russia Is Rewriting School History Textbooks Again

russia is once again planning to revise and republish its state-approved series of school history textbooks. This decision was prompted by numerous comments from teachers who found factual errors, contradictions, and ideological distortions.

Updated editions are due to be published in 2026 – the second for students in grades 5–9 and the third – for high school students. The number of critical comments from teachers is unprecedented – some teachers sent dozens of pages of comments on a single textbook.

Despite this, the head of the russian military historical society and assistant to the russian president, vladimir medinsky, has called the constant rewriting of textbooks a “normal process”,  describing history as a “living organism”.  At the same time, his comments demonstrated a style characteristic of russian historical policy – emotional and scientifically questionable narratives.

The new editions will expand the section on the reasons for the so-called “special military operation”, and the course on russia’s recent history will continue with a mention of putin’s meeting with US President Donald Trump in Anchorage. The rewriting of textbooks once again demonstrates the use of school history as a tool of state propaganda and legitimization of the kremlin’s aggressive policy.

Against this background, russia plans to partially or completely restrict access to Wikipedia within the next 1-2 years. The authorities explain this by alleged distortions of historical facts about the tsarist, soviet, and modern periods.