14:14, November 25, 2023Source: 

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Russian Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said that an “information war” was launched against a unified history textbook for schoolchildren by Western intelligence services. He stated this at a meeting with history teachers of St. Petersburg at the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University.

The broadcast of the meeting was published on the public page of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. Journalist Ksenia Sobchak drew attention to her .

“An information war was launched, an attack on the textbook. This attack was coordinated, today we can say with confidence, by Western intelligence agencies, among others,” Kravtsov said.

Those who attacked the textbook, the minister believes, do not want the Russian education system to be “sovereign” and “for the history textbook to contain the objective facts that are presented today.” “They want to bring us back, but nothing will work,” he added, without specifying where they want to return Russia and its education.

Kravtsov noted that the textbook “will be improved” in the future, taking into account the comments and opinions of teachers, but, in his opinion, the basis for the history course already exists. The head of the Ministry of Education said that the “attack” proves that Russia is “already winning the information war.” According to him, the community and teachers “supported” the textbook.

Russian high school students began studying general history and the history of Russia using new textbooks from September 1, 2023. They completely rewrote the sections on the period of the 1970s–2000s, and also added a section on the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

At the end of September, a new history textbook was criticized by public figures and politicians from the North Caucasus, including Chechnya, because of a paragraph about Stalin’s deportations of the peoples of the USSR. After criticism, the authors of the textbook agreed to rewrite this fragment. In November, Sergei Kravtsov personally presented the rewritten textbook to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

One of the authors of the textbook is the head of the Russian Military Education Society and adviser to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky, who also took part in the meeting with teachers at the Herzen State Pedagogical University.

(C)MEDUZA 2023