End of the 20th century was marked in Kazakhstan with surge of interest in historical heritage. Society sought to comprehend the traversed path. Growth of historical consciousness expressed in the rejection of old stereotypes and dogmas, a kind of "Retrospective necessary for prospects" (Guliga AV) but history in this period was in a methodological crisis which manifested itself in the denial of historical materialism, the transition to clean factology, recognizing a single civilizational approach. This crisis has touched and the teaching of history. Was the issue of what to teach for school teachers? Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnology named after Sh.Valikhanov headed by M.K.Kozybaev since 1988, did a lot for the development of topical problems in the history of Kazakhstan. Substantial assistance to the establishment of school history education had a lot of history textbooks for secondary schools and higher education institutions, among which is a textbook on the history of Kazakhstan for the 10th grade students of Russian-speaking schools, written M. Kozybaev and I. Kozybayev in 1992. Previous textbooks did not meet information requirements and achievements of historical scholarship, especially radically envisaged content of the training material. Were first covered events such as famine in the Kazakh steppe, the daily practice of the collectivization, the role of the national intelligentsia, clergy in the political life of society has changed the author's text, but not limited statement of facts, the authors recount the dramatic events of the most recent period of history of the Kazakh people, using plot story dramatization, personification. Appeal to social history, the fate of specific individuals contributes to the formation of empathy, empathy, involvement in the events being studied. First included in the school textbook with additional text feature historical figures whose names were not mentioned before in the scientific literature: T.Alniyazov; A. Kanaev; S. Shozakov; F Akbaev; Y.Babayev and others who fought for national sovereignty against forced collectivization. The textbook became synthesis anthologies and encyclopedic reference book that caused hunger for information. Here are documentary material from previously inaccessible pre-revolutionary and Soviet archives, in particular a letter Trotsky moments on national policy in Kazakhstan, letters and articles T; Ryskulov A.Baitursynov, statistics on hunger of 1930-1932. "Five letter" program documents of the party "Alash" tired "Koshchi Union" and other documents. 

 The role of the textbook in the learning process has fundamentally changed. The rejection of its exclusive as an authoritative source of information has led to educational book that primarily helps to involve student to research methods of work: teaching historiographical analysis, bibliographic search and source criticism. Reference is mandatory element in the today’s textbook. Its purpose is significantly different from what he had in textbooks of past generations. Then the source cited at the end of this section as an illustration of the author's text, or, at best, as an argument in its favor. In the analyzed textbook question of historical sources resolved successfully, students can work independently with the text, to compare different evaluation and critically perceive the author's position. New content is supported by educational material methodical mechanism textbook. System of questions and tasks, putting it into the unit self-consciously helps to study historical processes, to learn to work with historical information to be able to not only answer questions, but also ask them actualizing already known knowledge. Note that the tutorial was created in a short time and put primarily task to update the content of teaching material, so there are no illustrations; necessary for the development of interest, specifying historical representations. In general, the above analysis suggests that M.Kozybaev a pioneer in the creation of new textbooks needed by a modern school.

Comparative study of history textbooks that were created in the post-Soviet period in Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS countries, which were held in the past five years by the Friedrich Nauman Foundation in collaboration with Russian scientists have shown that there is some relationship between the nature, depth and ongoing success in these countries reforms and an assessment of their peoples of its recent past. Tutorial on the recent history of Kazakhstan M. Kozybaev characterizing one of the crucial, dramatic periods in the history of the Kazakh people can rightly be considered to be achievements of Soviet science.