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Countries Torn Over Baring Warts in History Texts

Some Factions Promote Curriculum Materials as a Way to Instill Patriotism

The breakup of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago ushered in a new generation of history textbooks for Russian schoolchildren that for the first time outlined in raw detail the brutality of Joseph Stalin’s reign.

But now, as the country continues to struggle with a depressed social and economic structure, some officials are calling for a glossier presentation of Russian history, one that would imbue national pride and positive feelings about its previous status as a superpower.

“Russian historians and history teachers—as a microcosm of Russian civil society—face increasing pressure by the Russian state to construct narratives of the Stalin period that are fundamentally positive,” Thomas Dean Sherlock, a political scientist at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, writes in a study of Russian textbooks. “This pressure undermines the relatively free space for inquiry that existed in the first decade...