Yours, mine, and the Truth

My 7th grade history teacher was Russian. Very cool guy. During our uni on WWII he actually taught with both a Russian school textbook and our own American textbook to help establish the idea of history being a tool to manipulate public thought. This got me thinking. How is history taught in the various other nations?

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In Poland it is generally "we wuz always victims"

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My entire family is Russian, I visit Russia every year but I live in Canada. Pretty much this when it comes to history, specifically 20th century history. Since I was pretty interested in WW2 and WW1 when I was young, I got to see to completely different perspectives. WW2 , specifically the Eastern Front is a super touchy subject. Many of my North American friends don't have too well of an understanding of it because of the Cold War. Since Soviet archives weren't opened up until the late 90s, a lot of the info came from former Axis veterans, the Cold War also helped popularize a lot of myths like the Soviets only won because of human waves, all of their weapons and tactics were inferior to their German counterparts, etc. But don't get me wrong, what they teach about WW2 in Russia isn't exactly true either, while for the most part its a lot better than what they teach in North America, they really downplay some stuff. Like Lend-Lease and the War in the Pacific, the Strategic Bombing Campaign and so on. They also tend to gloss over some stuff like their post war treatment of partisan groups, the amount of looting that took place, etc.

how do they spin M-R Pact?

History classes in Canada are generally "we are better than the US"

I remember my teachers really focusing on the Vimy Ridge, how Canadian troops were able to do what the British and French couldn't and Canadian troops were feared by Germans and how Canada won the war of 1812 and burned down the US White House. They also loved to focus on Pearson and how prevented WW3 during the Suez Crisis and they really loved to emphasize how peaceful and fair Canada was unlike the US who went around committing war crimes in Latin America and Asia.

They also talked a bit about Canada badly Canada treated aboriginals, just like the US did with Native Americans.

Another huge part was the relationship between French Canadians and English speaking Canadians, mainly the FLQ crisis and the conscription crisis during WW1 and WW2.

They justify it by saying that Stalin was doing it to defend himself from Hitler. Saying that Stalin wanted to go to war with Hitler, but he wasn't ready at the time because the Red Army was undergoing reforms and recovering from the Purges. Stalin annexed Poland as he wanted to create a buffer zone from Hitler as Western Russia was pretty flat and easy to invade besides the lack of infrastructure. This buffer would both deter Hitler from invading and it would act as a jumping off point for the Red Army would invade Germany after it was all tired out from fighting England and France.

In Italy we're taught that Mussolini did everything wrong and that we sucked during WW2 and should be ashamed of everything we've done.
What they don't teach, howewer, is how we've committed war crimes in Africa and especially the balkans.
It has always been a touchy subject, one just needs to think about how England and America basically tried to hide our war criminals, who all had the privilege of dying in their own beds without consequences, and how they basically flipped off Yugoslavia who had been trying to give our war criminals what they deserved because we were quite simply more valuable to America's plans in case the Soviet Union attempted to invade Europe (operation gladio).
You could ask any italian and they will all tell you that Mussolini did nothing wrong, that we hid jews and didn't have concentration camps (over thirty were built), that ethiopians are thankful to us for the civilization and freedom we brought to them (partly true), that italian soldiers would party and have fun with the greeks (this is something even greeks will tell you, despite the greek government trying to make Italy pay for its war crimes in Greece after WW2) and that it was all Germany's fault that Italy ended up in a war that it could never win (hilariously wrong and somewhat popular among even Veeky Forumstorians).

I'm German, I thought for a large part it was actually taught fairly objectively, sure the Nazis were the ulimate evil and nationalism was frowned upon, but in my later grades for the most part 20th century was about the rise of Hitler, which was done very thouroghly and the aftermath. Of course we also went to a KZ and stuff, but we probably spent more time on the industrial revolution than the holocaust or WWII proper. On the other hand in German schools you tend to discuss the topic quite a bit in other classes, besides history. For example reading books in German class, discussing it in religion/ethics, social studies or even art class.

You had the curriculum taken from the 19th century Warsaw school of history?

In Greece we are taught that we were the good guys in just about every war we ever fought and that our downfall was basically the rest of the world envying us and teaming up against us/civil wars ( holy fuck there are a lot of them it's ridiculous ) / traitorous politician. WW2 Italians for some reason are viewed very positively here ( probably because they were better than the Germans and the Bulgarians and muh "Una fazza Una razza" or how ever it's called).

no wonder russians turn out good gymnasts

I always thought this would've been a great idea, but I've never heard of anyone implementing it. I wish I could shake your teacher's hand.

Dont forget
>HUUR DURRR PIERRE TRUDEAU BEST PM EVER
or
>HURRR CANADIAN GOVERNMENT PRE TRUDEAU WAS EVILL!111!!

Pretty much. Anything to defend genocidal regimes.

:3

In Australia in highschool my history was: Greece, Rome, WWII, and Australian history (founding, WWII). My self driven passion is slowly filling in the rest. Pretty ignorant to Europe between 1600-1800 but slowly closing the gap. 100 years war, protestants vs catholics and habsburgs is what I'm left with basically. And a bit of french-english history, normans in italy etc. Highschool was a decade+ ago though.

I've always wanted to learn more about Australian history. Are there any books you recommend to learn more about it?

its pretty boring, white colonization and a competent military history. now its all haarp and echelon and shit

whats the german word you use historically to "justify" the rise of hitler and nazidom?

Schadenfreude

>Schadenfreude
i dont think thats it. i learnt it in college 4 years ago but i forget ;;

Diejudenhabenesgetan

fucking retards

>Eastern Front
just by saying these two words you're helping to official memeline of downplaying it

for all intents it was THE WWII and everything else was on it's sidelines

In Romania we say that we were always the bad guys,going to gas the gypsies,killing communists,this kinda stuff.

>Be Dutch
>History books always focus on the resistance in world war II
>Casually forget we had incredibly high numbers of NatSoc party members, Jewish deportation aiding and Waffen SS participation.

Das rite, we wuz good boys.

In sweden, we had to write a report about female historical figures, and one about minorities. A lot of it focused on womens rights and gender roles throughout history. Half my classmates don't know what happened 2 years ago, but hey, hopefully we can become good sjw's.

Seriously?

In France we gloss over everything that could make you feel proud to be French and instead spend time learning how evil France was and how we should eternally be fucked by the Anglo-Saxon and Arabs/Africans for saving France in WW1 and 2 and for literally building it after the war.

Really wish i was joking. HS in sweden. Picked this programme because i like history, the history courses ended up being propaganda.

Uh and because I was norman we didn't study the English conquest but rather how normans in Sicily were able to live in a peaceful multicultural society with Muslims and Jews and that shows us the way.
We even went to Sicily to see how glorious this norman multicultural society.

In Estonia we are made to believe that Hitler killed Jews.

Sometimes the truth hurts

Personally?

In Turkey:
>we wuz scythians, xiongnus and huns
>turkic khanate, khazars, seljuks, mamluks, karamanids etc all cool but they have nothing on ottomans
>ottoman empire was literally Hitler after Suleiman(this probably has changed since Erdogan is much more pro-ottoman)
>we did whatever we could in ww1 but Germans fucked it up with their submarine warfare
>Armenian genocide didn't happen but it should have/it did happen but it was justified
>ataturk was a god among men

Sonderweg?

>only moment in your history you can be proud of is 2-year long war two hundred years ago
Holy fuck thats pathetic

History here is simplified and nationalized. General knowledge luckily counters this, but in primary school its literally:
>this king was good, this king was evil
>we wuz kangs and shiet
>hussites strongest warriors in history
>muh 400 years of darkness and habsburg oppression

High school history in New Zealand focuses on educating students about a national identity that doesn't exist outside of supporting the All Blacks. We're a stew of mongrels who pretend to be united. Personally, I'm the product of Irish, English, Danish, and Scottish settlers.

no that doesnt ring a bell... its something else im sure

Same here in Denmark.
Afair more Danes died on the Eastern Front fighting for the Germans than anywhere else combined.
Also not mentioned is the fact that resistance was close to non-existing till the tides turned and Germany began losing.

In Latvia it's pretty fucking embarrassing.
We obsess about "LE EVIL RUSSKIS WHO OPPRESSED US N'SHIET", Latvian history teachers obsess about Soviet occupation the most.
But they always forget how crucial part communist latvian riflemen played into creating the Soviet Union and when you mention it, everything gets awkward and they try to downplay it. Basically crying about shit we ourselves helped to create...
Same shit about SS volunteers who are portrayed as "defenders", when in reality Latvian SS was pretty fucking irelevant and only thing they did was massacre belarusian partisans and civilians nothing else unlike the Estonian SS which at least were actually defending their land.

Being Latvian is so tiresome...

I'm the user you asked, you probably mean Machtergreifung, It means something like "power grab". I never thought about it, but apparently some people consider the term to be a justification and shift of blame.

>ottoman empire was literally Hitler after Suleiman

Interesting. Can you elaborate on this? Were the Sultans following Suleiman considered oppressive?

>>ottoman empire was literally Hitler after Suleiman
but
>>Armenian genocide didn't happen but it should have/it did happen but it was justified
What did turkish historians mean by this?

Spain, Basque Country, when I studied, more or less:
>A bit of Prehistory
>Fertile Crescent, first civs in Mesopotamia and Egypt. That Neolithic stuff happens in other parts of the world too was mentioned
>Greece and Rome are the most studied
>Germanic Tribes
>Muslims
>Charlemagne
>Reconquista. The Christians kingdoms and Al-Andalus got the greatest focus.
>Renaissance
>Discoveries, global expansion
>Rise of Protestantism
>American Independence War
>French Revolution
>Spread of Liberalism
>Colonialism
>Industrial Revolution
>Focus on Spain, war agaisnt France, Carlist Wars, late colonnial wars, Republics and dictatorships, Civil War, Francoism.
All the books we used had sections about the period which we were studying in the Basque Country.

Mandatory schooling ended with that, onthe next two years there was World History (optional) and Spanish History:
>Back to XIX Century and Liberalism, Nationalism, Colonialism and that kind of stuff
>Spanish History is about Spanish History since XIX Century.

I was in school in 2001 and all we learnt about was federation and abos all year fuck me

Another Australian who graduated a lot more recently here to add my ten cents.
Educators here have to follow a curriculum but each school's staff can choose what they want to teach and what they want to ignore. In middle school the focus is where and when Australia was colonised, pretty basic stuff. Then in high school we moved on to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Australia after WWII. We don't really touch on military history outside of special lessons for ANZAC and Armistice Day, but I think that's for the better, it's all very objective and evidence focused, teaching kids about cause effect and how to actually think instead of just jumping to conclusions, not who was right and who was wrong (that's generally up to the teachers.)
Aussie education is really good, so when I hear horror stories about shitty teachers and the like from other countries I get kind of skeptical, it can't be as bad as people like and claim.

The Fatal Shore is the go to book about the settlement of Australia, well, the Eastern Coast of it at least. After that I'd recommend reading a few biographies of the more interesting characters in our history like Whitlam, Holt and John Forest (explorer who kept WA in one piece when we had cold feet over joining the rest of Australia). If you're into Military History I'd recommend Vietnam: Australia's War by Paul Ham, it's one of the best books written about Vietnam, period.

I mean literally Hitler in terms of incompetency, not nationalism or brutalism. lern2meme, bruhs

What I remember from American history classes.
We study a bunch of subjects like Industrial Revolution, Civil War, and Westward expansion. And then make a Jeopardy game out of the subjects we learned. We would have the class split into four teams and compete.

Ah yeah, that makes more sense.

I went to school in the 80s/early 90s in the UK. I remember history as being less about the historical and more about independent thinking, i.e. the bias of sources, and what we felt we could trust to give us the right image of what happened. History back then was basically, war of the roses and the house of tudor, house of stuart, napoleonic era and WW1. WW1 especially was all about propaganda, most of the lessons were about how horrific it was rather than dwelling about the politics, and how each side would use propaganda to make each side look bad. I do remember our teacher making us watch Blackadder goes forth to help us understand it all. We also did a bit of prohibition at the end and watched gangster movies. Was neat, we never did WW2 though, I guess it was a little too fresh at the time to consider it history.

From what I remember, back when I was in highschool, our teacher told US there are 2 types of teaching about Polish history: Warsaw and Cracow types.
Warsaw way is
>we wuz victims
>We were greatest until partition
> Uprisings were necessary
>We were Jesus christ of countries after WW1
And Cracow way
>we were obselete
>High coruption
>All uprisings (of great Poland not included, that one was actually good) were all retarded and we should sit on our ass es and wait for good time.
>after WW1 we were slighty evil
But both od them say that during WW2 and post WW2 we had fought pasive and active resistence like no other country, and we had suffered the most, while we didn't deserved it
Or atleast that how I remember how our HS teacher told us.
Any lithuanian could tell me how do they portrey Poland ?

This is not it.
Schadenfreude means to find pleasure in other's misfortune.

>after WW1 we were slighty evil
in what sense? are you talking about Sanacja?

Getting rid off opponents of Piłsudski, buttfucking Ukraine, and annexing Wilno,
Your regular authoritarian decision,

>buttfucking Ukraine
you mean fighting vs terrorist?
>annexing Wilno
annexing is such a buzz word you use here 60% population were Poles and they willing to be "annexed" by Polish state so they finnaly could use their language without worrying to get arrested and other 40% were Jews who either want live in Poland to or they don't really care
Piłsudski was a authoritarian and everone know it, if he was evil then 90% of interwar countries in Europe was to

Yes he was just trying to be funny. I think I answered it here

Taking territory recognized as another states and incorporating it into your own is annexation, you moron, Annex isn't even a word that has connotations like take or conquer.

Dolchstoßlegende?

Wait you're talking about border disputes after WWI? Everyone was fighting each other. Those were mostly smaller conflicts that were the results of messed up demographic map.

And what would you call China and the Japanese gains in the Pacific? A sideshow?

9/10

god dammit i was going to make this thread...

>normans in Sicily were able to live in a peaceful multicultural society with Muslims
I wish I wasn't phone posting, because don't have my laughing reaction face folder, here.

We learned practically fuck all about the empire back when I was in school here in Britain. It was all the rise of Hitler and the methods of punishment of crimes throughout our history. School history is a bag of shit.

I've posted about this before, but I used to do the TEFL meme in East Asia (the Chinese-speaking world, especially HK and Taiwan - I have close friends who still teach in Japan and Vietnam). I taught an "American curriculum", which means that I taught several subjects, not just English - math, science, and history, although of course I taught them *in English.* Most of the kids who I taught were quite bright, and in Taiwan I taught at a pretty expensive school, so they were all from affluent backgrounds.

>How is history taught in the various other nations?
It fucking isn't. Not in most of East Asia, anyway. It's absolutely staggering how ignorant most of the people over here are about history (I still live here, but don't teach anymore, thank Christ.)

I'm not talking about shit like "couldn't tell you who Louis XIV was", which of course has very little relevance to most Chinese people. I'm talking kids who'd never heard of the British Empire, kids who insisted that China had the largest colonial empire (because China was one of the only countries they'd heard of, natch). Kids who hadn't even heard of ancient Greece OR Mesopotamia. Kids who'd struggle to place India on a map. Even East Asian history - most of them would have struggled to explain who Mao was, or to write more than three sentences about the Asian theater of WWII. It was really shocking. I would honestly guess that I taught those kids most of what they knew about history, and that isn't a boast. They learned so little in their regular schools that they had to get it from a hung over foreigner at a cram school.

greekfag reporting in
history in schools is to make kids patriotic
every time a change is proposed, people freak out
it's divided in 3 and focuses on greeks
1.prehistory-ancient greece-roman conquest (+egypt,mesopotamia)
2.byzantium (+western europe, arab expansion)
3.independence-modern greece (+french revolution,world wars etc)
-we avoid painting greeks as morally wrong
-we avoid completely modern history that still affects us politically(civil war, foreign interventions etc)
-very nationalistic view of history, that ignores other cultures

Can second this, although my experience comes from some Chinese ex-pats at my office. When they heard I had a passing interest in Chinese military history, you got some joy, but then that often turned to confusion if I brought up anything but the most pop-tier of the Three Kingdoms Era.

In Newfoundland high school was three years of hammering in that we were dicks to the natives and a bit of ww1 sprinkled in.

Excellent. This is how it should be.

I took a class in university here in Canada about medieval Italy and was taught the same thing about Sicily and the Normans. They basically just glossed over all the slavery and muslim conquest but spent a long time talking about how Normans, Arabs, Jews, and Italians all lived in multicultural harmony.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman-Arab-Byzantine_culture

>"Norman Sicily stood forth in Europe --and indeed in the whole bigoted medieval world-- as an example of tolerance and enlightenment, a lesson in the respect that every man should feel for those whose blood and beliefs happen to differ from his own."

Should have stayed around for A levels. You get to learn about Britain's transition from laissez-faire to a welfare state (1906-1956) as well as the crusades (1095-1204). Albeit Britain is boring, but crusades are the shit.

>ameribabbies figure out the world is alittle bigger than their elementary school book and bullshit exists
Hilarious.
They desperately need some IQ

You just summed up gr11 sosicals

so tiresome.

Holocaust holocaust holocaust every damn year

There is literally nothing wrong with gassing gypsies or commies

Here in Germany it depends on the school type you are in.
The kids in the schools after which you are supposed to learn some kind of manual job learn:
Holocaust bad. We were the worst people in history. Never again.
The kids in the in-between school learn:
Demagogues hunting for the support of uneducated masses in times of crisis are bad. Holocaust bad. We fucked up big time. Never again.
And lastly the school after which you have the right to study at an University teaches the Kids:
Weimar Republic, First World war, Economic changes throughout Europe, development of nationalism and the "zeitgeist" of superiority, developments in Russia, gathering of power of the NSDAP... all leading to the fascist regime, the holocaust and therefore to the point where we fucked up harder than anyone ever. We have now the historically unique position of being the ones who just have tho overcome nationalist thinking and try to be the most humane nation ever. basically Holocaust bad, we were the worst. But if anyone has the chance to evolve onto the next level of humanity's development, it is us by embracing our shame and trying to be the nicest.

>it is us by embracing our shame and trying to be the nicest.

Being nice to your enemies doesn't guarantee friendship.

This, it merely guarantees an easier path to your subjugation.

Hi user, I was born 1982 in Germany, lived in Germany ever since and went to several schools, also working in a field where I get to cooperate with teachers a lot.

I have NEVER heard anyone with any kind of university degree EVER "justify" the rise to power of Hitler. They all try to explain how that could happen, but any teacher who would ever suggest "so now that we explained it, we see we had no other choice" would face major problems with both the parents and the ministry of education... heck even with the students after a certain age.

If you really meant the Word "Machtergreifung" it's really just a word to sum up the Years from being a nobody to becoming the dictator. It just means "the grabbing for Power" and its not justifying whatsoever.

American here, I honestly believe Hitler was right about many things, and we see the end results of that today.

>I don't see much future for the Americans. It's a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social of social inequalities...Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it's half Judaized, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together, a country where everything is built on the dollar?

I live this everyday.

>Russians using the same explanation for the m-r pact as stormfags
Do they fear the Western warrior?

That isn't taught in school.
Actually, Canadian history beyond all the fun we had in ww1 and also wait wasn't it such a senseless war is basically not taught, including pierre trudeau and his policies.
Simply put, "Canada" is not taught much in Canada.

Ah well I mean that's more or less canadian university-level history in a nutshell

>I don't see much future for the Americans
>How can one expect a State like that to hold together, a country where everything is built on the dollar?
>collapses after 12 years

America was articificially propped up by it's postwar postion.
>half negrified and half jewified
>built on the dollar
Don't shy away from that part.

I've always wondered about the Americans fighting in Siberia after WW1, but can't find anything

>he can choose between all those critiques of classical liberalism
>he chooses fucking Hitler of all people

*of the outgrowths of classical liberalism

You point out to me one classical liberal criticism of the US where it is mentioned that the Jews and Blacks (artificially) culturally dominate. From Comcast to Disney to Tim Warner, Jews run and own US culture.

The half negrified part is so true. Literally only in America would people experience anal holocaust over someone dressing up as a black person.

Jews more or less created your popular culture and made it such a powerful force. You should be grateful.

American pop culture is literal trash.
t. not him

So our problems are from 'negrification'? None of it's from overspending? or deregulations? or being involved in so many unwinnable wars?

>I should be grateful for the Jewish pop culture machine which has replaced all real culture.

>You point out to me one classical liberal criticism
Criticism of the outgrowths of classical liberalism, not classical liberal criticisms.
>where it is mentioned that the Jews and Blacks (artificially) culturally dominate. From Comcast to Disney to Tim Warner, Jews run and own US culture.
>it's a Jewish conspiracy episode