An annotation says that the book is intended “for older children.” The author, Irina Konnova, is trained as a topographer.

The first of twenty-one poems in the full-color publication directly references Russia’s problematically low birthrate:

Our Homeland of Russia
Uncle Putin steered.
“Be a country great, strong,” –
One day he did dream.

Only, how without the little ones?
Among us they are very few!
Then he read a lot of books
And gave an order to the country:

“Just one babe for every mom?!
That’s not much! It must be two!”
And now in our native land
Kiddies suddenly appeared.

They are many…they are beautiful
Just like flowers, here and there.
Young children in Russia now
Have the name of PUTINYATA!

Vladimir Lenin is often referred to in Russia as “Uncle Lenin.”

The book follows a recent trend of both Kremlin-backed and independent publications that attempt to garner popularity among Russian youth for Putin and his governing United Russia party. United Russia has been noted on numerous occasions for its agitation in Russian schools, including an order by former President Putin to introduce history textbooks that call Josef Stalin “the most successful Soviet leader ever.” Booklets picturing bear cubs (a take on President Medvedev’s surname) and the United Russia logo have been distributed to students, and a children’s organization based on party ideology called “Medvezheta” has appeared in several regions.

Full-page scans of the book can be seen by clicking here (Russian).

Bunicheva was arrested with two other activists on January 28th as they tried to join a demonstration in support of government measures to boost the domestic auto industry, sponsored by the United Russia party.  Police confiscated a banner reading “Enough of Putin,” from the protestors, who then allegedly refused to show their documents and cursed at the militsiya officers.  The Kavasinsky district court then sentenced all three to five days arrest.

Vladimir Ushakov, the school principal, was incensed that Bunicheva missed school during her arrest.  Ushakov, a member of United Russia, told Kommersant “not to look for any political underpinning in the matter.”  He said he was obligated to remove Bunicheva from the classroom, and as result reduce Bunicheva’s pay to 5-6 thousand rubles (around $150 or €120) per month.  The teacher spends part of her time on additional administrative duties.

Bunicheva herself described a different version of events.  When she returned to work, she says the principal suggested that she write a letter of voluntary termination of service.

“In case I refused,” Bunicheva said, “the school’s administration would supposedly make use of articles in the labor code on the ‘non-conformity to the status of an educator.’  This would strip me of the opportunity to teach at all.”  Labor attorney Anna Gvozdichkina clarified for Kommersant that no such articles exists in the labor code.  Teachers may be fired for several special reasons, she explained, including physical or emotional abuse of a student or the repeated gross violation of an institution’s by-law.  In Bunicheva’s case, the school does not appear to have the grounds to fire her.

Bunicheva is convinced the move was politically motivated and that her political principles were the reason.  “They suggested I join United Russia in 2005,” she said, “when I came to work at the school, but I refused, explaining that I hold different political views.”

The local school board and the Ministry of Education and Science declined to comment.

The Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Other Russia opposition coalition has begun collecting signatures in support of Bunicheva.

The teacher’s case is reminiscent of another scandal from late January, when police pressed several Universities to expel students who had attended opposition demonstrations.  After human rights activists stepped in and publicized the case, Moscow’s Central Internal Affairs Directorate (GUVD) pledged to investigate and reveal who had sent the letters within a month.

At issue was the chapter on the conquest of what would later become Russia by the Tataro-Mongol Golden Horde, and the description of the famed 14th century Battle of Kulikovo, where unified Russian forces defeated a Tataro-Mongol army. A historic drawing featured prominently in the text shows the invaders roasting, dismembering and eating Russian soldiers.

“The insult of our national dignity doesn’t just appear in this drawing, but also directly in the text,” Mukhamed Minachev, a representative of the claimants, told the court. “In part, the incredible valor of the Russian warriors is described on pages 87-91 of the textbook, while the Tataro-Mongols are presented as monsters!”

Minachev believes that such a rendition of the battle offends the honor and dignity of present-day Tatars, a primarily Muslim ethnic group that numbers around 6 million across Russia. Furthermore, it may fan the flames of ethnic strife in schools. The claimants had asked that the text be banned, and had asked for compensation for the moral damage they suffered. They promised to appeal and continue their battle in the courts.

The contested schoolbook was first published in 1997. The Moskovsky Komsomolets reached the book’s graphic designer, Nikita Ordinsky. In his words, there was no electronic database of illustrations 11 years ago, as there is now. Images were literally taken from wherever was necessary. Ordinsky could not remember the drawing in question, bus said that it most likely came from a West-European source. He added that is wasn’t a fact that the picture depicts Tataro-Mongols, because Russians were also called Tatars by Western Europeans.

“The problem of the seizure and closure of children’s educational institutions remains throughout Russia,” said Sergei Komkov, the president of the All-Russian Education Fund. Komkov, an academic in the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and a member of the Moscow Writer’s Union, was speaking at a press conference on the dramatic problems faced by day-care centers.

Participants of the conference described methods used to take over properties, from illegally re-zoning the land to literally destroying buildings to make them uninhabitable. Two so-called “raiding plans” are used. Under the first, buildings in prime locations are simply rented to an organization other than the daycare. The new group then demolishes the building and re-develops the land commercially. In the second case, buildings are transferred directly to companies and redesigned into banks and offices.

“When a day care is located in a convenient recreation area, where a large investment project can be built, raiders do everything to demolish it,” Komkov said. “There are very many instances of the direct destruction of day-cares in Moscow.”

Over the past 12 years, some 700 Moscow day-cares have transformed into offices that no longer serve any educational purposes. Meanwhile, the city has a deficit of education centers for children, with some 60 thousand youths who cannot be placed in the existing day-care system. Only 100 new day-cares have been set up to replace those destroyed, and only after a city directive to build new centers passed in 2007.

According to UNESCO, some 2 million 300 thousand school-age children are not receiving an education in Russia. Komkov blamed this in part on the destruction of schools and educational facilities in the country.

Elena Martysheva, the Director of the “Aspects of Education” Center, and an international children’s activist, spoke of the takeover of a children’s center associated with her group in July 2007. In that case, Globex Bank took possession of their building, and would not even let Martysheva in to gather things from her office. The new owners then destroyed the Center’s property. Appeals to the prefecture, the militsiya and the prosecutor general’s office proved fruitless. Law enforcement called the case a “dispute between business entities” and refused to act.

According to Martysheva, the new occupants also gained access to the school’s files and documents, which contained confidential information. By law, only the Center’s employees are allowed to handle such paperwork.

Anatoly Karpov, the Chairman of the Russian Peace Foundation and former world chess champion, commented on Martysheva’s case. He explained that during a change of ownership, a building’s new owners may only enter the premises with a court-order on hand and the militsiya present. Globex did not have either.

Karpov went on to explain what happened next as deliberate acts to make the building uninhabitable. Globex then used the new damage as a pretext to file paperwork saying it was impossible to keep the building for its intended educational use. The children’s center was subsequently demolished.

Classes have now been suspended for a month, and both faculty and students have begun a public campaign to protest the decision, writing letters and even holding an outdoor lecture near the closed building. Academics worldwide have also raised their concerns and mounted an international campaign in support of the school.

For now, authorities show no indication that they will ease up, or allow the University to open its doors.

OPEN LETTER to the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin and the Newly Elected President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich and Dmitry Anatol’evich!

During the past few weeks the Russian and international academic communities have heard alarming news about the suspension of activities at the European University at St.Petersburg. The official version is that the suspension is due to fire-safety violations. We cannot judge the accuracy of the various interpretations of what is happening. We do not know whether the reason lies in the actual toughening of fire safety requirements, whether blame rests with some unknown raiders who want to take over the University’s historical building in the center of the city, or whether the underlying cause is political. We know only that this event has provoked a broad reaction, and is currently being discussed by virtually everyone involved in the social sciences and humanities in our country as well as abroad, from students to professors.

Irrespective of whether the current situation has occurred for bureaucratic, property-related, or political reasons, only one thing is really important: there is a threat to the very existence of an educational and scholarly center of a sort rarely found in Russia (that of a graduate-level university) and with a well-established Russian and international reputation.

As a result of a mass media that is not always competent, a phantom image of the European University has been created, one that represents it as something like a fly-by-night commercial firm created with money from the European Union and with the aim of interfering with the legal course of Russian elections. This simply does not correspond to reality. The European University at St. Petersburg is not a school for the preparation of political technologists, but a well-established multi-disciplinary educational and research center widely recognized by the academic community and consisting of five very different departments: History, History of Art, Political Science and Sociology, Economics, and Ethnology. The University’s faculty and students participate in dozens of research projects. They investigate a broad range of diverse problems: from the ethnography of communal apartments to the artwork of the “Wanderers”; from the oral history of the siege of Leningrad to the construction of the Baikal-Amur railroad; from discrimination against women in contemporary society and the history of the animal population in the Barents sea to econometrics and economic game theory.

The European University has gathered a remarkable teaching and research collective within its walls. Its professors and research fellows are very well known to Russian and foreign historians, ethnologists, philologists, sociologists, and scholars of art, as are their books, articles, and conference volumes.

The value of the European University does not rest, however, on its academic activity alone. The University is a project of enormous social importance. For more than ten years it has provided the opportunity to receive a European level post-graduate education to young people from a large number of places in Russia and the CIS, including Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Irkutsk, Petrozavodsk, Khabarovsk, Pskov, Rostov, Blagoveshchensk, Cheboksary, Kemerovo, Minsk, Kiev, and Kharkov, among others (the list can be continued). For more than ten years the European University has also functioned as an open forum for international meetings of young scholars. It regularly hosts international English-language programs that give foreign graduate students from Europe, the Far East, and the United States the opportunity to study Russian history and culture as a fundamental element of a worldwide cultural process.

The educational programs of the European University have been developed and taught at an international scholarly level, without compromise. This fulfills an additional urgent task: to counteract effectively the notorious “brain drain.” Young Russian scholars who have graduated from the European University are able to engage freely and equally in academic exchanges with colleagues all over the world. They feel themselves a part of the international cultural community.

The influence of this University and its graduates on the state of the social sciences and humanities in Russia is very strong. The damage from its being shut down will be enormous, both immediately and in the future.

The successful development of our country and its economic growth on the basis of scientific achievement and the creation of civil society are urgent and inseparably connected tasks now facing Russia. Relations between the scholarly community and the state must be constructed on the basis of a strong partnership and on a philosophy of cooperation rather than confrontation.

We express in solidarity our confidence that the closing of the European University is a temporary one. We express our hopes for that the scholarly collective at the EUSP will be able to work long and fruitfully for the benefit of scholarship, education, and Russian society as a whole.

PIOTROVSKIY Mikhail Borisovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Chair of the Board of Trustees, European University at St.Petersburg
ANAN’CH Boris Vasil’evich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
APRESIAN Yury Derenikovich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
BONGARD-LEVIN Nikolai Nikolaevich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
KAZANSKIY Nikolai Nikolaevich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
MIASNIKOV Vladimir Stepanovich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
POLTEROVICH Viktor Meerovich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
SARABJANOV Dmitry Vladimirovich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
YANIN Valentin Lavrentjevich, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
BAGNO Vsevolod Evgenjevich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
BONDARKO Aleksander Vladimirovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
VINOGRADOV Viktor Alekseevich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
GANELIN Raphail Sholomovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
DYBO Vladimir Antonovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ELISEEVA Irina Ilyinishna, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
LAVROV Aleksander Vladimirovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
MEDVEDEV Igor Pavlovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
MIKHAILOV Andrei Dmitrievich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
MOLDOVAN Aleksander Mikhailovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
NIKOLAEVA Tatiana Mikhailovna, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
RIFTIN Boris L’vovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
TOPORKOV Andrei L’vovich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
UVAROV Pavel Yurjevich, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
PLESHKOV Viktor Nikolaevich, Director of the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences
RUHOVETS Leonid Aizikovich, Director of the St. Petersburg Institute for Economics and Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences
TROPP Eduard Abramovich, Academic Secretary of the Presidium of the St.Petersburg Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences
CHISTOV Yury Kirillovich, Director of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography “Kunstkamera,” Russian Academy of Sciences
YADOV Vladimir Alexandrovich, Dean of the faculty of Sociology, State University of Humanities

Originally published in Russian at: http://www.polit.ru/science/2008/03/05/28akad.html

A subculture known for black fingernails, angled bangs and rock music, popular among some Russian teenagers, is under attack. On Monday, the Department of Education of the Nizhny-Novgorod oblast called for a campaign to combat a movement known as “emo”. The classification, which originated from an independent music movement in the United States, is short for “emotional,” and now relates as much to a fashion style as a genre of music.

The Department’s move comes after the local branch of the Federal Security Service Directorate (UFSB) brought forth a report describing repeated instances of “unconventional religious trends, and civic organizations disseminating ideas of a negative youth subculture.” The information first became public from a circular published by the Education Department.

The document, in part, reads: “According to information from the Nizhny-Novgorod oblast UFSB, the oblast is seeing the growth of ideas of the emo negative youth subculture, which are connected with suicidal tendencies of teenagers 12-16 years of age.”

The text then vividly describes the emo stereotype: clothing with pink and black colors and two-toned designs. Blue-black hair. Long bangs. Fingernails painted black. Piercings.

The FSB informed the educators that “the emo ideology negatively influences the unformed teenage psyche. According to the ideology, its members are immortal, and each one’s dream is to die of blood-loss in a warm bath, by cutting the veins on the wrist region. Many of the teenagers are depressed, withdrawn in their thoughts, and the girls are very inclined toward suicide on account of unrequited love. The young people drawn to the emo movement imagine that they have an ‘allergy to happiness.’”

Based on the information taken from the FSB, the department called on its teachers to maintain vigilance and to take measures directed “at explaining the negative consequences of entering into alternative civic organizations.”

Meanwhile, the emo subculture could not be reached for comment.

Maxim Reznik, the leader of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party, was convinced:

“It’s clear [the closure] was politically motivated,” Reznik told the Guardian newspaper. “We are observing a change in the political regime in Russia from authoritarianism to totalitarianism. What happened here is one example among many.”

Fire officials first inspected the buildings on January 18th. University staff said that since then, they have made major improvements. They have appealed the court decision.

Some analysts said the action seemed uncalled-for. Kommersant quoted Andrei Yurov, an EU education expert, who noted that “Russia hardly has any universities meeting all standards of fire protection.”

The EU funding, totaling €673,000 (US$976,000), was provided to lead a three-year project on electoral monitoring, and to teach students about the electoral process. Its program included a series of lectures and seminars for observers from various political parties. Participants were taught how to look for violations outside of polling stations, and to track such things as improper use of administrative resources during an election.

Authorities criticized the effort from its inception. Attacks on the University, which has provided post-graduate programs since 1994, surfaced from Russia’s Central Electoral Commission, and were put forth by delegates in the State Duma. In October 2007, President Vladimir Putin accused the University of acting as an agent of international interference in Russian affairs.

Grigory Golosov, who led the course, maintains that the program was educational and not partisan. “We did not pursue any political goals,” he said.

Under official pressure and concern for the University’s future, the electoral monitoring program was suspended on January 28th.

On December 26th, Ekho Moskvy radio reported the board of Russia’s Department of Education and Science met and approved the catalog of textbooks that will be used in the coming two school years. Since Filippov’s text was approved, the books will now be sent to at least five regions for classroom evaluation. At the end of a one-year term, the texts will be officially recommended to schools.

Filippov is the deputy director of the National Center for Foreign Policy, a think tank that has been linked to the Fund for Effective Politics, a political consulting group that lists the President Vladimir Putin as one of its clients. His book has been accused of justifying Stalin’s repressions, and with presenting the events of the last eight years from the position of Kremlin propaganda.

Defenders of the new version have responded that the book has been edited from the original, which is a teacher’s edition and includes conclusions specifically meant for instructors. The publishing house wrote that a controversial chapter titled “Debates about Stalin’s role in history” was removed from the student edition. That chapter listed one of the reasons for mass-repressions as “an ambition to achieve a maximally effective administrative apparatus.” It listed the results of the purges that killed millions of Russians as “the formulation of a new managerial class, up to the task of modernization under conditions of resource shortage.”

The last chapter of the textbook – “Russia’s fresh departure” – represents a shortened and more robust version of a chapter titled “Sovereign democracy,” in the original. This phrase is frequently used by the Putin administration to justify the increasingly strong and authoritarian model of Russian government. The chapter says that Putin’s move to cancel the direct elections of governors was based on “the unpreparedness of the executive branch to deal effectively with crises,” including the terrorist takeover of the Beslan School. The book’s authors explain that the “Yukos affair,” “finally buried the oligarch’s hopes to preserve their control over the Russian government.” The authors underscore the instructional nature of the example set by the oil company’s victimization: “In 2004, after the Yukos affair, federal tax revenues and collections increased at once by 133.8 percent in comparison with 2003.”

Several key agencies took part in the decision to create Russian history and social studies schoolbooks based on the works of Alexander Filippov and another author, Leonid Polyakov. Representatives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University, the Ministry of Education, and the President’s executive council on science, technology and education met to charter the project.

As Polyakov announced, the new textbooks offer a “modern ideology,” and teach how to “foster a civic and patriotic viewpoint in the young person.”

With two new manuals for high school history and social studies teachers, written in part by Kremlin political consultants, Russian authorities are attempting to imbue classroom debate with a nationalist outlook.

The history guide contains a laudatory review of President Vladimir Putin’s years in power. “We see that practically every significant deed is connected with the name and activity of President V.V. Putin,” declares its last chapter. The social studies guide is marked by intense hostility to the United States. . . .

But the United States may be near “final collapse,” according to the manual, because “America can no longer integrate into a single unit or unite into a nation of ‘whites,’ ‘blacks,’ (they are called African-Americans in the language of political correctness) ‘Latinos’ (Latin Americans) and others.” . . .

To historian Nikita Sokolov, the manual is so equivocal on Stalin’s terror that “his crimes are being taken into the shadows.”

“A very dangerous thing is happening,” said Sokolov, co-author of the book “Choosing Your Own History.” They want to take us back to unified thinking. The president and the presidential administration believe we lack the national self-confidence to confront and debate the past.”

We can only wish that the Putin regime would spend its efforts on improving the future of our country instead of trying to alter its past. Rehabilitating Stalin to make Putin’s authoritarian rule look more palatable is reprehensible. Using our nation’s textbooks as just another propaganda tool is another illustration of how Russia’s system of education is being dismantled along with the rest of the country. We await Putin-friendly physics and mathematics books.