September 18, 2023

From Trenches to Schools


From Trenches to Schools
Russian soldiers wearing Ratnik infantry combat system. Vitaly V.Kuzmin, Wikipedia Commons

A new program is coming to Russian schools: soldiers back from the front lines in Ukraine will now train students in military and defense.

Sergei Kravtsov, Minister of Education, announced the establishment of a professional retraining program for veterans, in which they will become teachers of "Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland."

This program will be taught at the State University of Education in Moscow.

In July, the State Duma amended a law "On Education in the Russian Federation." Changes included the rebranding of the subject "life safety" to "Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland." This revamped curriculum not only encompasses emergency response, but also incorporates education on the armed forces. The program includes physical fitness training and basic military drills.

The decision to retrain former war veterans into teachers is not an isolated case of militarism permeating Russian schools. Since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine, significant changes have occurred within the Russian educational system.

One notable addition is the introduction of a mandatory extracurricular activity called "Conversations About Important Matters." There, children are taught about the "special military operation" in Ukraine, patriotism, and traditional values. In 2022, President Vladimir Putin himself conducted the inaugural lesson, discussing the events surrounding Russia's War on Ukraine, calling the 2014 revolution a military coup, and saying that Russia’s role in the war was to resolve the situation in Donbas.

Furthermore, there has been a proliferation of memorials dedicated to the fallen "heroes" of the war in schools across the nation. A national history textbook has been approved that characterizes modern Ukraine as an "ultra-nationalist state."

Teachers who resist engaging in militaristic propaganda face reprisals, and parents have searched for ways to protect their children from propaganda.

You Might Also Like

Too Free for Russia
  • April 03, 2023

Too Free for Russia

The Russian Prosecutor General's office has declared the Free University "undesirable."
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955