Description
Russia’s war against Ukraine has dramatically highlighted the significance of discourses of space and place in Russian memory politics. This paper will explore the ways in which Russian secondary education has engaged with changing interpretations of Russia’s historical relationship with space beyond Russia’s current borders. It will examine two sets of Russian officially approved history textbooks (2014/15 and 2021/22 academic years) to trace changes and continuity in meanings attached to the space and places in former parts of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Focusing on ideas of hierarchy, sacrality and destiny, it will investigate how images, maps and cultural artefacts that are employed in these textbooks rearticulate, challenge or reinvent colonial imaginaries.
