TOWARDS NEW HISTORICAL CONCIOUSNESS: HISTORY TEACHING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN SERBIA

Abstract

In the period from 1945 to 1947, the new communist authorities sought to emphasize its legitimacy as much as possible, which was based on changes made during the liberation war and revolution. The war and revolution changes had a special place in the public discourse, being understood as a main tool for shaping historical awareness of young generations. Accordingly, there were made changes in curricula of the history teaching in primary schools. In the second half of May 1945, Ministry of Education of Serbia brought the curriculum for primary schools with methodological guidelines for teaching certain subjects. History was studied in the third grade with three hours per week (out of 27 in total), while the four grade studied history four hours per week (out of 29 in total). The curriculum arrangement in the third and the fourth grade was a combination of chronological and progressive principle with the principle of concentric circles. On 28 September 1945, DFY Minister of Education, Vladimir Ribnikar, prescribed the Framework Curriculum for Primary Schools. This curriculum was different in certain respect than the curriculum published by the Ministry of Education of Serbia. The prevailing principle in the Framework Plan was chronologically progressive. The only teaching topic that was repeated both in the third and the fourth grade was the topic of the National Liberation Struggle. Religious education became an optional subject. In the new curriculum, which was drafted by the Ministry of Education of Serbia in 1947, a number of hours of the history teaching remained the same, 3 hours per week (out of 25in total) in the third grade, and four hours per week (out of 26 in total) in the fourth grade. As previously, the curriculum implemented chronologically progressive principle. It was realized very soon that the reduction of the overall history teaching to the National Liberation Struggle was completely useless and not educative, and that it was necessary to establish a new approach to the history teaching.