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Ukrainian education ministry rewrites history in new schoolbooks

The curriculum has been complemented by information about the developments in Ukraine in January-February 2014, coup d’etat that followed and also information about the so-called Russo-Ukrainian war

© EPA/TATYANA ZENKOVICH

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KIEV, March 16. /TASS/. The Ukrainian education ministry has amended a schoolbook on history for senior grade school students to include the developments in Maidan and a version of the "Russo-Ukrainian war" in the interpretation of Ukrainian official ideologists.

"A working group of the education ministry has issued a teaching aid book for history teachers numbering 40 pages and a 25-page enclosure to a school book on history for senior grade students," the press service of the education ministry said in a press release.

The school curriculum has been complemented by information about the so-called "revolution of dignity" — the developments in Ukraine in January-February 2014 and coup d’etat that followed and also information about the so-called "Russo-Ukrainian war", the press service said. The publication of the amended school books will be financed by non-budgetary funds and a presentation of the amended school books which will be held in the near future, it said.

The amended school curriculum was another step in a series of previous attempts to create an alternative history of Ukraine. Earlier, President Petro Poroshenko had issued a decree on celebrations in honor of ancient Prince Vladimir, whom Poroshenko declared "founder of the ancient European state of Rus-Ukraine."

Russian historian Igor Danilevsky has dismissed Poroshenko's concept as historically not substantiated because "Ukraine as a state formation was created much later than the ancient Kiev Rus," Prof. Danilevsky said.

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