Medinsky: a history textbook introduces the official position of the historical science of the Russian Federation
The authors of the revised history textbook are in contact with teachers, following the discussion and taking into account reasonable comments. This was announced by Vladimir Medinsky, assistant to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Medinsky also spoke about the revised paragraph of the textbook on the deportation of peoples, which was read to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and also spoke about criticism for propaganda and “imposing the image of the past.”
Putin’s aide calls textbook critics’ arguments funny
According to Medinsky, most critics are dissatisfied with what is happening in the country now. He noted that for “relocant liberals they did not scold Lenin-Stalin enough, they did not praise Gorbachev and Gaidar enough.” Another part of the critics is outraged that “they did not scold Gorbachev and Yeltsin enough, and did not praise Stalin enough.” Medinsky believes that this indicates that the textbook turned out to be balanced and objective.
They are not criticizing what is in the textbook: no matter how hard all these critics looked for errors, they never found them. They criticize for what is not in the textbook. They don’t have the submissions and grades they need.
Commenting on the accusations that the textbook was propaganda and not historical, Medinsky noted that for serious historians such arguments look funny. According to him, the state history textbook introduces schoolchildren to the official position of Russian historical science. “Our textbook is not a text for cramming. This is a “window to history”. It gives us the opportunity to work independently and proactively with the huge amount of information that surrounds each of us,” he added.
The authors of the textbook consulted with the regions on the chapter on the deportation of peoples
Photo: Ilya Pitalev / RIA Novosti
Medinsky also clarified the situation with the previous interpretation of the deportation of peoples, which caused criticism in the Caucasus. According to him, this topic is complex and tragic. “The point is not at all about some erroneous interpretation of certain historical facts: previously the same fragments in previous versions of textbooks did not attract any attention to themselves. It’s just that now everyone has started reading the textbook – and now they’ve noticed. They started heatedly arguing and discussing,” he said.
According to Medinsky, the authors of the textbook did not resist and consulted with the leaders of the regions in whose territories the peoples who suffered from repression are being burned. As a result, it was decided to expand the material about this tragedy. “We found clarifying wording. We changed the structure of the paragraph, placing information about deportation in a separate subsection. These clarifications, along with hundreds of others, were included in the second edition of the state textbook,” Medinsky said.
Minister of Education Kravtsov personally read the corrected section to Kadyrov
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Photo: Alexey Mayshev / RIA Novosti
On November 11, Russian Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov presented a revised history textbook for high school students in Chechnya. The head of the ministry personally read out to Kadyrov the corrected version of the section on Stalin’s deportation of peoples. It calls the deportation a tragic page in the history of the Great Patriotic War, during which 12 peoples, “indiscriminately accused of treason,” were subjected to forced relocation. The head of the republic emphasized that “justice has triumphed.”
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