School Textbooks on History in Putin’s Russia as a Means of Information Warfare With Ukraine
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: The purpose of the article is to investigate the use of school history textbooks by V. Putin and his environment in the war of memories and information war with Ukraine. The methodological basis is an interdisciplinary approach. A structural and functional systematic analysis of historiographical facts was carried out using the methods of criticism and argumentation, based on the principles of objectivity and historicism. The scientific novelty of the article consists in an attempt to comprehensively analyze the evolution of Putin’s historical policy in the direction of writing “one-correct” school textbooks on history. Conclusions. Putin’s information and historical policy in the system of hybrid warfare suffered a strategic defeat in Ukraine, as did the armed invasion. However, the teaching of school history in Russia itself continues to serve as a tool of revanchism, an element of the war of memories and information war with Ukraine: 1) the presentation of the history of Ukrainian lands in textbooks as Russian antiquity and “outskirts” imposes on schoolchildren the conviction that modern Russia has a historical the right to these lands; 2) the description of the ancient history of Ukraine as being created by “Russian people”, and Ukrainians as inventions of Austria, repeats the old myth picked up by V. Putin about a “united nation” that was split by external enemies; 3) after the armed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the authors of the textbooks finally lost their objectivity and, following Putin, deny the existence of the Ukrainian state in the past and its current legitimacy; 4) the propaganda product of the “unified textbook” became the perfect reflection of Putin’s historical policy and information war. This campaign is aimed at dehumanizing Ukrainians, portraying them as subhumans and Nazis, which serves to zombification Russians against of the “external enemy”.
Source: Problems of humanities History
Authors: Viktor GUDZ, Larisa POLIAKOVA, Alla KRYLOVA
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4388917348