The article analyzes results of a study of state and peculiarities of historical consciousness of modern students. It identifies status of the past in historical consciousness of young people, sources of knowing the past, historical interests, specifics of historical identification, role of various institutions of historical consciousness in representations of young people, ethnocentrism in their historical consciousness, meaningful commemorations. Results of the study are compared to other relevant all-Russian and foreign studies. It is concluded that transformation of historical consciousness of contemporary students has contradictory character associated on the one hand to a clearly defined tendency towards loss of fundamental role of tradition as the basic value in historical consciousness and orientation of their behavior, presenteeism, and on the other hand to maintaining strong traditions of ethnocentrism, state-centrism and interest for family history.