Educational research works of contemporary schoolchildren as a source of study of the historical memory of the people about the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945

Abstract

The present work is based on the analysis of the schoolchildren competitive  research  papers  submitted  at  the  All-Russian  Youth  Vernadsky Conference in the period of time between 2005 and 2020; the article considers the ideas about the 1941–1945 Great Patriotic War of the generation coming into  life  in  the  21st  century.  The  content  specificity  of  the  schoolchildren research  works  devoted  to  the  Great  Patriotic  War  is  defined  by  the  fact that the young authors in search of truth seek to objectively comprehend the realities of the past and to ascertain the veracity of the fact. It is worth noting that the heroes of the schoolchildren papers are ordinary people, often without formal recognition, and that is the reason why their documents have not been taken into the archives yet. At the opening of the exhibition “Man and War”, the Chairman of the Russian Historical Society Sergei Naryshkin stressed that the history of the Soviet people’s heroism is transmitted through the frontline letters, photographs, family reminiscences, personal belongings. It is on these sources  that  young  researchers  learn  the  history  of  the  Great  Patriotic  War of 1941–1945.The author of the article concludes that the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War is preserved in the people’s consciousness, and that it is possible to use the youth research as the sources of personal origin to study the issue of historical memory.