Over at Liberating Narratives Bram Hubbell has a great series about teaching Russia in World History. The late Cold War and then the demise of the Soviet Communism dominated world events during my adolescence and early adulthood. History classes that I took in high school and college often seemed to explain these developments. Interpretations of the Russian Revolutions contributed to understandings of Soviet Communism, World War Two and the Cold War. Histories of the World led inexorably to these events.
As such, determining the causes of the Russian Reevolutions was immensely important to understanding the world from the 1940s through the 1980s. Including Russia in World History class during an age of globalization, and its discontents, means undoing some of the distortions created by this teleological focus on the end of the Romanov dynasty in 1917. For instance, 19th century Russia was the site of more industrial development than some places, but less than others. An emphasis on the former partially explains the Russian progress in fighting the Hapsburg (image below) and Ottoman Empires in World War One. Thus, emphasizing Russian industrial growth leads can contribute to the story of the demise of other multinational empires and the context for the Armenian genocide. On the other hand, emphasizing the latter explains Russia’s inability to compete with Germany’s industrialized military, and, thus its during World War One. Both are true, but a fixation on the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in 1917 elides the complexities of Russian development. The third and fourth posts in Bram’s series on Russia in World History have very useful sources for seeing this complexity.
Early Muscovite history can also serve a similar role in describing Russian political culture as backward, thus paving the way for dynastic failure and reborn autocracy. In the 1900s I learned about a “Mongol Yoke” that held back Russian development making it weaker and autocratic. Textbooks and curriculum have shifted on this point by emphasizing the cultural and commercial dynamism of Mongol Empire, but the “Mongol Yoke” still pops up. Today, most World History classes acknowledge the positive aspects of Mongol domination, but many students still learn that Russia was held back politically. In The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World, Marie Favereau describes how this is the opposite of what happened. Mongol rule, specifically the Jochid Horde, commonly called the “Golden Horde,” nurtured rather than restrained Muscovite state formation in the 13th and 14th centuries. This was one of my biggest takeaways from The Horde. Bram brings excerpts from this source and much more in his post on early Russia in the trading world of Eurasia. Teachers looking for useful and interesting sources should check it out.
Interpretations of Russia meant to explain the Cold War persist(ed) into the 21st century. Like with “feudalism,” the the process of writing curriculum and state standards perpetuates outdated historiography as teachers serving on these committees replicate what they themselves learned and have been teaching. In my experience this dynamic is especially pronounced in World History, a course with content that very few teachers initially feel prepared to tackle. In order to break this cycle, history teachers need to understand the creation of historical knowledge as. a dynamic process. We cannot keep up on all of the developments, of course. But, we can keep our minds open to changes in evidence and interpretation.
Advanced Placement World History, at least until 2019 and the shift to “AP World History: Modern,” was a site for this work, bringing together academic historians and secondary teachers. I am one of the many teachers whose on-level World History classes benefitted from teaching AP World. The changing perspective on the Mongols is an example of an interpretation that diffused out of AP World History. The course’s emphasis on global connections provides insights into our globalizing present. The World History Association has been another site for interchanges across levels of history education. Next June’s conference in Pittsburgh should provide many opportunities for secondary and higher educators to learn from each other. I am already looking forward to it.
