24.10.2023
On October 20, 2023, the Second National Forum of History Teachers took place in Tobolsk, co-organized by RSUH jointly with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Russian Historical Society and Tyumen State University
This year, discussions on socially significant topics brought together more than 150 history teachers, representatives of state bodies and academic institutions.
The business program of the Forum was presented in three thematic sections.
The section “Methodological support for teaching history in higher education,” discussed the development of teaching aids and a new textbook on Russian history for higher educational institutions of the country.
The section “National Electronic Library System for History” was devoted to the issue of developing a system capable of providing students and representatives of the research community with access to the necessary literature.
The section “On the activities of dissertation councils in historical specialties and prospects for the development of historical science,” was moderated by Dr. Shkarenkov, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs of RSUH, Chairman of the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission on History and Dr. Goldin, Professor of the Higher School of Social Sciences, Humanities and International communications of the Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University. The participants discussed issues of improving the activities of dissertation councils in historical sciences, certification of scientific and scientific-pedagogical personnel in the field of historical sciences.
The central event of the day was the plenary meeting of the Expert Council for the Development of History Education under the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
The main issues discussed at the meeting were the preparation of new textbooks on the history of Russia for the non-historical educational areas of higher education, the preliminary results of the development of history education in higher education and the exchange of experience in teaching an updated course of Russian history at universities.
The plenary meeting of the Expert Council was opened by Dr. Sergei Naryshkin, Chairman of the Russian Historical Society. He noted that starting from this academic year, students in all universities in the country were studying an updated and expanded course of Russian history, and said that an important step in improving higher historical education would be the ongoing development of a new textbook on the history of Russia for universities.
Dr. Valery Falkov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, noted that more and more motivated and prepared applicants are choosing history majors.
This academic year, all universities in the country launched an updated course “History of Russia” for the students of non-historical specialties. Its content is reflected in the Concept of teaching Russian history for non-historical specialties and areas of training, which was approved in February of this year. The course is taught in a minimum of 144 hours, 80% of which is allocated to contact work.
Minister Falkov emphasized that at this stage it is fundamentally important that the course be taught exactly as it was intended: with as much live personal communication between the teacher and students as possible. He added that the updated history course is a wide window of opportunity for developing the human resources of history departments. Young teachers will be able to get new jobs.
At the end of his speech, Valery Falkov presented letters of gratitude to a number of Forum participants: Dr. Elena Barysheva, Dean of the Faculty of History; Dr. Pavel Alipov, Associate Professor of the Department of History and Theory of Historical Science; Dr. Tatyana Lutsina, Associate Professor of the Center “New Russia. History of Post-Soviet Russia"; Dr. Irina Azernikova, Associate Professor of the Center of Regional History, Local History and Moscow Studies Center.
Konstantin Mogilevsky, co-chairman of the Russian Historical Society, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, emphasized the great importance of the Forum for improving the teaching of history in universities.
Dr. Alexander Moor, Governor of the Tyumen region, proposed creating a branch of the Youth Club of the Russian Historical Society in the region.
The head of the Youth Club of the Russian Historical Society is Ivan Kulakov, a graduate student of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who teaches at the UC “New Russia”. History of Post-Soviet Russia”, Faculty of History, RSUH. On behalf of young historians, he gave a presentation “The Path to Science: Current Issues in Preparing a Dissertation by Graduate Students”.
Also speaking during the plenary session were Dr. Alexander Chubaryan, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Dr. Nikolai Makarov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Dr. Yuri Petrov, Director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Presidium of the Russian Historical Society; Dr. Ramil Khairutdinov, Director of the Institute of International Relations of the Kazan Federal University, member of the Council of the Russian Historical Society; Dr. Maria Ponomareva, Doctor of History, Director of the Institute of History and International Relations of the Southern Federal University, and others.
The Forum concluded with a presentation by representatives of the Tavolga Foundation: Vasily Novikov, project manager of the Foundation, and Anastasia Rudenko, Director of the Foundation. They presented the project “The forgotten history of Russian exploration of the Arctic in the 16th–17th centuries.”
