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Schoolbooks have long been a battleground over ideology and historical memory. Mr. Putin, the former KGB officer who came to power in 2000, has repeatedly revised them to glorify Russia’s history as a single, unbroken thousand-year feat and to dress up the story of his own rule. He’s now overseeing a rewrite of the narrative of the war in Ukraine, too. The question is whether it will stick.
As The Post’s Mary Ilyushina reports, one new textbook is aimed at 17-year-olds in the 11th grade and covers the period from 1945 until now; another is a new edition for 16-year-olds in the 10th grade covering World War II. In the 11th-grade book, chapters covering Russian and Soviet history between the 1970s and 2010s have been substantially rewritten. New material has been added about the war against Ukraine, described in the introduction as “the return of our historical lands.” The book repeats the untruth that “Russia did not start any military actions but is trying to end them.” The text blames the war on the United States’ military support for Ukraine.
The revised 11th-grade book is critical of both Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms of the late 1980s and Boris Yeltsin’s drive for a market democracy in the 1990s, saying that neither worked, while under Mr. Putin a “vertical of power” was established and Russia experienced a “revival” and renewed respect in the world.
In Soviet times, history was reinterpreted, distorted and erased to better fit Marxist theory and ensure the political dominance of the Communist Party. High school history texts often closely paralleled Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s infamous “Short Course” of 1938, glorifying the Communist Party and sweeping the rest of Soviet history under the rug. To keep control of the historical narrative, the Soviet Union sent schools a party-approved unified text, allowing no space for alternative views, just as censors scoured every printed word.
The Soviet-era texts suffered from glaring omissions. A 10th-grade history text used in the 1970s skipped altogether the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of Aug. 23, 1939, in which Stalin and Hitler agreed to carve up Poland and the three Baltic states. Soviet leaders at the time insisted no such pact existed, although in truth the original was locked in Soviet vaults.
Mr. Gorbachev’s glasnost, or openness, policy of the late 1980s led to many new disclosures about the dark corners of Soviet totalitarianism. While new history textbooks were commissioned, they could hardly keep up with the breathtaking revelations. After the Soviet collapse, authors in the 1990s wrote honest school textbooks, including one by historian Igor Dolutsky that reprinted direct passages of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. (The original text was put on display in a Moscow museum.) This trend of a plurality of textbooks continued into Mr. Putin’s first decade in power. A 2011 report found that Russian secondary school history teachers felt free to select books for their classrooms from year to year, and that history classes offered very little space for propaganda.
Mr. Putin seeks to reverse this. He has suggested going back to a single, unified history curriculum, as in Soviet days. The recent rewrite was a crash effort during the war in Ukraine, edited by Vladimir Medinsky, an ultranationalist conservative and former culture minister who has helped advance Mr. Putin’s drive to reshape the telling of Russian history. Mr. Medinsky has been a Putin assistant since 2020.
For many years, Kremlin indoctrination plans seemed to carry little weight. Students enjoyed high-quality internet access and were exposed to powerful Western influences such as video games and pop culture. The 2011 report in the journal Pro et Contra found that teenagers regarded school, teachers and textbooks as among the least important sources of information about 20th-century history — TV and movies came first.
But the war has plunged Russians into greater isolation. Strict new laws prohibit criticism of the military, and Mr. Putin has moved to close historical repositories such as the group Memorial. Independent news media are shuttered. The father of a 13-year-old Russian girl was arrested and jailed because of her antiwar sketch at school. The youngest students today are growing up in a tightly controlled, xenophobic atmosphere. Should Mr. Putin remain in power for years ahead, so will his besieged, fortress mentality.
This is why it remains so important to penetrate the cordon and provide Russians with honest, straightforward news. Some news outlets, such as Meduza, TV Rain and others, are doing this, and they deserve support. Desperate for independent information during the June mutiny of mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin, Russians sought out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian service, which saw YouTube views leap 31 times, and Current Time TV, which saw views multiply five times. All these channels can be a vital counterweight to Mr. Putin’s lopsided history lessons.
Putin conquers Russia’s history textbooks
What will Russia look like after President Vladimir Putin’s ruinous war against Ukraine? Mr. Putin has used the war to drive the Russian state and society deeper into dictatorship. This legacy will be long-lasting, and now Mr. Putin is rewriting high school history textbooks to convey his many lies and fabrications to a new generation.Schoolbooks have long been a battleground over ideology and historical memory. Mr. Putin, the former KGB officer who came to power in 2000, has repeatedly revised them to glorify Russia’s history as a single, unbroken thousand-year feat and to dress up the story of his own rule. He’s now overseeing a rewrite of the narrative of the war in Ukraine, too. The question is whether it will stick.
As The Post’s Mary Ilyushina reports, one new textbook is aimed at 17-year-olds in the 11th grade and covers the period from 1945 until now; another is a new edition for 16-year-olds in the 10th grade covering World War II. In the 11th-grade book, chapters covering Russian and Soviet history between the 1970s and 2010s have been substantially rewritten. New material has been added about the war against Ukraine, described in the introduction as “the return of our historical lands.” The book repeats the untruth that “Russia did not start any military actions but is trying to end them.” The text blames the war on the United States’ military support for Ukraine.
The revised 11th-grade book is critical of both Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms of the late 1980s and Boris Yeltsin’s drive for a market democracy in the 1990s, saying that neither worked, while under Mr. Putin a “vertical of power” was established and Russia experienced a “revival” and renewed respect in the world.
In Soviet times, history was reinterpreted, distorted and erased to better fit Marxist theory and ensure the political dominance of the Communist Party. High school history texts often closely paralleled Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s infamous “Short Course” of 1938, glorifying the Communist Party and sweeping the rest of Soviet history under the rug. To keep control of the historical narrative, the Soviet Union sent schools a party-approved unified text, allowing no space for alternative views, just as censors scoured every printed word.
The Soviet-era texts suffered from glaring omissions. A 10th-grade history text used in the 1970s skipped altogether the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of Aug. 23, 1939, in which Stalin and Hitler agreed to carve up Poland and the three Baltic states. Soviet leaders at the time insisted no such pact existed, although in truth the original was locked in Soviet vaults.
Mr. Gorbachev’s glasnost, or openness, policy of the late 1980s led to many new disclosures about the dark corners of Soviet totalitarianism. While new history textbooks were commissioned, they could hardly keep up with the breathtaking revelations. After the Soviet collapse, authors in the 1990s wrote honest school textbooks, including one by historian Igor Dolutsky that reprinted direct passages of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. (The original text was put on display in a Moscow museum.) This trend of a plurality of textbooks continued into Mr. Putin’s first decade in power. A 2011 report found that Russian secondary school history teachers felt free to select books for their classrooms from year to year, and that history classes offered very little space for propaganda.
Mr. Putin seeks to reverse this. He has suggested going back to a single, unified history curriculum, as in Soviet days. The recent rewrite was a crash effort during the war in Ukraine, edited by Vladimir Medinsky, an ultranationalist conservative and former culture minister who has helped advance Mr. Putin’s drive to reshape the telling of Russian history. Mr. Medinsky has been a Putin assistant since 2020.
For many years, Kremlin indoctrination plans seemed to carry little weight. Students enjoyed high-quality internet access and were exposed to powerful Western influences such as video games and pop culture. The 2011 report in the journal Pro et Contra found that teenagers regarded school, teachers and textbooks as among the least important sources of information about 20th-century history — TV and movies came first.
But the war has plunged Russians into greater isolation. Strict new laws prohibit criticism of the military, and Mr. Putin has moved to close historical repositories such as the group Memorial. Independent news media are shuttered. The father of a 13-year-old Russian girl was arrested and jailed because of her antiwar sketch at school. The youngest students today are growing up in a tightly controlled, xenophobic atmosphere. Should Mr. Putin remain in power for years ahead, so will his besieged, fortress mentality.
This is why it remains so important to penetrate the cordon and provide Russians with honest, straightforward news. Some news outlets, such as Meduza, TV Rain and others, are doing this, and they deserve support. Desperate for independent information during the June mutiny of mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin, Russians sought out Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian service, which saw YouTube views leap 31 times, and Current Time TV, which saw views multiply five times. All these channels can be a vital counterweight to Mr. Putin’s lopsided history lessons.
