The contemporary history textbooks in Russia as identity promotion tool

The principal objective of this paper is to demonstrate the use of history textbooks for identity promotion in the Russian Federation. The Russian government’s new Concept of History Education and Concept of Common History textbook have become a growing problem over the past several years. The government tries to use textbooks as an instrument to promote Russian ethnic national pride and patriotism and textbook topics are political. The main mechanisms used to establish governmental control over the process of textbook publishing and approval are described in the first part of paper. The main subject matter of the current debates about new history textbooks are analyzed with a particular focus on the image of indigenous peoples (non-ethnic Russians inhabitants of Russia) and the place for their histories in modern Russian history textbooks and in the Concept of Teaching Russian History.