How much Russian history did you learn in school?

[olga]

Year 11 and 12 were specialised courses, either 'Revoultions' or 'Aussie history'...

Australian history is just so enthralling. Not.

James, are you in Victoria? I suppose the system there would be slightly different than it is here.

[James_Davidov]

Darth Olga.

I was the same about Aussie history, my only solace, when I realized I’d have to do it, was that it would be fairly easy.  Anyway I actually loved it, the history of the Victorian squatocracy and our gold rush, it’s really really interesting.  I really appreciate Australian history now, whilst I used to consider it pathetic in comparison to European.

I don’t know what state you’re in, maybe W.A or Queensland….or dare I say (as a Victorian) Sydney!! But Victoria’s history is first-class,  

James

[olga]

Hmph. Victoria.

[erzsi]

I´ve learn nothing about the Romanovs and the Revolution in school because my teacher say its not so important and we didnt have time for it.  
History is not very important in German schools...  

[Silja]

In Germany history is as important a subject as any other "minor subject". Only maths, German and the first two foreign languages are "major subjects". At least this is how it is in grammar schools. I cannot say anything about the other types though.

[Tsaritsa]

I was in school in the 70's in the US.  As sophmores we were required to take either Modern Europe or a class about Asia.  (It's been too long for me to remember what the other class was called.)  I chose Modern Europe.  It was first hour and was quite boring until we began learning about WWI.  

The Russian Revolution fascinated me.  I checked out several books on Lenin.  I read the Communist Manifesto.  The teacher and I to the exclusion of the class used to discuss Lenin and the revolution.  I loved it.  I recieved an A in the class.  

That was the only class that I learned anything about Russian history.

When my daughter was in high school in 1999 she was in World Geography.  The teacher told the class that the Romanovs had been executed in a field and that he had seen the video.  I couldn't believe it.  My daughter told the teacher he was wrong.  He didn't didn't believe her.  I called the school.  I spoke to the teacher.  I explained that I had been studying the Russian Revolution and the Romanovs for over 20 years.  He said I certainly knew a lot more than he did about it.  My daughter took "The Last Tsar" in to show him the picture of the cellar room.  The next week he had the book!  I hope he learned something from the experience.  

[Hundefreund]

I spent high school in the 70s at an international / American school in France.  The school was strong in history and literature, but we had no specific class on Russian history that I can recall.  But of course Russia came up all the time as we studied European history – the Napoleonic Wars, partitions of Poland, Europe between the World Wars, WWII, etc...  I ate it up, particularly anything about Russia.

For some reason I cannot explain, I have always been interested in Russia – from about the time I was 12 and brought home a book on Karl Marx from the library.  My parents flipped – they thought they had a budding commie on their hands (this was the 70s – the terrorists du jour in Eurioe were the Red Brigades and Bader Meinhof gang).  I was hardly a communist but one of my later history teachers was an ardent socialist and she made a deep impression on me.  Under her tutelage, my first research paper in high school was on the covert American and British invasion of Russia during the Russian Civil War – something that of course still interests me.

All this culminated in a trip to the Soviet Union that my high school organized (I posted about this on another thread).  I loved Russia even more, although the Soviet tour organizers kept leaving us all kinds of silly propaganda pamphlets published by the Novostoy Press (anyone know this publisher?).  It was the usual sort of stuff about bourgeois bosses and starving workers in the capitalist west, racism in America, etc...  Like all propaganda, these missives were not entirely untrue, just myopic, one-sided and offensive.  But when I got home, I could not help feeling everything I read (including our daily paper – the august International Herald Tribune) seemed just as biased against the other side.  So that was my big high school history lesson – skepticism about anything I read or hear by anyone, anywhere – a gift from the Novostoy Press that has kept giving ever since.

Not until college was I able to take specific classes on Russian history – early, imperial and soviet.  One professor was a native Russian, who of course encouraged my interest in Russia.  All the same, not being an academic, most of what I have learned of Russian history and culture has been through reading outside of a school or college.  But that’s where most learning takes place anyway – school is just the spark to get you going (no disrespect to the academics out there).

[RomanovFan]

Nothing that I didn't know already. Basically, in the history book I was working out of (last year in fact) it mention Nicholas II and his abdication, for what reason and that he and the family were murdered in 1918. That's about it. We talked about communism in Russia after the revolution, but no mention on the IFs of Russia at all. NONE! I'm still mad about that! It's part of world history, man!  

[olga]

We talked about communism in Russia after the revolution, but no mention on the IFs of Russia at all. NONE! I'm still mad about that! It's part of world history, man!  

No, they're not. A mere footnote in Russian history. There are so many things more worthy of recognition than the IF.

[lostfan]

We studied about a week of the First World War, a week of pre- and during the Russian Revolution, and then a week of post-Russian Revolution.

All I remember is my teacher mentioned the murder of the Imperial family and how the Bolsheviks executed the entire family, the four servants and the dog.

It's a shame that poor little Jemmy got more "Awww they killed a doggy." than the family

Virginia US, something like three years ago

[Romanov_fan]

I think schools in the US, really don't teach history, other than American history, too much. They just kind of brush upon the rest because they have to. I suspect that most so called "history teachers" in the US don't even know history themselves! Everything I know about European history is self taught. No wonder so many Americans have no interest in the rest of the world - they hardly know anything about it other than how it immediately effects them!

I can only agree with this! Americans do not as a group, largely appreciate world history. I think it is important not only to know the history of your own country, but also that of the world. I do, and I know that others on this board do. I thought this thread very interesting, and that is such a true observation. Caring about the past, and caring about things outside of your own country are very important!

[James1941]

I will approach this from a slightly different point of view. I taught world history to sixth graders for thirty years. Generally the lessons are divided into units, each dealing with a particular culture or era. So, much time was spent on Egypt, Greece and Rome, the medieval period, the Renassiance, China's history, and perhaps Napoleon's period. Then time runs out. I made it a point of leaving myself time at the end of the year to cover in detail World War I and Russia under the last three tsar. I spent two weeks on Russian history leading up to the end of Nicholas and Alexandra. I told their story as a biography rather than a political tale. I made transparencies of all the fabulous pictures seen on this forum. I spent time on the four girls and on Alexei's illness, and Rasputin. I ended with the story of the massacre, using transparencies. And I even managed to get Anna Anderson's story in. At the risk of sounding to brag my students were fascinated by these stories.
One of most enjoyable memories is when the school librarian came to me one day after I had finished this unit and asked me: "James, what are you teaching these kids?" My first thought was, uh, what have I done now. She said that she had twenty students in the library all wanting books about Nicholas and Alexandra and Russia and World War I. Like Tsaritsa has written, the kind of history chidlren learn is what their teachers care to teach them, for good or for bad.

[Alixz]

I agree completely with James1941.  I remember history in US schools as an unending beginning each year about the "navigators" and the colonists who came to the Americas from Europe.

Because I grew up in a less PC invirornment and part of the century, we didn't study Native Americans at all.  We usually got past Prince Henry the Navigator and Magellan and into the colonization of America.

We rarely made it past the US Civil War.  Then next year, we world begin again.  Even in high school when we were required to take US History to graduate, we would begin again with the navigators and never made it past the Civil War.  I know from my son's education that now, they must take two years of US History and it is supposed to cover events after the Civil War.  And it did in his case as he asked me who Black Jack Pershing was.  I believe I remember him asking about Hitler, too.

As for Russia, I learned only about it in Geography.  We learned about the steppes, etc.

Of course we learned about Seward's Folly or the purchase of Alaska from Alexander II, but the Tsar was barely mentioned.

The only time I remember hearing about Nicholas & Alexandra was in, believe it or not, what was called Ancient History (now World Civilizations I) in which we covered the Greeks and Romans.  The reason that we heard about it is that I took that class in 1964 when Anna Anderson was having her case heard in Berlin and our teacher taked about it as "current events".  (Imagine that all of you youngsters  )

But that was enough to get me hooked and the first book I read was The Last Granduchess  byVorres.  At that time it was brand new to our library.

Even though I was living through the "Cold War" and the threat of nulcear destruction and the "Red Scare" had happened in the 1950s, I never learned anything about the Soviet Union or Russia in my schools.

In fact, I am ashamed to admit that I confused Prussia and Russia quite often and didn't even understand the concept that Russia was no more and that the Soviet Union was now.

But that stopped in a hurry after my thoughtful teacher and Ian Vorres got me hooked.   I think my second book was Once A Grand Duke  by, of course, "Sandro".

To me Robert Masse was a "Johnny come lately".

[pookiepie]

Here’s a story for you: my HISTORY teacher asked, who were some women rulers in history? People called out names and I said Catherine the Great. She pondered for a moment, said no, and continued calling on other students. I was stunned. Obviously she’s heard of Catherine, so why did she say this? I had no idea what to say to her. My biggest regret is not standing up to her.
I’m from the US, graduated high school in 2002, and we didn’t learn a damn thing about Russia or any other country (except the usual, ancient egypt, etc…). And as if that weren’t bad enough, the American media never portrays Russia in a positive light, no matter which part of the history they’re talking about.  And that’s only if they even decide to say anything about Russia. No American news channel mentioned anything about MF’s reburial but all the European channels did, but I digress. I don’t know why American schools don’t teach us anything. Maybe it's a superiority complex.

[James1941]

Interesting story about your naming Catherine the Great as a woman ruler and the teacher not acknowledging it. You don't say what grade level you were in when this occurred. Catherine the Great's scandalous reputation as a sexual machine is all that many really know about her. The teacher may have been aware of this and was afraid to open the class to possible discussion about this. I know that sounds silly but as a former teacher I found I could get in trouble with parents and the administration for all kind of things. Then again, your teacher may have just been ignorant.
As for U.S. schools not teaching Russian history, one must remember that from the late 1940s until the fall of the communist regime, the "godless communistic" Soviet state represented the devil to many Americans and thus there was reluctance to have any meaningful dialog about it, even its early history.