Khrushchev's “thaw” for provincial historians: contents, contradictions, and unmet expectations

By resorting to a massive amount of archival materials that was never published before the author aims to reconstruct the major transformations that occurred in the system of higher historical education and science over the decade of Khrushchev's “Thaw” (mid 1950s - mid 1969s). In Siberian archives the author found and introduced into research circulation documents of regional and primary party organizations, state institutions and higher education institutions of Siberia. Reconstruction was made on the basis of a Siberian research and educational complex, which is unique in terms of its history and development. Siberia was a peripheral region in relation to research and educational processes going on in the USSR, which made for some peculiarities in political and ideological development as well as socio-cultural development during those years. The significance and relevance of the subject-matter is accounted for by the special place and role which the higher historical education and historical science had in the Soviet period during the process of forming and reforming the main political, ideological and socio-cultural systems of the Soviet state and society. During “the Thaw” period historians became the most active participants in the de-Stalinization of higher school, on the one hand, and, on the other, their professional activity was subject to strict party and state control and to active pressure, which would have most serious consequences. At Siberian higher education institutions those consequences were specific both for history teaching and for historical research. Last, but not least, they had a decisive impact on the lives of many teachers and students.