Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov arrived in Chechnya on a working visit and personally read to the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, a corrected paragraph from a history textbook for high school students. Kadyrov announced this in his Telegram channel.
In September, a history textbook, which was also developed by the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, criticized the Russian Congress of the Peoples of the Caucasus because of words about the forced deportation of the peoples of the USSR during the Second World War. world war. The head of the Chechen parliament, Magomed Daudov, wrote that he was “dealing with” the benefit on behalf of Ramzan Kadyrov.
“Sergei Kravtsov presented me with a republished history textbook for 10th graders. It has now corrected all errors and removed the rude language made in the previous edition addressed to entire peoples who were subjected to Stalinist repressions. In a word, justice has triumphed!” Kadyrov wrote on November 10.
The head of Chechnya also published a video in which Sergei Kravtsov shows him a book and says: “Today I brought an updated history textbook. Unfortunately, in previous editions, in my opinion, the issues of deportation were presented incorrectly.” After this, the Minister of Education reads the corrected paragraph to Kadyrov.
The original version of the textbook stated: “Based on cooperation with the occupiers of the Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, State Defense Committees in 1943-1944. decided to liquidate the state formations of these peoples within the USSR and subject them to collective punishment — forced relocation (deportation) to the eastern regions of the country. As a result, not only bandits and collaborators of the enemy were repressed, but also many innocent people. The settlers had to endure many troubles and hardships. Justice was restored to them after 1953.”
The corrected version reads as follows: “The tragic page in the history of the Second World War was the mass eviction of peoples in 1941-1944, in conditions of proximity to the front and military operations, indiscriminately accused by the State Defense Committee of treason. 12 peoples were subjected to forced relocation (deportation), who lost not only their native land, but also the national-territorial autonomies that most of them had.
In the shortest possible time, hundreds of thousands of people were sent under escort to the other end of the country — to Siberia and Central Asia. Along with individual renegades and traitors, masses of completely innocent and loyal people, including those who fought in the Red Army, suffered. The settlers had to endure many troubles and hardships. Justice was gradually restored in 1957-2014. In the USSR, and then in the Russian Federation, repressions against entire peoples were condemned and measures were developed for their complete rehabilitation.”
At the same time, the Ministry of Education earlier noted that the previous version of the textbook “is fully consistent with the federal state educational standard of secondary general education.”
According to the rector of MGIMO and one of the authors of the textbook, Anatoly Torkunov, changes to the history textbook will be made “now, and next year, and the year after.” Torkunov added that corrections are a “natural process”, since “new data and assessments appear.”
New textbooks on general history and Russian history for grades 10 and 11 were presented in the summer of 2022 . As Medinsky himself said, they completely rewrote the sections about the 70s, 80s, 90s and “zero” years. For example, Ukraine was described as an “ultra-nationalist state” where “any dissent” is persecuted, and the authors called the purpose of the Russian invasion of a neighboring country “the defense of Donbass and proactively ensuring the security of Russia.”