The Sector of Modern History of the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences at the turn of the 1930s–1940s

Abstract

The activities of the Sector of Modern History of the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences at the turn of the 1930s–1940s were investigated. The study is of particular interest due to the fact that the history of many Soviet academic institutions has been little considered by Russian historiographers, even though the daily activities of such institutions are immensely important for analysis of the mechanisms of functioning of Soviet historiography as a whole. The study aims at reconstruction of the stage of formation of the Sector of Modern History at the turn of the 1930s–1940s based on office documents, letters of scientists and their memoirs, scientific works, etc. The following aspects were discussed: the personnel structure of the Sector of Modern History; its arrangement; areas of research. The main attention was paid to the latter. The process of working on the key collective research projects of the Sector, i.e., educational literature on modern history for secondary and higher schools and the corresponding volumes of the multi-volume “World History”. Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that the mechanism of research work developed by the Sector of Modern History in the early 1940s was retained in the subsequent years.

Keywords

• soviet historiography
• institute of history of ussr academy of sciences
• sector of modern history
• “world history” series
• secondary school textbooks
• educational literature for higher schools