Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe (November 16, 1930 – March 21, 2013), once, said: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” The fact has been proven yet again, in Russia.

The Vladimir Putin Administration in Moscow has cleared the newly-released history textbooks for school students that would be taught at the secondary level from September 2023. The book covers the Russian history from 1945 to the recent times. Reports suggest that the Kremlin has glorified the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War, which began on February 24, 2022, in this book. The Russian historians have mentioned in the book that humanity would have been destroyed, had President Putin not taken special military action against Ukraine. The Russian historians have further mentioned that the anti-Russian Western Powers are determined to undermine Russia’s status quo, as their main intention is to seize its vast mineral resources by destroying the country.

The Russian historians have further described Ukraine as a puppet of Western powers, and a grazing land for extremists. They have defended President Putin’s decision to invade the neighbouring country, stating that the majority of Ukrainians want to live with Russian identity.

Totalitarian States have always interpreted, as well as promoted, the past and the present in their own terms and conditions so that history could serve their own interests. Hence, the State-backed historians concentrate on the usage of words. Instead of war, they use military programme or replace the word attack with mass rebellion. The decision to teach altered history in schools is certainly a political one, as the move is aimed at hegemonizing the students. It ultimately helps the State ensure psychological support of a large section of citizens.

Students believe each and every word in the textbooks to be true. Therefore, a Totalitarian State has an interest in twisting history in its own way. Such a project is accompanied by misinformation, and distorted interpretations of facts. It is mentioned in the newly published history book that around 80% of Ukrainians considered Russian as their mother tongue as of 2014. However, a 2006 survey carried out by Ukraine’s leading socio-economic research institute showed that this figure was just 30%. Russia’s attack on Ukraine nine years ago has been described as an operation by the volunteers. They actually tried to help Ukrainians who wanted to stay Russians forever.

To establish its hegemony, the ruling class has always tried to take full control of social institutions. For this, it is important to influence students, the education system and educational institutions through the syllabus and textbooks. Recent Russian books on History stand as a fine example of this. A similar trend can be noticed in other countries, where the opportunistic narrative of the State is being written instead of the factual interpretation of past events. However, there are also exceptions. In Germany, it is mandatory for school children to read the history of the holocaust. Unfortunately, exception has never encouraged any State to change its policy.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das