Building on an already completed research project on textbook work with the CIS countries (VW project), teaching materials in the form of a source collection on twentieth-century German history were produced and implemented together with Russian scholars. Conceptually, the source collection takes up topics of cultural, social and everyday history. Therefore, it lends itself to a parallel examination of Western European (German) phenomena with the respective historical developments in the countries of the CIS region and leads out of the ghetto of national-historical presentation of history. In addition, the project pursues further didactic goals: Textbook authors in Russia are offered a rich, authentic source material and are familiarized with modern didactic development methods. At the same time, the book is to be used experimentally as a chrestomathy (collection of sources) in the classroom itself. For certain target groups (German minority in Russia) it should improve the teaching situation considerably.
The editor of the volume was Mrs. Iris Bülow. The translations were done by Dr. Natal'ja Kovaleva and Dr. Oksana Nagornaja. The project was brought to a worthy conclusion by a ceremonial presentation at the German Embassy in Moscow on May 21, 2009.
Source volume title
- Istorija Germanii XX veka v novom izmerenii: Istočniki, statistika, chudožestvennye dokumenty. Aleksandr O. Čubarjan i Robert Maier (izd.), Moskva: OLMA media grupp, 2008.
Results
Important Contribution to German-Russian Cooperation: Presentation of Russian-language Chrestomathy on German History
The Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Moscow, Dr. Walter Jürgen Schmid, invited a renowned German-Russian historian community to his residence on May 21, 2009, to present to the public the chrestomathy on German history of the twentieth century, which was created in German-Russian cooperation. In a solemn atmosphere, accompanied by musical performances, the Russian co-editor Aleksandr O. Čubar'jan took the floor after the ambassador. He emphasized, as the director of the Institute of World History at the Russian Academy of Sciences, that the book will be very useful not only in schools but also in the university field. Prof. Nina Deviatiaikina, a specialist in history didactics and a textbook author herself, made several suggestions on how to implement the textbook in schools. Furthermore, the director of the German Historical Institute in Moscow, Prof. Bernd Bonwetsch, praised the successful compilation of the sources. The editor-in-chief of the publishing house Olma-Press Olga Krasovskaja emphasized the didactic potential and the innovative charisma of this bilaterally developed book.
The distribution of the volume printed with funds from the Federal Republic of Germany is in full swing. The part intended for the GEI was handed over to the German Embassy in Moscow. The "All-Russian Congress of Deans and Chairs of Historical Faculties" offered the opportunity to provide the most important centers of the Russian historians' guild with about 400 copies of the volume. 300 volumes were handed over to the "International Association for German Culture - Cultural Organization of Germans in Russia and the CIS". The latter will pass them on to more than a hundred German cultural centers. In particular, they will be given to schools and educational institutions where these centers are located. The distribution of the book within the German minority in Russia has been agreed with the German Ministry of Interior. Another 150 copies will be sent to GEI partners in Central Asia, the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine and the Caucasus.
