on Public Education 223 State Council of the Russian Federation 263 State Normative Fiscal Obligations (GIFO) 16 Stolypin reforms 32 Strategy for the Development of History and Civics Education 49, 186, 254, 255, 256 Stroganov, Aleksandr 259 suicide 156, 159, 163 Sukhomlinskii, Vasilii 109, 112, 233, 234, 326 Summerhill 109 Surova, Mariia Dmitrievna 88 Sweden 37, 192, 278 Tajikistan 212 Talleyrand (Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord) 30 Tallinn 178, 189 Tamm, Kristi 185 Tartu 189 Tatars 10, 279, 306n Tatarstan 10, 306n, 307n teacher authority see discipline teacher strikes 34, 43, 168 teacher training 31, 121, 178, 198, 199, 205, 212, 214, 231, 239, 240, 291, 295, 298, 299, 302, 343 teacher-based approach 9 teachers 105, 197–220; abandonment of profession 199, 200, 211; burnout 168, 212; gender differences 7, 197, 201, 204, 205, 211, 212, 213; in prerevolutionary Russia 200, 201, 204; professional identity of 203–6; rural

168, 202, 203, 206, 214–16; shortages of 66, 100n, 168, 205, 211, 212; under Stalin 56–88 passim, 199, 222; see also economy and teachers; Estonia; France; Georgia; Germany; Great Britain teachers’ salaries and social status 9, 20n, 40, 199, 202, 204, 207–16; see also Uniform Salary Scale teachers’ unions 43, 205, 206, 208, 213; in Germany 206; see also Creative Union of Teachers; Union of Secondary School Teachers technicum 343; see also vocational schools Tekst laboratory (Novosibirsk) 292 television see media Temporary Scientific Research Collective ‘School’ (VNIK-Shkola) 55, 97, 117, 120, 125, 174, 243, 244, 245, 249, 250, 251, 267, 342 textbooks 3–6, 9, 10, 15, 30, 39, 100, 120, 140–2, 168, 188, 203, 214, 325, 332; federally approved list of textbooks (federal’nyi paket uchebnikov) 45, 262; pre-revolutionary textbooks 257, 274, 277; post-Soviet 40, 53, 243, 263, 277, 287; Soviet 34, 35, 58, 60, 63, 66, 80, 82, 89, 90, 261, 274, 277; writing and re-writing of 3, 259, 287, 302, 352; see also civics, textbooks for; history textbooks; literature textbooks Tikhonov, Aleksandr 12 Time of Troubles 275 Titkina, Dora 64 Tiurkin, Petr Andreevich 84, 85, 91 Tkachenko, Evgenii 137 Tolstoi, Lev 108–9, 237, 324, 325 Tolstoi, Aleksei 324 Tolstov, Aleksandr Semenovich 65 Toynbee, Arnold 295, 299 transparency 2, 8, 20n Troitskii, Iurii 142, 258 Trukhina, Natalia 293 Tubel’skii, A.N. 118, 119, 125, 143, 144, 145, 342 Tula region 109 Tupolev, Andrei Nikolaevich 65 Turkmenistan 212 Uchitel’skaia gazeta (The Teachers’ Gazette) 7, 12, 117, 229, 232, 319 Ukolova, Irina 267n

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Ukraine 277 Ukrainians 279 underprivileged children 111 UNESCO 231 Unified Labour School 56 Uniform Salary Scale (edinaia tarifnaia setka) 208 Union of Communists 261 Union of Secondary School Teachers (1905) 324 United States 6, 11, 15, 20, 37, 59, 86, 89, 103, 192, 237; as model for civic education 222, 228 Univers School 133, 134, 150 universities 4, 6, 11, 13–15, 19n, 64, 70, 106, 107, 206, 210, 264; Estonian 183, 184; and teacher training 205, 211, 212, 214, 215, 329; see also vuzy upbringing see vospitanie Ushakov, Anatolii 303 Ushinskii, K.D. 108, 109, 325 Utkin, Aleksei 259, 260 Uustalu, Heidi 178 Uzbekistan 251 Vahtra Basic School 192 Ventsel’, Konstantin Nikolaevich 110 VERA (Estonia) 186 Vernadskii, Vladimir 294 Viazemskii, E.E. 270 Vignery, Robert 29, 30 Vihalemm, Triin 190 Vinogradskii, N.P. 83 Vladivostok 210 VNIK-Shkola see Temporary Scientific Research Collective ‘School’ vocational schools 33, 39, 199, 218n, 329, 342, 343; post-Soviet 12–13, 135; Soviet 6, 67–70, 86, 110, 114; see also Labour Reserves System; technicum Vodianskii, A.M. 254 Volin, Boris Mikhailovich 81, 83, 99 vospitanie (upbringing) 109, 110, 112,

113, 122, 125, 143, 168, 215, 223, 233, 234, 239, 242 vouchers 9, 104 vuzy (vyshie uchebnye zavedeniia) 13–15, 16, 20n, 343 Vygotskian psychology 124 Vygotskii, Lev 109, 113, 115, 124, 150, 329 Waldorf Schools 39 Wallerstein, Immanuel 299 Webber, Stephen 212, 213, 216 Weber, Max 111, 218, 295, 299 Western Europe 103, 259 women 1, 4, 156, 158, 160, 202, 204, 209, 212, 283, 285, 341; and feminization of teaching profession 7, 197, 201, 204, 205, 211; literacy in prerevolutionary Russia 201; Soviet education of 7; under Stalin 6, 61 World Bank 212, 230, 246; see also Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) World War I 4 World War II 302 Yagodin, Gennadii 11, 223, 224 Yakovlev, Vladimir 18n, 43 Yeltsin, Boris 7, 36, 37, 43, 52, 214, 221, 226, 229, 237; first decree 7, 38 Young Communist League (Komsomol) 97, 98, 144, 202, 222 Zagladin, Nikita 265 Zakharova, E.N. 299 Zankov reforms 18n Zankov, L.V. 113 Zharova, L.H. 174, 175, 228, 259, 260, 297, 298 Zhdanov, Andrei Aleksandrovich 83,84 Zhirinovskii, Vladimir 238 Zhuravlev 314, 315, 317 Zinchenko, V.P. 113, 115 Ziuganov, Gennadii 237

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