The Kremlin rewrites Russian history and adapts it to a society at war
In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the Kremlin even writes the history books. Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky has published four history books for students aged 16 to 18 in which he offers a revisionist interpretation of the fall of the Soviet Union, the Putin era and the causes of the war in Ukraine.
The books, which will be part of the student curriculum starting next month, reflect Putin’s historical vision: pride in the achievements of the superpower Soviet Union, outrage at the humiliations of the Soviet collapse, and praise for the “rebirth” of Russia under his tenure, that of a former KGB spy, beginning on the last day of 1999.
The final chapter of the book History of Russia: 1945 – Start of the 21st century, 447 pages long, focuses on the causes of the biggest land war in Europe since World War II: Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. With the title Russia today. The Special Military Operation, the chapter reflects Putin’s disappointment with the West and points out that Moscow offered support to the US during the attacks of September 11 in a post-Cold War gesture of friendship. “The West became obsessed with destabilizing Russia,” settles the book, which Reuters has been able to browse. “The goal was not even hidden: to dismember Russia and seize control of her resources,” he remarks on page 393.
According to the story in the aforementioned volume, the youth of Russia must understand the tragedy of the Soviet collapse, the betrayal of the West, and the need to sacrifice for the greatness of the Russian motherland.
Putin, who has led Russia longer than Josef Stalin, has long grappled with the ghosts of Russian history, be it lamenting Moscow’s silence as the Soviet Union fell apart or arguing for the “historic unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” ”, as he indicated in an essay of almost 7,000 words, months before ordering the sending of troops to Ukraine.
This revisionist textbook, co-authored by Anatoly Torkunov, the rector of the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations, also claims that the West expanded the NATO military alliance to the East despite promises not to, ignored the persecution of the Russians, spread Russophobia and sparked color revolutions in Georgia and the Ukraine, obliterating established ruling elites.
“This is propaganda, it’s not a textbook,” lamented Mikhailo Kopitsa, a Russian history teacher who left the country after the start of the Ukrainian invasion and now teaches at a school in Montenegro. “The regime shows its strength: we will do what we want and you will have to put up with it, just accept it. It is another brick in the propaganda wall, directed at the entire educational system”, Kopitsa remarked. However, for the professor this publication also indicates the concern of the Putin regime: “There is a fear that the Internet generation, the Zoom generation, is not very receptive -or not receptive enough- to propaganda. That’s why they need to strengthen it more and more.”
Western leaders, Russian dissidents and some historians of the country see the invasion of Ukraine as a strategic mistake that has exposed Russia’s weaknesses and bolstered, even forged, Ukrainian nationalism.
The book asks students to answer the question: “What reasons led Russia to start the special military operation?” According to the volume, the answer is a struggle for control of Ukraine between Russia and the West, a struggle fueled by “Ukrainian neo-Nazism” in an attempt to undermine Russia. “Little by little, the United States and NATO began to prepare Ukraine for the role of the main battering ram against Russia,” the book concludes. (Reuters)
