Natalya V. Rossel

Historical self-awareness is one of the qualities of a person that determines his/her maturity, the ability for spiritual self-organization, for conscious and critical perception of events observed in life. The purpose of the article was to describe the results of a study of historical self-awareness of modern Russian student youth. The study was conducted using systemic and functional approaches, integrative, correlation and other methods. The main practical tool was the method of sociological survey, with the help of which, according to a questionnaire compiled on the basis of the questionnaire of E. N. Shestakova, 94 students of the Kamensk Technological Institute, branch of the South-Russian State Polytechnical University named after M. I. Platov (Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Russia), were surveyed in 2024. The analysis covered students' perception of history and their place in it, the level and direction of their interest in Russian history, students' civic consciousness, and other issues related to the historical self-awareness of young people. The survey results were compared with those obtained in a similar study by E. N. Shestakova in 2006. It was found that most modern young people are interested in historical issues, and this interest is determined for modern students not only by an internal urge to understand their own history and identify their place in it, but also by a distrust of official publications on historical topics. At the same time, students' interest in the public life of the people as part of history has increased. In addition, it was noted the need for young people to receive information from history in various forms and methods, including those related to modern digital technologies. The theoretical significance of the work lies in the clarification of the concept of historical self-awareness. The practical significance of the study lies in the formulation of methodological recommendations for teaching history in a technical university, in particular, it is recommended to pay attention to methods of situation analysis, problem-searching methods, drawing up structural-logical schemes, developing communicative competence, etc.