You're reading: Svoboda urges Ukrainians to boycott new history textbook and not to learn Russian

The Svoboda All-Ukrainian Union has called on Ukrainians to boycott a proposed new textbook on the history of Ukraine and give up the learning of the Russian language in school.

“Svoboda calls on teachers, students, schoolchildren and their parents to protect by all possible means spiritual independence, without which other independence seems phantasmal,” the party said in an appeal to teachers, schoolchildren and their parents on measures to counter the destruction of Ukrainian humanitarian education, which was posted on its official Web site.

To this end, the appeal proposes “boycotting and not accepting the likely edition of an imperial textbook on the history of Ukraine through a fundamental study only on current textbooks,” as well as “organize groups to study the history of Ukrainian statehood and courses ‘Leaders of the Nation,’ ‘Ukrainian Victories,’ ‘Ukrainian Military History,’ etc.”

In addition, “bearing in mind the black year 1938 for Ukrainian education, when the Russian language became a compulsory subject, and in 1958, when it was possible to give up the learning of the Ukrainian language,” Svoboda called on Ukrainians “to categorically refuse to study in school the language of the occupier – Russian, as a further reliable means of the assimilation of Ukrainians.”