13.02.2025
On February 13, Filipp Taratorkin, Acting Director of the Institute of History and Archives at RSUH, spoke on "Radio Russia" about upcoming changes to history training programs and the new skills needed by modern humanities scholars.
Host:
RSUH plans to improve the training of professional historians. First, I’d like to understand: what does this entail? What new skills do modern historians need? What exactly are we talking about?
Filipp Taratorkin:
Professional skills of historians are divided into basic fundamental and applied skills. The basic fundamental skills remain unchanged. Any professional historian is always focused on what we call "source knowledge", relying on historical documents for understanding the past.
However, historians are in constant dialogue with society, which is why they are called social sciences. History is one of the social sciences. In this dialogue, historians need analytical, expert, and even predictive skills.
Host:
Indeed, finding data is one thing, but these new skills must be supported by analytical and critical thinking. What comes next?
Filipp Taratorkin:
We are pleased to see a trend toward returning to a five-year specialist degree program, which will allow for a deeper focus on the fundamental historical education that has always been renowned for its universality and depth in the humanities.
Host:
How will this affect teaching, for example, in schools?
Filipp Taratorkin:
At RSUH, as in other universities, we continuously analyze the job market and the employment of our graduates. At the Institute of History and Archives, we train archivists, which is a unique profession of keepers of historical documents. We also train document specialists, who are always in demand. For example, we have a Master's program dedicated to historical analysis as a specialized field of professional activity for historians.
Host:
Like political science, right? Many become political scientists after studying history.
Filipp Taratorkin:
Yes, political scientists, analysts in a broad sense. But most remain with field of historical science: some pursue fundamental research, others applied studies. We have active collaboration with academic institutions, including the Russian Academy of Sciences, which has several major historical research institutes. Our graduates face no employment issues, everyone is satisfied, both employers and graduates. This makes us very happy.
