Teaching Archeology in Autobiographies of Scientists of Kharkiv University (1950s-1960s)

Abstract

The article is devoted to study the autobiographical heritage of archeology teachers at Kharkiv University during the second half of the XXth century. Different aspects of teaching this discipline on a historical faculty were characterized basically with the help of sources of a particular origin. The author notes that the second half of the XXth century was the new wave of teaching archeology at Kharkiv University. The teaching system of this science was formed and new teaching staff was gradually appeared. The evaluation of this work was marked by many people: from students to the relatives and was reflected in many memoirs. But the teachers’ self-evaluation of their work was rather important. Autobiographic articles, memories, diaries could be the sources for the investigation. It was mentioned that during the investigation the author faced with the selection of facts in memories and teachers’ ultra subjectivity of their self-evaluation. The article focuses special attention on the fact that teaching archeology in 50-60ss of the XXth century based on Marxist-Leninist ideology and the high ideological and theoretical level. It was done to support the image among university society which was inspired by those ideas. If the teacher hadn’t paid attention to “ youth education in the spirit of communism” and hadn’t taken part in cultural and public life of university, that would have been an obstacle for him to climb the “carrier ladder”.

The author comes to the conclusion that teachers exaggerated their role in teaching for creating more positive self-image among university society. This fact gives an opportunity not to take their autobiographical materials as objective sources of information.