The Povolzhye Famine of 1921-1922 in the Schoolbooks

Annotation One of the tragedies of 20th century was the Povolzhye famine at the beginning of the 1920s that took lives of several million people. In the schools’ history course, the subject of famine is introduced rather scarce. The goal of the research consisted of creating practical tasks for students in the Domestic history course in the subject of Povolzhye famine in 1921 – 1922 that satisfies the requirements of the Federal State education standards and Historic and Cultural standards. To achieve the goal, the following objectives were defined: • Analyze historiography of the subject,the features of schoolbooks in the subject; • Conduct an analysis of sources that were used in history papers of the subject; • Collect history sources and factual material for the use in school education; • Develop questions for the use during History lessons in specialised classes and electives. Analysis of historiography showed that for Soviet historiography was politicized and Marxist views were typical. Since the 1980s, objective analyses of reasons, sizes and repercussions of the tragedy have been conducted. However, some approaches are rather ambiguous in modern historiography. The subject of famine has a large base of historic sources. In the materials of Soviet schoolbooks, there was a lack of objectivity in defining the reasons of the famine. In modern schoolbooks this subject is introduced only scarcely. The research conducted has allowed to recommend a more active study of the subject with the use of historic sources. Their use in the teaching process contributes to the development of independent search skills for information and critical thinking, as well as the formation of individual history image. The research contains questions with history sources for Russian National exam, School Olympia for students. It is recommended to study it within school and off-school education for the successful comprehension of the course of the Russian history.