იდეოლოგიური ტენდენციები ძველი აღმოსავლეთის ისტორიის საბჭოთა პერიოდის სასკოლო სახელმძღვანელოებში

Abstract

The main topic of the article is the ideological tendencies present in Soviet-era school textbooks on the history of the Ancient East. The Article discusses school textbooks published during the Soviet period, that dealt with the history of the ancient world.
The core issue explored is the use of history textbooks as  instruments of propaganda within a totalitarian state. From this perspective, it seems interesting to discuss an era that is several millennia away from the Soviet period. The research questions are formulated under the main problem: How did  Marxist theory prevailing in the totalitarian state with its Leninist-Stalinist variations, affect the Soviet scientific community? To what extent did the political climate of the USSR shape interpretations of such a remote past as the ancient world? To what extent did Soviet historiography adhere to the views of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on the history of the ancient world? How did shifts within the Soviet political elite impact the teaching of ancient history in schools?
The report is interdisciplinary, combining current issues in pedagogy and historiography. The study of textbooks is a relevant issue in modern historiography, as textbooks constitute a distinct type of historical source that clearly reflects both historiographical trends and the historical and cultural background. A textbook is a kind of propaganda instrument, and it has this function even more pronounced within totalitarian regimes.
It is worth noting that relatively few scholarly works have been devoted to this topic. While working on the report and analyzing the existing literature, two chronological groups of publications were identified, which also differ in content. The first group includes scientific literature on textbooks published in the Soviet Union, while the second group includes works produced after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The paper uses the historiographical research methods and is methodologically grounded in the principles of historical cognition. To address the research questions, the study applies hermeneutic, discourse, and comparative analysis.
The study revealed that textbooks published in the early years of the Soviet Union were the least influenced by ideological dogma, as the regime had not yet fully consolidated control over all spheres of public life. The study found that Soviet historiography distorted the ideas of Marx and Engels on ancient history adapting them to serve its own ideological objectives. Ideological trends shifted in accordance with the changes in the party nomenclature. The research further demonstrated that ancient world history textbooks had two main propaganda functions: they were supposed to instil in students a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist interpretation of history, and at the same time, promote an atheistic worldview through the educational content.