Abstract

After the Second World War, the idea of European integration gained wide currency in most Western European countries, despite the diversity of their economic, political, national, and cultural traditions. In addressing the exceptionally complex problem of its implementation, not only specialists from various disciplines but also historians were enlisted. The latter were charged with developing one of the key mechanisms for shaping a European community: a unified school history textbook for Western European states. In 1953–1954, under the auspices of the Council of Europe, meetings of historians were convened specifically to identify the criteria and conceptual framework for such a textbook. Academician Anna Mikhailovna Pankratova (1897–1957) found it necessary to forward the materials of these conferences to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In her accompanying letter, she proposed adopting countermeasures and organizing a campaign to expose what she described as the revision of school history textbooks in a number of Western European countries, aimed at promoting the idea of a European community. Pankratova considered it necessary to inform the directors of historical institutes and the editors of historical journals in the German Democratic Republic and in the European countries of people's democracy about the outcomes of the conferences. In Moscow, she proposed convening a meeting at which representatives of the academies, higher and secondary schools of the USSR and the European countries of people's democracy, as well as progressive historians from European capitalist countries, could present papers denouncing — according to her assessment — the activities of proponents of the European idea, whom she accused of falsifying history. Following this meeting, Pankratova recommended issuing an address to historians in all European countries, emphasizing the patriotic role of historical scholarship. She also proposed including on the agenda of the Tenth World Congress of Historians (Rome, 1955) a report devoted to the national significance and patriotic tasks of historical science, acceding to the European Cultural Convention, and participating in the Third Conference of Historians organized by the European Council. However, these proposals were rejected by the Department of Science and Culture of the CPSU Central Committee.