The Russian language and literature are completely dropped from the curriculum in Ukraine after the sixth grade, the Ministry of Education and Science announced in the country. Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky will be replaced by Lafontaine, O’Henry, Anna Gavalda, Robert Burns, Heine, Adam Mickiewicz, Pierre Ronsard, Goethe….
The Ukrainian Ministry of Education announced that the works of Russian and Belarusian authors were removed from the curricula of foreign literature, writes “Standartnews.com”.
In their place, according to a statement from the department, works by foreign writers are added, so as to take into account the literary process and the age characteristics of the students – from O. Herni and Anna Gavalda to Jean de Lafontaine, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and others. In place of Russian poets, masterpieces by authors such as Robert Burns and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe enter.
The revision of the program is a result of the war in Ukraine. The decision was expected after back in June Education Minister Andriy Vitrenko announced a plan to remove all works glorifying the Russian army, including even Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
From Russian-language literature, the program includes authors such as Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov, whose lives and works are closely connected with Ukraine. “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov and “Babiy Yar” by Anatoly Kuznetsov remain in the additional program.
Moments from the history program are also revised in view of the new historiographic developments:
The Soviet Union, for example, is seen as an “Imperial Type Government”;
“Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine” since 2014 will be studied at school;
Concepts such as “racism” are introduced – an interpretation of Russian ideology and social practices at the time of Vladimir Putin, related to Russia’s “civilizational role” and Russian military expansionism;
We will also study the concept of “Russian world” – “Russkiy mir” – the concept of a community oriented around Russia, its culture and language, which, according to Ukraine and other countries and politicians in Europe, is the basis of modern imperialism and revanchism.
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