in 1934, it was Stalin himself who convened an earlier meeting of historians to discuss the very same issue, namely the teaching of history in Russian schools. He disapproved of the conventional class-based accounts then available, which were strongly influenced by Marxist doctrines, and which traced the development of Russia from feudalism to capitalism and beyond.
Not even Stalin's hometown wanted to be associated with him anymore...
"These textbooks," Stalin thundered, "aren't good for anything. It's all epochs and no facts, no events, no people, no concrete information." History, he concluded somewhat enigmatically, "must be history" - by which, in this case, he meant a cavalcade of national heroes, whose doings might appeal more broadly to the Russian people than the arid abstractions of class analysis and social structure.
David Hilton on 14 Jan 10This is a very interesting and unusual idea. Historians at Stanford have collected very specific and detailed information about historical events within short time frames and then produced graphic representations of these events that you can play over maps. It's very precise and perhaps too detailed for many high school level students to make sense of, however some of them helped show how historical phenomena occurred. Particularly chilling was the graphic showing slave purchases in the Rio slave market in the mid-C19th; you can see individual children being bought at specific times by specific people.
