Transcript presentation

History and Memory.
The Soviet Past - 1953-1990
2011 November 28-29
“You look at it this way, boy.”
How to teach descendants of
the orderly citizens of realsocialist Czechoslovakia?
Jaroslav Najbert
Teaching history
1. Traditional believe of many historians and
public:
 Teachers are popularisers of the historical
science
 Pupils reproduce the facts of the past
2. Reality of modern class:
 Interpretative subject,
 multiperspectivity,
 Interaction with historical consciousness
Family memory of Communist
dictatorship in school education
School (teachers, schoolbooks)
X
Family memory
Memory in school education
1. Cultural memory
 shared within a national
collective
 official text, pictures, rituals
 school – one of the major
carriers and mediators of cultural
memory
Memory in school education
2. Communicative (family)
memory
 Individual experience of living
communicator
 Distinctive family understandning
and interpretation of the past
 May differ from the cultural
memory
Cultural x family memory
Cultural memory, August 1968
Family memory, August 1968
What shall we teach according
to curriculum?
History is „the cultivation of the
individual historical consciousness
and the effort to maintain the
continuity and historical memory,
especially in terms of passing on
historical experience.“
Framework Educational Program (FEP), Ministry of
education, 2007
Cultural memory in education
the formation of positive civic attitudes
 developing a consciousness of belonging to
European civilization and culture
 promoting the adoption of the values on
which contemporary democratic Europe is
founded
(FEP)

MEMORY OF POLITICAL PRISONERS AND
OPPONENTS OF COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP

My students – mostly
descedndants of olderly citizens
Research of the family memory
Germany
Harald Welzez et al.
Opa war kein Nazi:
Nationalsozialismus und
Holocaust im
Familiengedächtnis
(2002)
Research of the family memory
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
Czech Republic
Institute for the
Study of Totalitarian
Regimes
Oral historical project for schools
“Velké a malé příběhy moderních dějin”
Great and small stories of modern history
Great and small stories of
modern history
Confront „great history“ (schoolbooks,
TV) with „small history“ (family
memories)
Three parts:
 methodological and motivational
schooling for students,
 realization of interviews
 final analysis and interpretation
Characteristics of the project
Researched era 1968-1989:
Prague Spring - Normalization (era of
neostalinism) - Velvet Revolution


220 interviews

Ministry of Education grant support
Characteristics of the sample

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
Collection
does
not
represent
balanced sample of memories of pre1989 Czechoslovak society (not our
intention)
Collection freely available on the
website of our Institute
Above-average share of university
absolvents and secondary-schooleducated wintesses
Conclusions?

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Specific function of family story
telling - an interview within the
family becomes a medium for
creating an image of the past
May be more powerfull than school
books
Not common description of the past!
– evaluation, experience, influence
the interviewer
The period of Communist
dictatorship not uniformly recalled

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negative evaluation prevails
minority nostalgically neutral
cases of obvious ostalgie and
positive evaluation of the theory
and practice of regime of state
socialism.
Lack of conflict remembering in the
families

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Not clear willingness to challenge
moral attitudes or values of family
members in the times of real-socialism
Communists have disappeared from
the families
The personal responsibility is often
downplayed
or externalized
with
reference to the nature of the time or
regime
Examples of nonconflict story
telling/receiving
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Merely
exceptional
spontaneous
confession of a membership in the
Communist Party
„Who doesn‘t steal, robs his family“
No challenging of the fact that
relatives repeatedly lied on public or
acted contrary to their conscience
(elections, public rituals, etc.)
Theses
Students accept the anticommunist
attitudes prevailing in the cultural
memory
- condemnation of injustice, restriction
of
freedoms,
undemocratic
communist dictatorship
The relatives are not seen as active
bearers of values and attitudes
against which the pupils define
Results?
Communists were bastards but there
were no bastards in my family.
„My grandfather was not a Commie.“
Author‘s Alert!


We need detailed research and comparison
within post-communist states
Memory of Nacism x Memory of Communism
Problem of multiperspectivity

Different family memories – different
pespectives of evaluation
Anticommunist Czech cultural
memory accepted by many families
 X
Minority personal memories of times
of social stability and orderly life
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How to teach students with
nonconform family tradition?
“You're wrong boy, your reflection of
the past is false, you have to look at
it this way.”
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Absolute authority doesn‘t work in
praxis
Tolerance in modern education
Confront perspectives, not discredit
Thank you for your attention 