amendments will be made to the paragraph about repressed peoples – Kommersant

One of the authors of the new history textbook for high school students, MGIMO Rector Anatoly Torkunov, commented on the information that changes will be made to the manual after outrage from public figures in the North Caucasus. He noted that this would not affect the chapter, but one paragraph about repressed peoples.

“There is not a chapter, there is one paragraph, and there will be edits,” said Mr. Torkunov “RIA News”. He noted that the textbook on Russian history was rewritten 40 times. “And in tsarist times, it was also rewritten many times, and our great historians, starting from Karamzin, Solovyov, Klyuchevsky, also made edits, additions, and changes in their time. So, of course, changes will be made to this textbook both now and for the new school year, when he goes to grades 10 and 11,” the author added.

According to Mr. Torkunov, amendments will be made “now, and next year, and the year after,” because new data and estimates appear. The textbook itself will not be changed “fundamentally,” but “of course, there will be some insertions and changes.” “Especially when it comes to modern history, history continues, it hasn’t stopped in one place,” said the author of the textbook.

Public figures and politicians in the North Caucasus criticized the new textbook because of the paragraph about Stalin’s deportations of peoples, who were mentioned immediately after the “Vlasovites” and “Banderaites.” Although the authors stipulated that as a result of the deportation of entire nations, “many innocent people were repressed,” a number of organizations demanded that the textbook be banned or at least rewritten. Speaker of the Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov said that the Ministry of Education promised to rewrite the chapter.

Read more in the Kommersant article “The history textbook was sent from the Caucasus.”