Conference Myths in south-eastern European textbooks 22-24 October 2014, Tirana Myths in south-eastern European textbooks

Conclusion
Historical textbooks in Kosovo have a missionary character. Their mission consists on envisaging a complex historical, cultural and political identity which goes well along far-reaching political objectives of Albanians. The writers of such textbooks have devised a mythologized history out of several clichés or stereotypes. According to this mythologized history, Albanians are an indigenous people bearing an original culture; they have a linear history which might be traced back to Pelasgians-Illyrians-Arbërs-Shqiptarë; they withstood assimilation by retaining their ethnicity; they were pragmatic and tolerant regarding religions which is why they had an inter-religious tolerance with one another; they had a proto-national conscience which enabled them to transcend religious differences; they have been always victims of neighboring peoples and as such they were blameless for the most part of history; they were defenders and contributors as well of European civilization and culture. This constructed history eschews every element which would reveal the links with the eastern world. This meta-narration of history offers to Albanians a bright past which enables them a special seat on European history and an identity which is on the same pair with their inclination towards western civilization.
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Myths of history textbooks

Xhevair LLESHI

Astrit DAUTAJ

"History is very good teacher, but people are NOT her best students"!

Pitted against this claim, all teachers of history who participated in a workshop about the curriculum reform for basic education focused themselves in the second half. They complained about the low interest of students related to the history subject, lack of curiosity and motivation to learn what happened in the distant past and near. For teachers, the students were the only responsible for such a situation.

When asked to read more historical books students usually reply: First, tell us why it would serve us. For us, they keep saying, it is a waste of time to deal with things that we believe are not always true, that does not affect us, and we think they will never do.

Hence we raise the following issues:

For students to have an interest in the history subject and history itself, they must see the value of it for their present and future life.

That history deserves to be considered "a good teacher", it must have something to teach students and people in general.

In order to have them both, an appropriate teaching pedagogy, is needed, which in short means:

A curriculum for history subject which is developed based on a particular policy, under the responsibility of a state-appointed authority (Institute for Curriculum Development). This curriculum defines what the students should know and be able to do by the end of their schooling. It sets the framework within which the historical competence has to be developed, which implies the student as a reader of the history and the students as a writer of it. .

An good history school textbook which depends on:

curriculum requirements

textbook author - the extent to which the he/she understands and implements these requirements,

professional ability and integrity of the textbook authors etc..

A good teacher, being able to creatively implement the history curriculum.

There are teachers that literally follow the textbooks,

there are teachers that use a variety of strategies and techniques to creatively involve students in building their historical knowledge and

there are teachers that take even an opposing view regarding the way history is written or an event is interpreted in the textbook etc. These teachers may ad interesting points to the way an issue, event, or an historic character is addressed.

All three of these factors, if properly harmonized, create the possibility that, on the one hand, the history textbooks has something to teach people, therefore, “history can be a good teacher” and, on the other hand, students, people are motivated to learn from it.

Factors affecting the harmony of the above points are numerous. The focus of this conference are myths and their impact on understanding and writing history, affecting, in various degrees and forms, the three factors that we presented above.

For this reason, in this paper we need to point out the existence of myths in the history of our people and their characteristics, how they are addressed in the pre-university history textbooks, in both, World and Albanian history textbooks. The way they are considered and addressed has a great impact on the historical thought and on the teaching and learning process in the classroom and beyond it.

We now about myths, in general, and those that we call Albanian, in particular, through our oral literature, namely from folklore, history (through its various themes and mainly those related to the remote past), literature (world and national), cultural heritage etc., that are integrated in our pre-university education curricula. We certainly will focus on the history textbooks and mostly on our national history, without neglecting problems being part of the world history. Indeed, it would not be bad to start from here. Recently, historians have pointed out the idea of revising ancient and, largely, the Greco-Roman history, for, part of this history is filled, according to them full of myths. It seems that this idea contradict what Karl Grimberg (author of world history in 12 volumes) says that myths are as essential to small countries as air, otherwise they would not have a history at all.

We pose the question:

Have myths had only a negative impact on world history? This can be very true if we compare the coverage of the myths of world history in our textbooks, especially in grade six and ten, because they cover less than ten percent of the myths addressed by our colleagues in world history. Everybody can reach this conclusion if he/she had even a quick look at the library of the Institute of International Textbook Georg Eckert.

Of course it would be nice to know all the myths that came, through different ways, to become part of our national history, as we know the idea that qualifies our history as highly mythologized.

But, if this is true, could we have avoided it?

First, would it be possible to write our history leaving aside Bindi, Lebetitë, Melesoka, Thana, Era etc.? Yes, this would be the easiest part for us. Because they do not have the status Zeus, Athena, Saturn, Apollo etc.. use to have respectively in the ancient Greek and Rome history.

There would be problems, for instance, when it comes to Skanderbeg, who became a myth, a legend (as in fact was), as our Renaissance gave him the status of a national hero, because that was needed in that specific segment of time and space in our country.

But we ask: Does the Skanderbeg really deserve that status?

In almost all textbooks present in our school environment today, written by 12 different authors, Scanderbeg is not given a mythical dimensions. He is not Zeus, not even Prometheus, though he kindled the fire of patriotism, unite associated with survival of the Albanian people.

In this sense, even when myths are created, they have served a very specific purpose.

In this context, the “myth” of Scanderbeg represent the idea of uniting in a single independent state, the idea of the ability of self-government, which for the Albanians, who have always been under the rule of foreigners, seemed impossible. Today they say "Albanians cannot build Albania”. At a time, when the country was under Ottoman rule, inherited from the rule of the Byzantine and Roman centuries, using the myth of Scanderbeg to convince Albanians that they can govern Albania, was historically justified. As such this served the survival of this nation. The old and mythical thesis that " Albanians cannot govern Albania” reappears today and a response is needed to that:

Should history textbooks etc. serve the country’s interests, specifically related to time and space?

What about the above saying? To what and to whom does it serve?

Scanderbeg was mythologized during the Albanian Renaissance to serve several national purposes of the time. Albanian Renaissance was mythologized and this served the idea that even labeled, based on religious affiliation, Muslims ( they were called Turks), orthodox (they were called Greek) Catholics (they were called Latin), we all are Albanians. In this way, the Renaissance mythologized served the survival and preservation of the Albanian nation. Indeed there is something more, which began to evoke Renaissance because even religious heritage was about to turn into a myth, equivalent to nationality.

  As seen from these two examples, in our past history, myths have played an important social and political role. They have served as a model of behavior for the Albanians: unity, love for the homeland, the resistance against the invaders etc., are some of the typical behaviors required in certain historical periods (which unfortunately, in our country, lasted for centuries and epochs) for survival and self-preservation. In this sense, the myths have played a major role for our small country and confirm, in a way, the famous saying of Carl Grimberg.

It must be underlined that myths in our history occupy less space than in the history of other Balkan countries which we know through history textbooks and books.

History repeats itself in different forms and to different extent. The history repeats itself through repeating situations that threaten the existence of our nation and its inherent features. In these circumstances, the history called, for assistance, which seems to be a permanent task, myths and their recreation, which, in this view, have served and serve the preservation of our nation and our own history.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Maybe we should go through all our history textbooks and identify and give a picture of the status of myths in them, for instance to quote the lines related to the way Skanderbeg or other characters of our history are mythologized, or the lines where new modern myths appear and supported for different interests.

But, ladies and gentlemen, this would be the simplest thing for the sole reason that in this way would not follow the real logic of history and its determine factors but that of the outside forms.

 Therefore, reading the Albanian history, even mythologized, one can understand the consciousness of a nation, along the stages of its history. One can question the authenticity of the statement of Barletius that "Albanians have gone through history with a sword in their hand" (forgive us if the statement sounds as Albanian later myth!). Today we can laugh at the words of the poetry of Ismail Kadare that "the gun is an extension of the Albanian rib". But, what it teaches us, is that in this country, the ideas related to them have been part of the social consciousness and that there was a time that necessarily asked for them, representing in the same time the ideals and institutions of the society, or of its segments specifically.

But, is it true that the value of myths can go beyond the constraints of time and space? In fact, we think not, because their value is limited within the framework defined by history.

For this reason, the question of myths, their relation with the truth, and demands that history poses to a nation, society, social group, etc.., remains always open.

Myths and their excessive use does not help writing the history and history textbooks. They lead them to wrong direction and far away to their expected outcome.

a. Myths leads students not to the real cause and effect relationship that conditioned the course of history, but to other non important, casual events that happened to be part of it. Students should be taught to explore the factors determining the development of society and its history, cause and effect relationships that are repeated in the course of history, and which therefore are necessary to really understand history and help us to predict it. In this sense, students should not have to spend time in a semester, to make, for example, a 2-3 classes tourist trip around the most ancient civilizations, but to spend it time to study, in depth and in width, 2 to 3 civilizations, for a longer time, in order to understand, the course of their development and their specific and common features. This will help students to understands the laws of the economy and its relation to politics and other factors of the society. The students will use this pattern when they will examine later and present civilizations and to predict a possible future and make sound decisions in time and space where they live.

When studying history, students should learn that, in addition to what is repeatable, there are several features, ideas, opportunities, etc.. that are closely related to the specificities of the time and space. The students should be given the opportunity to learn to consider past events, ideas, characters, values​​, limitations etc.. against criteria’s belonging to their time and space . Only in this way history teaching will enable students to put everything in the appropriate space and time and to judge, to accept etc.. in the context of that time. Only in this way, people will not be slaves of the myths created for various reasons, and not react when, for example, the mythical figure of Skanderbeg was placed in his historical environment and would appear before them with the characteristics of any ruler of the time. So people will be able to demythologizing history and the society will gradually eliminate the conditions and reasons for the myths to exist and get used.

However, in our history thing are a little bit different. Because giving up myth, mean that you have to question existing ideas in the existing historical truth, in order to confirm it or, if there are sufficient resources to suggest its review, it new facts and historical resources are sufficient to suggest such a thing.