Abstract:

The study of modern history is the most important and final element of the preparation of the student-historian at the University. The basis of the educational process is the work with historical sources. Given the special interest of modern humanitarian knowledge to the "human factor", the author aims to briefly summarize the experience of the organization of work with the category of historical sources, which most fully reflects the idea of the role of man in modern history – sources of personal origin. The author examines in detail the principles, stages and methods of organization of educational activities with such a variety of these sources as the diaries of ordinary citizens. The report shows the advantages of diaries over later memoirs. Special attention is paid to the organization of educational and research activities of students to work with diaries.
At the first stage, the teacher conducts an introductory lecture, which gives students an idea of the specifics of the diary as a historical source. At the next stage, the issues of searching for these sources by contacting citizens and the relevant Internet sites are considered. One of the most successful projects in this regard is the website "http://prozhito.org/", the creators of which for a number of years actively collect and prepare for publication on the website and for publication diaries of both famous historical figures and ordinary citizens.
In this report, the author examines the technology of preparing handwritten texts for posting on the site and the experience of organizing such work with students of the Moscow Region State University, recently connected to such activities, which is, of course, not only scientific, but also of great educational importance. The report shows that this joint activity of the teacher and students allows students to learn more deeply the methods of working with historical sources, and for the historical science itself provides extremely valuable information on modern history, which is difficult to find in the sources of official origin. Key points of the report are illustrated by examples of extracts from diaries.

Keywords:

modern history, diaries, students, methods, historical sources, ordinary citizens.