This article examines the production of new history textbooks that appeared after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is argued that the radical revisions in official history in this context are shaped by the Bakhtinian process of “hidden dialogicality,” whereby new, post-Soviet narratives respond to earlier Soviet narratives in various ways. It is argued that different forms of hidden dialogicality are employed to revise official accounts of the Russian Civil War and World War II. In the former case, new texts respond to their Soviet precursors through processes of “re-emplotment,” whereas in the case of World War II, the plot is left largely unchanged, but the main characters are changed. Although many political, cultural, and economic forces play a role in the revision of any official history, it is argued that the importance of hidden dialogicality between narrative forms needs to be taken into account as well.
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