MOSCOW, May 1 (Itar-Tass) - A large majority of Russians (58 percent), in the first place, those with a high level of education (62 percent) and resident in medium cities (65 percent) support the idea of a unified history concept, as follows from the results of an opinion poll the national public opinion studies centre VTSIOM published on Friday.
According to the pollster, the key argument of those who like this proposal is the need for unified standards and a unified vision of history (25 percent). Also, respondents point to the need for an authentic version of history (8 percent) and tend to believe that a good unified history manual would help children study the subject (6 percent).
Sixteen percent of Russians do not like the idea of a single history manual, but an overwhelming majority of these - 89 percent - were unable to present any arguments why. The others pointed to the need for taking a variety of opinions into consideration (4 percent) and some (3 percent) fear distortions of facts.
Forty six percent of the respondents do know that a new concept of history is being worked in Russia to eventually serve as a basis for a new history manual for schools, but their idea of that is mostly vague (35 percent). Fifty two percent for the first time heard the news from the pollster.
The most informed people are in Moscow and St. Petersburg (63 percent) and among highly educated respondents (55 percent). Utterly ignorant of the work on a unified history concept at the moment of the poll were 56-59 percent of people in small towns and villages and 67 percent of poorly educated respondents.
The VTSIOM conducted the opinion poll on July 21-22 to question 1,600 men and women of age in 130 cities and villages in 42 constituent territories of Russia. The statistical error margin was no greater than 3.4 percent.