Historiography of the trade union movement in educational institutions of the USSR from the late 1950s to the early 1990s

this article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the historiography of the trade union movement within educational institutions of the Soviet Union from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. The study focuses on identifying the main trends, key issues, and the evolution of scholarly approaches to the subject in both domestic and foreign literature. The objective of the work is to systematize the accumulated historiographical knowledge, critically assess existing concepts, and determine promising directions for further research into the activities of educational trade unions during the specified period. The analysis is based on a retrospective review of a wide range of sources, including monographs, academic articles, dissertations, collections of documents, and conference proceedings. Special attention is paid to methods of historiographical analysis, the comparative-historical approach, and the principle of historicism, which enable tracing the dynamics of the development of scholarly perspectives in the context of changing political and socio-economic paradigms of Soviet society. The main focus is on evaluating the degree of study of various aspects: the organizational structure of educational trade unions, their functions in the sphere of social protection of workers, cultural and mass activities, production activities, as well as their relations with party and state bodies. The results of the study demonstrate that the historiography has undergone a complex evolution from ideologized works that downplayed the real role of trade unions and emphasized their purely mobilizational function to more balanced post-Soviet research. Contemporary studies increasingly focus on the examination of the everyday activities of trade union committees, mechanisms for resolving labor disputes, implementation of social guarantees for teachers and lecturers, and the role of trade unions in the face of escalating crisis phenomena of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Significant gaps have been identified, particularly the insufficient study of regional specifics, microhistories of primary trade union organizations, the perception of trade union work by ordinary members, and comparative aspects with trade unions in other sectors or countries of the Socialist camp.

historiography, education trade unions, USSR, state control, teacher community