Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Advisor on Education and Science, Tatiana Shchyttsova, commented on the announced introduction of unified history textbooks for schools and universities of Belarus and Russia. Ms. Shchyttsova emphasized the need to resist colonization policies by increasing the independence of historical science and providing opportunities for youth to study history not distorted by propaganda.
Tatiana Shchyttsova: “Russian Ambassador to Minsk, Boris Gryzlov, announced that Belarus and Russia have agreed to create unified history textbooks for schools and universities. Two notable events preceded this decision.
- The First Forum of Russian and Belarusian Historians was held in June 2023 in Moscow.
- The respective historical policy and education councils of Belarus’ and Russia’s presidential administrations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“Memorandum of Understanding between the National Council on Historical Policy under the Administration of the President of Belarus and the Interdepartmental Commission on Historical Education under the President of Russia”).
The Memorandum provides for the creation of a united Russian-Belarusian commission on history, which will likely be responsible for creating new textbooks. It is indicative that the new agreement was announced at the meeting of the program committee of the United Russia party. This clearly defines what the Russian ambassador meant speaking of the need to understand historical events “from a single point of view”. A single point of view is a perspective representing the ideology of United Russia. Gryzlov’s insistence on eliminating discrepancies in understanding history is entirely colonial in nature.
The colonized nations are denied the right to differ from the colonizer, the right to speak for themselves or speak differently. They can only say what the colonizer says. The colonized are not allowed to have a view of history or dare to have their own history.
After Lukashenka’s regime deprived millions of Belarusians of the right to a political voice and hindered the country’s development with harsh repression, it now signed a “Memorandum of Understanding”, where “understanding” means the regime’s agreement to subordinate Belarusian history as a science and a national narrative to the “single point of view” – in fact, to United Russia. By doing this, it ended science and betrayed national interests.
We can and will resist such policies in numerous ways. The key way is to develop independent historical science, creating opportunities for youth to study history free from distortion by unified Belarusian and Russian propaganda”.
