By: Jekaterina Savicka
Immediately after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, teachers in Moscow Oblast were sent talking points outlining how they should answer “difficult questions” about the “Special Military Operation” (SMO):
- Is it true that a war is going on in Ukraine? Yes, it has been going on for 8 years. Ukraine is waging a war against its own citizens living in the Donbas. […] The ongoing operation is aimed at ending this war.
- Why did we invade Ukraine? [It] is a necessary measure. Since 2014, residents of the LPR and DPR have been shelled by the armed forces of Ukraine. Over 13,000 people have died, including children. […] Therefore, it was impossible to avoid a peacekeeping operation.
- Is it possible to trust the videos posted on social networks? A large amount of fake and unverified information has appeared in social networks. […] The Ukrainian military specifically films stories that denigrate our military. […] People can just get confused in all the chaos. Therefore, it is not worth believing such information now – some time must pass before all the circumstances are clarified.
These are only a few of the questions (see full English version). They complemented a lesson plan for that week’s Conversation about Important Matters: thematic, one-off lessons that take place during homerooms and focus on a new topic each week. That week’s topic was the historical unity of the Russian and Ukrainian people, the justification for the SMO, and the fact that Russia was not starting a war – but finishing it.
The talking points – both their content and their existence – demonstrate that authorities foresaw that students would have seen war images in the news and on TikTok. The points outline the official version of events and how the Kremlin would like the Russian people, especially young people, to understand the conflict.
- “Western countries [are] seeking to weaken our country and force us to admit defeat.”
- “[This war will end] when its goals are achieved, namely the de-militarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine, as well as the protection of the inhabitants of Donbas from armed violence. Also, [destroying] the military infrastructure [that is] being prepared to attack the LPR, DPR, and subsequently Russia.”
- “Russia has repeatedly made efforts to peacefully resolve the crisis [in the Donbas]. However, the Ukrainian side did not comply with the Minsk agreements designed to end the conflict. The SMO began when all the possibilities for a peaceful settlement of the conflict had been exhausted, and a threat to our security arose.”
The talking points suggested to students to “remain calm and trust official sources of information” as well as “minimize the discussion of this topic with friends and classmates. […] Don’t let others drag you into politics.” They encouraged students to “keep their heads” and not participate in protests, “especially illegal ones.” Deputy directors attended homerooms to observe the teachers’ conduct and the students’ reactions. According to the teachers interviewed, “it was not possible to refuse to attend the lessons.”
In Russia, history holds a lot of power. It binds its diverse populace together under a common past and purpose. It legitimizes its current government and its actions. The Kremlin makes great efforts to protect what it sees as the ‘correct’ version of Russian history, as a crucial element of security at home and abroad. Sergey Naryshkin is not only the Head of Russian Foreign Intelligence but also the Chairman of the Russian Historical Society. The Kremlin has frequently accused the West of rewriting and fabricating history to suit Western needs (see the EUvsDisinfo network’s overview of Russia’s accusations of historical revisionism). ‘Setting the record straight’ on history was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key goals during his interview with Tucker Carlson last year.
Prior to 2022, Russian schools had the formal right to freely choose their curricula and teaching materials. In practice, all history textbooks had to comply with the “historical-cultural standard” (until 2020) and could only be used in schools if included on an official register. The most powerful publishing houses, like Prosveschenie (formerly state-owned), had the resources to ensure their products made their way onto this register and into schools. In September 2022, the Russian Ministry of Education announced it would combine Russian and world history into one course in schools. One of the first decrees Putin signed after his 5th inauguration in May 2024 was the Fundamentals of State Policy in Historical Education, which outlined a new historical education pedagogy standard from kindergarten to secondary education and a single line of standardized textbooks.
In April 2024, a decree significantly increased the number of classroom hours for teaching history. This was at the expense of hours dedicated to civic studies, which discussed the constitutional foundations of Russia and its democratic freedoms. Yana Lantratova, a Duma deputy, explained that this reflected a desire to return to emphasizing Russian concepts and values. Democratic rights, she argued, are Western concepts which wrongly discourage more essentially ‘Russian’ ones such as respect for religion, large families, and traditional values.
At the post-secondary level, a mandatory course on Russian history, Foundations of Russian Statehood, was introduced in 2023 for all non-history students in all universities and colleges in 2023. The Minister of Higher Education Valery Falkov said the course would help “boost students’ sense of belonging to Russian society.” The textbook includes examples of heroic sacrifices by SMO soldiers on behalf of their country, and parallels are drawn between the SMO and the Great Patriotic War (as WWII is known in Russia). The memory of the war and its immense, worthwhile sacrifice is a pillar of modern Russian statehood.
The process centralizing the content decisions coincides with a change in history didactics (the method of teaching). Curricula are content-heavy and exams are based on memorization, with little expectation for critical thinking or independent reflection by the student. Why should a ‘young, ignorant student’ critically reflect on his history material, the regime asks, when the correct conclusion has already been reached by his superiors? This ‘correct conclusion’ is relatively consistent and based upon several recurring points:
(1) Russia is encircled and besieged by the evil West, which is hellbent on destroying Russia.
According to Putin, the collapse of the USSR was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” and a direct result of Western meddling and sabotage. However, despite this, Russia did not lose the Cold War. The end of communism was an independent decision made internally in Russia, which re-established itself as the Russian Federation. In the 1990s, Russia was open to friendly relations with the West, but cooperation proved futile. The West was patronizing and hostile, keen to destabilise and perforate Russia so it could claim its resources (see the EUvsDisinfo network’s overview of Russian statements that the West is intent on destroying Russia). As a result, the Cold War never truly ended, only temporarily paused during the 1990s. Today, Russia is besieged from all sides by enemies, and needs a strong leadership to make it through the storm. NATO is an existential threat to Russia. Its founding was based on overt antagonism towards the Soviet Union, and its expansion is an explicit threat and provocation.
(2) Russia’s actions in Ukraine are justified historically, ideologically, and politically.
According to the idea of Russkii Mir (Russian World), there is an “organically unified transnational orthodox Christian Russian civilization that includes the territories and people of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and sometimes other nations.” The curriculum of Foundations of Russian Statehood identifies an ancient Greek colony in Crimea as a “sacred place” for Russian history and spirituality, threading a continuity from ancient Rus to a present-day claim of ownership of Crimea. Modern Ukraine is portrayed as a hostile “ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi state” which has lost its ideological credibility. The SMO is thus aimed at protecting the Donbas and the Russian people living there from this hostile regime. Ukraine, if it were to accede to NATO, would be used as a weapon against Russia, so it was necessary to prevent its accession, pre-empting the intended Western attack.
The tactics used by the Kremlin to control the (historical) narrative are not new, nor are they unique to Russia. US President Donald Trump has recently ordered the removal of references to his own impeachment in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and issued an Executive Order to “restore truth and sanity to American history,” which (according to the Trump administration) has seen a “widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” It aims to undo changes made under the Biden administration and restore the ‘correct’ version of American history.
The Kremlin keeps an iron grip on its physical territory and its information space, but is interested in expanding the boundaries of both. Russian forces, upon invading Ukraine, were checking history textbooks for ‘extremism’ and replacing them with Russian ones. In February of last year, Russia and Belarus agreed that they will create unified textbooks to present their history “from a single point of view.” The Kremlin is ramping up its cognitive warfare in the post-Soviet space, priming its desired sphere of influence with its preferred narratives. The pen is mightier than the sword, but together, they are unstoppable.
The “talking points” are sourced from Ilia Liapin, “Changes of history and civics curriculum and textbooks in Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine,” EuroClio – European Association of History Educators, 2022.
Further Reading:
- Article series by the EUvsDisinfo network on Russia and Historical Revisionism.
- Andrei Kolesnikov, ‘Special Anthropological Operation’: How Ideology is Infiltrating Russian Education, Russia.Post, 7 August 2024.
- Andrey Pertsev, ‘The West is in decay, but our future is shining’ Russian universities will soon have a new required subject – perhaps best described as ‘Studies in Russian Greatness’, Meduza, 25 October 2022.
- Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, Putin Conscripts History, CEPA, 18 February 2022.
Cover Image: The State Historical Museum in Moscow. Photograph by Jekaterina Savicka, author, 2018.