Education authorities in Russia have produced four updated history books for high school students, adding chapters from 2014 to the present day and including the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.
Historians within Russia have slammed the textbooks, saying history should never deal with continuing events in the present day.
A team headed by former Minister for Culture, Vladimir Medinsky produced the books, which will be used in Grades 10 and 11 in all Russian schools. The same team will produce books for primary school students during 2024.
The books state the West is "fixated on destabilising Russia”, justifying the annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
It details the destruction of Soviet memorials in Eastern Europe, and the "resurgence of Nazism" in the Baltic countries, before concluding with the emergence of "Ukrainian neo-Nazism”.
It suggests that Ukraine entering NATO “would most likely be the end of civilisation. That must not be allowed to happen".
According to Dr Medinsky (pictured), the new textbook contains "significantly fewer numbers, dates and dry statistics, and, instead, focuses on stories about people and real concrete events".
This does not convince historian and political scientist, Konstantin Pachaljuk who has been involved in writing school history textbooks in Russia in the past.
"I wrote a chapter on World War I for one of the textbooks, but it was edited and turned into patriotic agitation. Such a fuss was made, and I had to defend some of my points," Dr Pachaljuk said.
"This approach, where current events are included in history textbooks, is not common practice. Many historians are critical of this,” he said.
“The present should not be the subject of history. There needs to be historical distance. Perhaps the reason why the State wants to combine history with the present is so the present appears as stable as its history."
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