On April 27, 2016 within the framework of the project “Historians Museum Platform” the National Museum of history of Ukraine hosted the lecture by Dr. Igor Shchupak, “Tkuma” Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies and Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine” Director, author of Ukrainian History and World History textbooks, entitled “Ukrainian Vision of the 20th c.: the Experience of Textbook Creation”.

The event gathered more than 120 participants, mainly schoolchildren and teachers. Thus the audience was definitely interested in the topic of the lecture.

Dr. I. Shchupak started with the discussion on the world experience and world approaches to teaching history at schools, and that compared them with Ukrainian ones. In Ukraine in fact courses on the History of Ukraine World History are separated. Because of this, pupils usually do not understand that military campaigns on Rusyn princes against nomads took place simultaneously with the Crusades, that Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Oliver Cromwell were contemporaries. It is also important to understand that there is almost no difference between the Western European city halls in medieval towns and Ukrainian ones. Similar parallels Dr. Igor Shchupak is drawing in his textbooks: “In such was we bring up an understanding of the vision of World History and connection between Ukrainian and European history, because Ukraine is a part of Europe”. However, the researcher noted that Eurocentrism should be avoided.

Given the attention of the audience, the lecture was interesting for all participants who actively took part in the discussion..