Interfax: Putin explains need to purge history textbooks of “ideological junk”

(Interfax – Moscow, January 16, 2014) The need to design a single Russian history textbook has arisen because there are many teaching aids containing “ideological junk”, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

“The most important thing was that, under the system of certification of, let us say, teaching materials that went to schools, there occurred things that were absolutely unacceptable not just to our country and our people but to any country and any people. This is just like a spit in the face,” Putin said at a meeting with designers of the concept of a new training and methodology system on Russian history.

According to the president, some assessments of World War II history in a number of textbooks were “just an outrage” and cannot be called anything but that.

“I am not talking now about the conscious downplaying of the role of the Soviet people in their fight against fascism. There are more profound things there – it is just some ideological junk. This is wh! at we need to get rid of,” Putin said.

At the same time, the head of state emphasized that this was not about attempts to introduce “some uniformity into thinking and assessments”.

He also commented on a number of the so-called difficult issues of Russian history, which the authors of the concept worked on, in particular the role of the Soviet Union in the post-war history of Eastern European countries.

“They say Eastern Europe was plunged into the darkness of occupation by the Stalinist regime as a result of World War II. To some extent, a Soviet-style ideology operated there and had a negative effect on the development of these states. But we are talking about the consequences. What would the consequences have been if fascism had won? Some nations as such would have disappeared completely. They would have simply been eliminated. That’s it,” Putin said.

In this regard, he urged the historians to cooperate with foreign colleagues. “Jointly, we could ! work out the most objective approaches to assessments. We can do it, and it has to be done,” he said.

In general, according to the president, a key aspect of work on the new concept of Russian history is that “people should not only find out what happened and get acquainted with certain assessments, but they should realize their own, personal measure of responsibility for the country we live in.”

[featured image is file photo]