[LINK] "Getting Its Story Straight"

[rfmcdonald]

Andrea Gregory's Transitions Online article "Getting Its Story Straight" explores the contentions surrounding the teaching of the history of Montenegro in that newly independent country's system of education.

Predrag Raznatovic quickly reads aloud through the part of the history book that states thousands of Montenegrins were killed by Serbs in 1918. He doesn’t believe what he is saying, but he reads it anyway. He is a history teacher.

Raznatovic, who has been teaching for 15 years in Podgorica, uses a relatively new textbook to teach the history of a relatively new country. Although he acknowledges that a history textbook is "a stamp of its time," he argues that "the main agenda of education should be education."

The history teacher and other critics of the new books say they sideline world figures in order to focus on Montenegro and that they distort the history of Serbia, with which Montenegro formed a federation for nearly a century.

The books’ defenders, however, say they are a good-faith attempt to shine a light on Montenegro’s long-overlooked national history.

"These school books are not good for our situation," Raznatovic said. "It’s not good for the future of the relationships between Montenegro and Serbia. "Nationalism is always a really big danger."

Alen Abdomerovic disagrees. At 20, Abdomerovic grew up during the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the history he learned changed along with the circumstances. Now a proud citizen of a newly independent Montenegro, he said a certain amount of nationalism is appropriate in a country trying to define itself.

Arguing that Serb nationalism swept through the region in the early 1990s, he said, "Now it is Montenegrin nationalism. I think it’s OK for now."

Nor does he have a problem with that nationalism being promoted in textbooks. "I think it’s OK. I think every book you write, it’s good to write pro-something or anti-something to promote something," he said.

History is a particularly touchy issue in Montenegro since various nationalists--Montenegrin nationalists, Serb nationalists--have used elements in the areas history to decide whether or not a Montenegrin nation actually exists, arguing that if (say) in the 15th century no one thought of themselves as belonging to a Montenegrin nation separate from the Serb no nation could exist now. Flawed logic, but if it is what's being used it may as well be dealt with, somehow.