Problem and purpose. The study is relevant due to the lack of special scientific works on the identification and comparison of the circle of historical personalities of the twentieth - early twenty-first century, which are studied in the school course of general history by students of Russia and Belarus. Studying the problem will reveal how students of our country understand the issue of the role of the individual in the historical process, which is important for the development of socio-cultural and political relations between our countries. The purpose of the article is to compare Russian and Belarusian schoolbooks on general history to identify personalities on their pages that are significant for the history of our countries of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Therefore, they were presented to students for further study. The research methodology is based on the method of comparison, analysis, synthesis, description and the method of content analysis, which allows you to determine historical personalities and their characteristics that are found on the pages of textbooks. The results of the research. Five textbooks of the general history of Russia and Belarus are analyzed. The correlation of the number of references to historical figures of the twentieth - beginning of the twenty-first century in Russian and Belarusian school books on general history is revealed. Compiled summary tables. Drawing conclusions, the authors note that the historical subjects mentioned on the pages of school textbooks on the general history of Russia and Belarus are almost identical: during the study period, most countries of the world were in interaction with each other in the framework of regional and world processes and events, which made certain historical figures central to the history of many countries. Russia and Belarus, for most of the study period, were part of a single state entity, and therefore, modern schoolbooks on the general history of these countries contain a similar list of historical characters. However, Belarusian textbooks provide a more detailed description of historical subjects than Russian ones, since more time is devoted to studying the time period designated by the authors of the article in Belarusian schools than in Russian schools, and because there are different approaches to the organization of cognitive activity of schoolchildren. In conclusion, the authors outline the prospects for the development of the research topic.