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| Russia |
| Russian History Books Accused of |
| 2004-08-17 |
| By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer Mon Aug 16,10:27 PM ET MOSCOW - If you can judge a book by its cover, then the "History of Russia and the World in the 20th Century" tells students the Soviet past was all pride and glory — three of four cover photos invoke Soviet propaganda images. That goes for what's inside too: the textbook for Russian high school seniors touts the Soviet system's achievements — but treads lightly, if at all, on its failures and abuses. It is virtually mute on the deportation of ethnic groups under Josef Stalin that left hundreds of thousands dead and sowed the resentment that exploded in Chechnya a half-century later. The Gulag labor camp system gets scant attention and anti-Semitism the barest of mentions. "Labor camps, what labor camps? Those were summer camps!" President Vladimir Putin — a former KGB officer who has resurrected such Soviet symbols as the anthem and the military's red star — is a strong proponent of instilling Russia's young people with national pride. But critics warn that sanitizing Russia's tormented history will leave students unprepared to cope with the challenges they face in the post-Soviet era. "The Gulag is given minimal coverage in textbooks. Yet without the Gulag, they cannot understand the history of the Soviet Union and Russia. Without these pages, their education will not be complete," said Semyon Vilensky, a 76-year-old survivor of the Gulag labor camp system who heads an association that documents the horrors of the Stalin era. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #14 Sorry, that was me of course after a cookie cleanup |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-08-18 2:27:46 PM |
| #13 Zenster and trailing wife, thank you. We'll get back to that comparison between Nazism and Islamism. Of course they are not exactly the same but Islamism is indeed the challenge of this time. I'm sure we'll get an occasion very soon to discuss the matter further. |
| Posted by: Anonymous6104 2004-08-18 2:26:52 PM |
| #12 True German Ally, I apologize for blathering on like this, but the extra perspective into your world provided by the above comments obliges me to go on a bit. The other day you expressed affirmation when Frank G made a deft comparison of Islamists with Brown Shirts. I recall you applauding the analogy at the time. I view Islamism as just another brand of Nazism. Genocide is their prime agenda, different only in how it's Global Cultural Genocide that they seek. It is this one single similarity which drives my personal belief that the battle against Islamic terrorism is a new World War. While I am not of enlistment age anymore, please rest assured that I will take up arms in order to stop this menace when that time comes. At some point, all other faiths must eventually realize that they too have now become the same as Jews in the eyes of Islamists. What you have suffered shall not be in vain. Gladly will I stake my life on that. Skoal! |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-18 2:11:42 AM |
| #11 Then you roll up your sleeve... TGA, my thanks are meaningless against what you have endured. That you have the fortitude and courage to carry such an important lesson into classrooms of young impressionable German minds is something beyond the scope of my puny gratitude. I lift my glass in your honor and drink to your precious health. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-18 1:51:58 AM |
| #10 Thank you, TGA. My mother and her family were fortunate to spend the war years in hiding in Holland, so we kids never had to deal directly with that. A few years ago she translated her mother's memoirs into English, and now she is doing talks on the Holocaust at schools around her home in Buffalo, New York. She accompanies each talk with a copy of her manuscript. As you say, its hard to look at the living, and continue to pretend it never happened. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-08-18 1:25:02 AM |
| #9 Zenster, I think kids should see this images, but of course they MUST not left alone with them. It's very important that they can talk about them openly and honestly... at school and back home. In the 90s, with the rise of Neo Nazism, some 14yo youth would tell it in my face that these things didn't happen, that the movies and documents were faked. But if they had to face someone who LIVED it, they had a hard time. They could maybe go on and fool themselves but not the other boys and girls in the classroom. The little things: They'd see people in those films with a number tattoo and pretend that this was a lie. The kids look at you. Then you roll up your sleeve... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-08-17 11:15:21 PM |
| #8 Glad to hear it, TGA. My mother survived the occupation of Denmark and made d@mn sure that we kids went and saw "Night and Fog." I was all of six or eight years old at the time. Watching the screen flicker with images of bulldozers scraping ten foot high piles of matchstick thin human bodies into mass graves is forever seared into my consciousness. So long as even one Neo Nazi remains breathing, this movie should be mandatory viewing in all high schools. TGA, I admire your honorable efforts to ensure that such a thing happens, NEVER AGAIN. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-17 10:11:29 PM |
| #7 Fully agree Zenster. And I wonder what these "competing versions of history" are all about when it comes to the GULag? The younger children learn, the better. I know too well. When I did the schools' tour to tell the story about the concentration camps, the ten year old listened attentively. The 14yo already were smartasses who "knew better". |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-08-17 9:03:45 PM |
| #6 My views on this are mixed. I don’t believe history books should lie. On the other hand I don’t believe a nation’s schools should teach their students to hate their nation and government. In other words, all the Nazi school children should have gotten "The Bobsy Twins go to Summercamp at Auschwitz" textbook to read? This is about modern Russians learning how the Soviet communists slaughtered innocent citizens by the millions. What's the problem? Putin's febrile attempts to sweep this crap under the rug only makes those Russians who complete their educations less competent to judge world affairs and history. Exactly how is it bad in learning to hate communism? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-17 8:30:43 PM |
| #5 My views on this are mixed. I don’t believe history books should lie. On the other hand I don’t believe a nation’s schools should teach their students to hate their nation and government. Perhaps age-adjusted versions are appropriate. Young children would be fed sweetness and light. Teens would be exposed to some harsher realities. College students should be exposed to competing versions of history. |
| Posted by: Anonymous5032 2004-08-17 5:09:25 PM |
| #4 Then there's the attempts by residents to build a monument for those lost at the Norilsk Gulag: "But when the city unveiled a monument to "the builders of Norilsk" two years ago, the bas-relief bronze sculpture depicted a strapping, shirtless man wielding a trowel in the finest tradition of Socialist Realism ... In 2002, President Vladimir V. Putin visited the memorial site, laying a wreath to the camps' victims. But his visit was unannounced, and the authorities did not invite any of the organization's members to meet him. He met instead with the chairwoman of a war veterans' committee. Yelizaveta I. Obst, whose father, an ethnic German, was sent to the gulag in 1943, said history in Russia remained ambivalent because so many were implicated in it. "The memories of the past are restored only with great difficulty," she said. "The people who wouldn't like to remember this past are still alive and still in power." |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-17 4:28:49 PM |
| #3 Just an example: Boris Yeltsin allowed ex-inmates of Workuta, the worst GULag that ever existed (temperatures fell below minus 60°C in winter), to revisit the place. A gruesome experience. Putin made the place off limits for foreigners again. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-08-17 3:29:12 PM |
| #2 Indeed an unfortunate trend. And ask a 20yo Russian about Katyn... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-08-17 3:17:16 PM |
| #1 I'd like to hear TGA's take on this. It's one thing to do the "we invented everything" trip - it's quite another for Tsar Putty & Minions to try to hide 20+ million bodies. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-08-17 10:33:40 AM |