Kovpak instead of Shukhevych

The Ministry of Education and Science has modified the 5th grade school class in Ukrainian history, even though it was already modified just a year ago. Following the ministry’s new recommendations, the course omits or distorts not only the Orange Revolution but also the Battle of Kruty, the Ukrainian Riflemen, and the UPA’s World War II liberation struggle. Changes are also expected to be made to the course’s textbooks.

The textbook’s author Viktor Mysan told Ukrainska Pravda that the new version had received ministerial approval in 2009 and the Heneza publishing house finished the new edition’s makeup in the spring of 2010. The author was only requested to complement the last paragraph with the 2010 presidential elections. But as soon as in July the publishers told him by phone to add some more changes to the text because the overall educational program had been altered.

“The intrusion into the author’s text began with the chapters that dealt with the Khmelnytsky era. Most of the ministerial recommendations are about forming a somewhat different, not so aggressive, image of Russia, our eastern neighbor,” Mysan says. “For example, it was suggested that I delete the last sentence about Russian officials in the following paragraph of the section “Hetman’s State: ‘The Turks and Tatars held sway in the south. The Poles ruled the roost in the west. In the east, the Hetman’s state saw the attack of Russian officials.’ As for the text on Shevchenko, it was advised to add that the imperial family also helped buy him out of serfdom.” But what mostly shocked the author was a suggestion about the UPA: “I was told to replace the photo of Roman Shukhevych with that of Sydir Kovpak and write that UPA units fought against the Soviet troops and partisans, and throw out the passage that they also fought against the Nazis.”

Mysan says this is the first time since 1995, when his first school textbook came out, that top officials explicitly indicated what to write and what not to write. This does not mean that there has been no criticism or advice to change or add something before, but approaches to this were different. For example, the history manual was last republished in 2005, when materials on the Orange Revolution were added. But the policy of rewriting history to please one political force or another is not only a vestige of Soviet practices — it has a deleterious effect on the self-identification and development of a society. It has turned out that, while criticizing their predecessors, the Party of Regions is using the same instruments in their political manipulations.

The textbooks with the recommended changes will be ready in October or November. As the Heneza editor-in-chief Natalia Zablotska explained, the delay is caused by the fact that the Ministry allocated funds only in July. In her words, there will also be changes in the history course for other grades. But this has not been discussed in detail because they had not yet planned to republish history books for other grades. However, if the books are to be republished, they will include the changes recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science.

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY, professor, Doctor of Sciences (History), Deputy Director for Research, Institute of the History of Ukraine, NANU:

“A biased approach to history can never be justified. I am now writing a textbook for the 11th grade. Naturally, there are a lot of complicated issues there, which are the object of heated debates in society due to the need of identifying certain political standpoints. It is very difficult to take an unbiased view of historical processes that occurred long ago. However, schoolbooks hold a special role in this regard. As to books for senior pupils, they must show diverse viewpoints on the problem and demand that pupils form their own opinions on controversial issues, the most important of which are the Holodomor and its causes, and the UPA struggle. In the current situation, explaining the diverse viewpoints on this historical legacy is the best approach, but in any case we should not hush up the existence of these ambiguous issues. On the other hand, there is one more factor that influences textbook writing. It is the publishing houses themselves that can resort to self-censorship in order not to come under the fire of governmental institutions. As for Russia’s influence, our views of certain historical processes do not coincide, which is, after all, a normal thing. The view is not the same in Kyiv as it is in Moscow. But if we wish to stand up for Ukraine’s independence and Hrushevsky’s version of Ukrainian history, which have now come under scathing attacks from some Russian websites, we must adhere to the opinions of Ukrainian historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Dmytro Doroshenko, and Natalia Polonska-Vasylenko, who worked a long time ago and were in fact hushed up until Ukraine gained independence. I do not think that the somewhat accidental political changes that took place this year will impact Ukrainian society and force it to fold its arms and follow the politicians who speak simply because they can. Naturally, in the case of schoolbooks, permission is granted by the Ministry of Education which can ban an undesirable book. In this case one can either heed the ministry or not publish the manual. I am also facing this dilemma, but I am not going to give in.”