Representation of the Trauma in Textbook of History. “Thanks to the” Stalin’s Repression in the Russian Historical Education

Abstract

This article aims at presenting issues connected with the representation of Stalinism in the Russian school curriculum from two interrelated perspectives. The first perspective includes the issues related to creating narratives of the past that would enable to clearly separate Stalinist crimes from “the Soviet nation’s great achievements.” The second perspective relates to the social context of the debate on Stalin’s era representation at schools and an attempt to deconstruct elementary discourses regarding this traumatic period. The foundation of this article is the universal character of helplessness related to representing the Stalinist trauma, only indirectly connected with textbook writing or any special historical policy in this respect. History textbooks have become hostages of the necessity to meet two contradictory objectives: telling the truth about the repressions and demonstrating the power of the country and its grand history.