About the guide

Since 2020, the Confronting Memories programme has dedicated itself to providing a networking platform and space for history teachers and educators across Europe to exchange differing perspectives on the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, thereby broadening perspectives on the interpretation of history as a whole. Over the last three years we have worked with over 80 history educators to create materials designed to promote multiperspectivity and values-based history teaching.
 
Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, many projects have dealt with the issue of education in countries with a Soviet past, looking primarily at why education is important in preventing future conflicts, but few have looked beyond the end of the war and asked what tools and methods could be used to teach about the war itself. Through a series of exchange-based workshops in 2023, we sought answers to this difficult question by focusing on other conflicts, specifically in Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova. While promoting multiperspective history education in the Eastern Partnership region, we introduced new perspectives, pedagogical methodologies, and audiences into our programme.
 
The conflicts presented in this pedagogical guide are sensitive because they are so fresh in the collective memories of people from all sides: there are still people alive who directly experienced one conflict or another, whether as soldiers, victims, children, or people who have lost a loved one. Furthermore, in school curricula and textbooks, these conflicts are often taught with a strong focus on military-political history (if they are taught at all), putting forward the viewpoint of the regime in power at that moment.
 
In the summer of 2023, teachers from Armenia, Georgia and Moldova took part in workshops led by a facilitator from Bosnia & Herzegovina, a country which has first-hand experience of conflict in recent decades. The facilitator has been working extremely hard to create new materials in her country that can be used to teach about the very complex Yugoslav Wars, while trying to avoid controversies based on nationality and move away from military-political education towards a more social/societal approach. This approach formed the basis of the workshops, which prepared the teachers to create their own lesson materials on sensitive topics in their countries.
 
Our materials are designed to be as practical as possible, which is why they are all made by history teachers and educators themselves, with the consultation and support of a professional team of pedagogical experts. After the workshops, the teachers worked in national teams to develop their materials, trying to present the topics in novel ways and incorporate multiperspectivity. We define multiperspectivity as the recognition of various contemporary or present-day interpretations of a specific historical event, or period, as well as the evolution of different perspectives over time. Multiperspectivity from different national perspectives is not always possible, and we shall see examples of societal multiperspectivity, for example, showing how different social groups responded to a certain event.
 
Based on principles outlined by the Council of Europe, it is important as part of the Confronting Memories programme to incorporate the teaching of appropriate attitudes and values and to connect history teaching to the present day. This includes respect for human rights and dignity, the value of cultural diversity, an openness to other beliefs and practices, civic-mindedness, and responsibility. The teachers who worked on this guide learned to include these competences to create lesson materials that provide students with the skills to ask critical questions.
 
The guide is a ready-to-use resource not limited to teachers who come from conflict or war zones, or for teachers living in a country that has recently experienced conflict; it is also designed for educators beyond these regions. It provides concise information on the local contexts in Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova before presenting the three model lesson activities on the long persisting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (1988-present), the Georgian coup d’état (1991-92) and the War on the Dniester (1992).
 
The lesson plan developed by the Armenian teachers, using the example of the border village of Movses, illustrates how the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which started in 1988, has disrupted and impacted every aspect of life along the border of an international conflict zone. Students will greatly benefit from understanding the conflict from the perspective of the periphery and not the centre, focusing on people who live in one of the places most affected by the conflict. It will allow educators and students alike to consider not only the official, top-down, political, and ideological perspective of the conflict, but also the perspective of the most vulnerable.

The teachers from Georgia decided to develop a lesson on the Georgian coup d’état (1991-92) and the ensuing Civil War, a conflict that remains an under-studied and sensitive topic in Georgian society, with contrasting opinions among different local stakeholders. While such positions represent the opinions of Georgian historians and the wider public, there has yet to be any large-scale historiographical study of the conflict. Because of this, it is difficult to teach about the Georgian Civil War in state schools: there is no objective view of the conflict free of political influence or propaganda. The problem is compounded by the presence of incomplete and episodic information on the subject in the history curriculum and textbooks. Learning about this event will enhance the understanding of the broader Georgian Civil War of 1991-93.

In the case of Moldova, the teachers developed lesson material on the Transnistria War of 1992, which remains the most sensitive and controversial topic in Moldovan society and is still not treated adequately in schools. As part of this project, desirable outcomes of quality education in schools in Moldova and Transnistria are to include the promotion of democratic values and the rule of law, and history education will hopefully play an important role in securing a sustainable peace to this frozen conflict. By looking at various aspects of the conflict, from the political to the economic and social, the lesson plan shows the effect of the conflict on both sides of the Dniester and asks students to do their own research on its legacy in their immediate surroundings.
 
The guide is available in the respective national languages of the teachers who made it – Armenian, Georgian, and Romanian – and in English, so that it can be used by a wider community of international educators. This guide and other lesson materials can be accessed and downloaded for free from the Confronting Memories website.