Fachliches Repositorium

The articles in this Dossier originate from an essay competition launched in August 2015 by the Medieval Central Europe Research Network (see http://mecern.eu) and the Georg Eckert Institute. We announced the competition in both English and the local vernaculars of the region through some 150 institutions and associations. Even though more than twenty historians intended to participate, only eleven essays (most of them in English) arrived by the 1 February 2016 deadline. The international jury, Anna Adamska of Utrecht, Rune Brandt Larsen of Lund, Vasco LaSalvia of Rome, and Robert Maier from Georg Eckert Institute, chaired by János Bak, selected seven of these essays for prizes and honorary mentions. Their edited versions are published here.

The principal research question pursued by this work is as follows: How do the Republic of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine present one another in their history curricula and textbooks? How do the history textbooks of each of these three countries present the relationship between majorities and minorities in each case? As these key questions indicate, the book focuses on two main objectives: first, to generate improved understanding of the state of the discipline of history in these countries via discussion of reforms to and debates around history curricula in each country; and second, to shed light on the ways in which history textbooks in each of the three countries represent the other two and their peoples. Curriculum development and textbook production in all three countries still remain centralised. Textbooks are produced by state and private publishing houses. Most textbooks are curriculum-based and developed according to the guidelines issued by the Ministries of Education in each country, which control the content and quality of textbooks through their textbook publishing policies. History curricula and textbooks in all three countries have progressed, but we still encounter many problems, among them the following: • the content of curricula and history textbooks continues to place too much emphasis on national aspects to the detriment of the global, regional, and local dimensions of history; • it reflects the history of wars and violence instead of giving more space to periods of peaceful coexistence, cooperation and cultural communication, or of mutual enrichment between various social groups as well as between nations; • it neglects regional history and cultural and historical links with neighbouring countries; • as it stands, it has the potential to cause difficulties in history education and the development of ethnic identity, as well as in the relationship between “Us” and “Others”; • it leads to or tolerates poor textbook design. The relationship between national and European history remains a closely debated topic in all three societies. Their shared reality, as evidenced by this study, is that all three countries are currently not presenting the other two in any meaningful way in their history textbooks at all educational levels. In all three countries, history education and textbooks are dominated by political history and narratives of victimisation. National histories do not pay attention to their neighbours. History textbooks play an important part in the process of collective identity formation, of the building of a relationship with the past and the emergence of images of the “other”. The content of textbooks determines, in many cases, students' attitudes to their neighbours. Therefore, if the situation in history education is to improve and a respectful approach to “others” in history textbooks is to take root, there is a great need for joint efforts in this field by politicians, professionals and civil society stakeholders in Moldova, Romania and Ukraine.

Fachliches Repositorium

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