Ukrainian historians are against joint work on history textbooks of Russia and Ukraine

Ukrainian historians have criticized the agreement between Russian and Ukrainian government officials to create an expert commission for joint work on writing textbooks on the history of both countries. The agreement on presentation of historical events was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister D. Tabachnyk and Minister of Education Nikolayenko after a meeting with the Russian Minister of Education and Science Fursenko.

The Director of the Institute of National Remembrance, Ihor Yukhnovsky called the agreement between the government officials unnecessary. He noted that joint work on problematic areas of history has been in progress between Ukrainian and Russian historians for more than two years. Deputy Director of the Institute of History of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, Stanislav Kulchytsky agrees with Ihor Yukhnovsky. He believes that the results of research carried out over that period will be productive and beneficial. “This is first of all the creation of a history course of Ukraine for Russians and of Russia for Ukrainians, since even now Russian scholars have not fully determined when their history begins”. Dr Kulchytsky considers that former Soviet republics have the right to their own history and the energetic development of a Ukrainian school has made a return to the days when the history of each people was written as a part of the history of Russia impossible.