Russian students start the new school year with a new history book

2023-09-01 16:37:22, Kosova & Bota CNA

Russian students have started the new school year with words of encouragement from President Vladimir Putin and a new history book that critics say aims to "incite anger against Ukrainians" and explains to future recruits "why they have to wear military uniforms". ".

Speaking via video link, Putin cited a list of achievements by the government, telling students that the state is setting an example "in creating conditions for the education of the new generation."

But he didn't mention the new high school history book that, among other things, justifies the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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The rewritten history book will be used by students in the eleventh grade, or the last year of high school. The textbook is "filled with official Russian propaganda clichés" and tends to justify Russia's illegal actions, including the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it said in a statement on September 1 human rights organization, Amnesty International.

"This book hides the truth and misrepresents the facts about a series of human rights violations and crimes under international law committed by Russian forces against Ukrainians," said Anna Wring, Amnesty International's Europe researcher. East and Central Asia.

"Indoctrinating children at a sensitive stage of their development is a cynical attempt to eradicate Ukrainian culture, heritage and identity and is also a violation of the right to education," added Wright.

Vladimir Medinsky, a nationalist aide to Putin who served as culture minister from 2012-2020 and is one of the authors of the new book, said on August 8 that "the part about the period from the 70s to the 2000s has been reworked completely".

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Putin, who often speaks and writes about history, has made "patriotic education" one of the hallmarks of his more than two decades in power, even as critics have accused him of trying to change the past. .

The history book falsely claims that prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO advisers actively prepared Ukraine to "attack the Donbas," a reference to the area in eastern Ukraine that has been under partial Russian occupation since from 2014.

It also says that if Ukraine is allowed to join NATO, it would lead to a devastating war that would "likely end civilization" and leave Russia with no choice but to prevent such a war.

The new history book refers to the invasion of Ukraine as a "special military operation", a formulation that Putin also uses. The start of the invasion, the book says, was done because "life and death were in question, our future history as a people was in question"./ REL