Vitali Vlasov, author of a history textbook for grade 5 students progressively moves toward a central question – the origin of the name Ukraine.
Along with direct falsifications, Vlasov engages in manipulation of facts. The author acknowledges, for example, that a Ukrainian state did not exist in the 19th century, and that these lands were controlled by the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. But in the same breath he writes that the first railways ‘appeared in Ukraine’ during the same period – stretching between Przemysl and Lvov and Odessa and Balta. Not a word is said about the fact that these railways appeared in Austria-Hungarian and Russian Empires, not ‘in Ukraine’ or ‘on Ukrainian territory’.
On page 100, Vlasov explains that as a result of the Khmelnitsky Uprising, a Ukrainian Cossack power emerged, alternatively calling it the Zaporizhzhya Host or Hetmanate. Then, students are informed that this entity existed for over 100 years, and that between 1760 and 1780 the Hetmanate fell under the rule of Tsardom and was liquidate. Another falsehood. The Hetmanate was never an independent power and, again, was part of the Russian Empire at the time.
In Vlasov’s textbook, the term ‘Great Patriotic War’ (i.e. the Soviet and Russian term for the Eastern Front in World War II) is present, with the caveat ‘known under the term’ – a hint that this war was neither great nor patriotic for the people of Ukraine. A few pages later, the resistance to the Nazi invaders is discussed, and the UPA is put on a par with Soviet partisans.
At least Vlasov does not place the laurels of the role of ‘liberator of Ukraine’ before the UPA, but this will come soon enough with the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ – i.e. the Maidan.
The post-war period is dealt with in an even more boorish manner: it simply doesn’t exist. The period between 1945 and 1991 and the collapse of the USSR is just a hole in the textbook. After a paragraph dedicated to the war, Vlasov moves on directly to independent Ukraine. Here, it’s one victory after another: the creation of the hryvnia currency, triumphs in sport, the conquest of space (a reference to the flight of cosmonaut Leonid Kadynyuk aboard the US space shuttle Columbia), and the Grigory Veryovka folk choir.
