Russian university leaders are imbuing the country’s education system with patriotism to favor Putin, quashing Western influences and dissent.

[essentialsaltes]

To please Putin, universities purge liberals and embrace patriots​

In a radical reshaping of Russia’s education system, curriculums are being redrawn to stress patriotism and textbooks rewrittento belittle Ukraine, glorify Russia and whitewash the totalitarian Soviet past. These changes — the most sweeping to schooling in Russia since the 1930s — are a core part of Putin’s effort to harness the war in Ukraine to remaster his country as a regressive, militarized state.

Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leaders of Russian universities, which are overwhelmingly funded by the state, have zealously adopted the Kremlin’s intolerance of any dissent or self-organization, according to an extensive examination by The Washington Post of events on campuses across Russia, including interviews with students and professors both still in the country and in exile.

Professors who spoke out against the war, or allowed safe spaces for students to question it, have been fired. Students who picketed or posted on social media for peace were expelled.

[On a related note, I will point out also that journalist "Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has written columns as a contributor for The Washington Post from his prison cell in Russia, has won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary." He is serving 25 years for criticizing the war.]

And the most fundamental precept of academic life — the freedom to think independently, to challenge conventional assumptions and pursue new, bold ideas — has been eroded by edicts that classrooms become echo chambers of the authoritarian nativism and historical distortions that Putin uses to justify his war and his will.

At the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, officials last July created the Ivan Ilyin Higher Political School ... Last month, students pushed an online petition to protest the naming of the school after Ilyin, a philosopher who defended Hitler and Mussolini in World War II and advocated for the return of czarist autocracy in Russia.

 

[timothyu]

How is that different from what 'western' countries do to promote their own agendas?

 

[durangodawood]

How is that different from what 'western' countries do to promote their own agendas?

Ha are you proposing national self criticism is systematically oppressed in western universities?

Honestly thats absurd - notwithstanding Florida style attempts to make it so.

 

[FreeinChrist]

That is sad. I think he will try to bring back the Soviet Union under another name.

 

[Nithavela]

Ha are you proposing national self criticism is systematically oppressed in western universities?

Honestly thats absurd - notwithstanding Florida style attempts to make it so.

For some people, the whataboutism is just a reflex.

 

[essentialsaltes]

How is that different from what 'western' countries do to promote their own agendas?

It is similar to what DeSantis has done to colleges and schools in Florida, I'll give you that.

 

[timothyu]

Ha are you proposing national self criticism is systematically oppressed in western universities?

One side of it perhaps.

 

[durangodawood]

One side of it perhaps.

What aspects of national self criticism are missing?

Seems to me that in US universities we absolutely skewer the sort of national mythologizing nonsense that Putin is trying to enforce in Russia. I do realize theres a right wing backlash brewing against that.

 

[timothyu]

What side?

Does it matter? There is no unity so you are no better off. Foolish people destroy themselves from within.

 

[durangodawood]

Does it matter? There is no unity so you are no better off

If youre too vague. theres no way to assess or even talk about if you are correct or not. Its just a few empty words.

 

[timothyu]

Imagine if no country could argue.

 

[durangodawood]

Imagine if no country could argue.

Its easy if you try.

 

[timothyu]

But no one does as there is little profit in it.

 

[7thKeeper]

Does it matter? There is no unity so you are no better off. Foolish people destroy themselves from within.

Wow. You're being incredibly vague to avoid making an actual arguement, just to try to defend Russia's state promoted lies and propaganda.

As a sidenote, this isn't surprising at all though. After the fall of the USSR, Russian textbooks corrected the Mainila shots incident to correctly claim that the USSR staged the incident. This was changed back to claiming the incident was real and caused by Finland after Putin became president.

 

[timothyu]

just to try to defend Russia's state promoted lies and propaganda.

As if the western countries have never manipulated history. There are no governments of man that are different as all follow self interest. They all follow the same practices while pretending to be different.

 

[Pommer]

As if the western countries have never manipulated history. There are no governments of man that are different as all follow self interest. They all follow the same practices while pretending to be different.

Sports can/has been likened unto politics and the analogy holds true but never really works well likening politics to sports; there’s cheaters and liars in each but only one can cause global-extinction.

 

[7thKeeper]

As if the western countries have never manipulated history. There are no governments of man that are different as all follow self interest. They all follow the same practices while pretending to be different.

Still deflecting away from the topic here and being very vague.

 

[timothyu]

there’s cheaters and liars in each but only one can cause global-extinction.

There is a phrase 'it takes to to tango'