Russia’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education has approved the new concept of teaching history in colleges at non-history education programmes, the agency says on its website.
The approved document has 106 pages. It prescribes how and why history should be taught to students of different qualification areas.
College teachers should avoid negative bias and “fault finding”, remain impersonal, abide by historicism, and note the mainly creative nature of Russia’s state activity,”
reads the concept.
The document also notes that students should be taught that “a strong centralised authority has always been of vital importance for preserving Russia’s statehood throughout all its history”.
Moreover, the concept has a list of events and time frames that should be learned throughout the course. The list includes events from the history of the Early Medieval Rus to modern day, such as:
The phenomenon of “colour revolutions” in post-Soviet countries and the rest of the world
- The 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine
- “Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers” in 2008
- “Recurrent combat in Nagorno-Karabakh” and “Russia’s role in settling it”
- “The refusal of the US, NATO, and the EU to discuss threats to Russia’s national security”
- “Armed provocations in Donbas”
- “Attempts of colour revolutions in Belarus and Kazakhstan” and “the role of CSTO in preserving stability in Kazakhstan”
- The attempt to create a “belt of instability” around Russia
- The “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine
“Ukraine’s leadership turned it into ‘anti-Russia’ and was preparing to ‘reclaim Crimea and Donbas’ which made Russia’s 2022 Special Military Operation inevitable,” reads the document, explaining reasons behind the Ukraine War.
History is a mandatory subject for all college programmes in Russia, however, the amount of classes required to be taught was never regulated, same as educational standards. Russia’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education suggested on 24 May 2022 that all colleges increase the number of history classes taught, and that a unified regulation on how to teach those be issued.
