Description
Narratives of war heroes, military campaigns and victories are commonplace in contemporary Russian history. Aiding the Russian state’s program to instill students with a positive image of their nation’s history, textbooks favor victory discourses over losses with the view that these positive representations will promote youth patriotism. In the 1990s, the situation was quite different – Russian textbooks wrote about victory and defeat. These vulnerabilities served to underscore the militarisation of Russia’s youth during this period because it drew upon notions of paranoia and anxiety, which formed the foundations of Russian identity. This paper examined 16 Russian historical textbooks published in the 1990s. Adopting Robert Sutherland’s schema for identifying ‘ways in which inherent ideologies are expressed’ in children’s literature, including; ‘Politics of advocacy’ and ‘Politics of attack,’ this paper argues that Russia’s vulnerabilities were used to instill its youth with militarised worldviews. Historical victories were often framed as ‘victory despite weakness’ because of the patriotic, united efforts of the Russian peoples. On the other hand, loss at war was often characterised by ‘unequal and heroic battle[s]’ followed by military reform, with emphasis on need to improve weapon procurement, combat readiness and strategy. Together, they maintained the militarisation of society by confirming that Russia constantly needed to defend itself, with a historical trail of invasion from belligerent nations, where Russia has not always been able to defend itself.
