According to Skolverket the aim of history as a subject is to teach the students about different narratives in history. The purpose of this overview is to analyze and compare what earlier research tells us about how World War II is portrayed in textbooks in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. To achieve this purpose we are focusing on a number of narratives. The ability to critically review textbooks is important in the profession because usually the facts that are presented are in the interest of the nation. The material that has been used was found through the databases: Education Research Complete (ERC) and ERIC via EBSCO. The sources have been reviewed and analyzed to make sure that they are relevant for the subject. To narrow the material further we have only used peer-reviewed sources. Furthermore, additional sources have been presented through Google Scholar. The result in this overview tells us about how the countries in question use different narratives as a tool in nation building and the creation of a national identity. Depending on the country the narratives change to either connect or disconnect from other countries and their actions. A lot of the focus in the textbooks deals with things that happen within their own countries borders and the people that live within those borders. On the contrary, other countries and the people within those countries tend to be forgotten, especially in cases such as foundation, suffering and resistance. Concluding the overview,  the different materials used all argue that textbooks play an important role in nation building and the creation of a national identity. Focusing on a number of narratives, the difference in how nations portray the same narratives in different ways to build a national identity is clear. The results presented by the sources opened up for discussions about the relation between the teacher and the textbook as well as how the textbook is used.

In the German Democratic Republic (GDR) the overthrow of the socialist regime did not only bring about both an economic and political shift, it resulted also in the inclusion of the GDR into the Federal Republic of Germany. The fall of the Wall brought with it transformations in everyday life as well as changes in social identities. This study examines how people who grew up in the GDR define the East and the West in unified Germany, as well as identifying which concepts play a role in the self-interpretations given by former GDR citizens. Through applying discourse theory, I investigate how identities are partially fixed and change over time, relating this always to historically situated discourses. In the analysis, East and West are considered as floating signifiers, which, through articulations made with other categories such as class, nation, place and gender, come to be filled with meaning. The study is based on twenty-five life story interviews conducted in Eastern Germany. The group of interviewees consisted of fifteen women and ten men born in the GDR between the years of 1970 and 1979, all of whom had different levels of education. The demise of the socialist state and the transition to a capitalist society is central in the interviewees’ life stories. Their narratives about the past are formed in a discursive order other than the one in which the events themselves took place. Conversely, the past is used as a foil against which the present is compared. With the dislocation, the interviewees have developed a reflexive stance to both themselves and the world. The study reveals both how East and West are still used to make the world intelligible in a number of fields and, at the same time, how these same concepts are transcended. It shows in what ways the interviewees employ different strategies to adapt to the new circumstances and to handle a potentially marked position in unified Germany.