A leading lawmaker from President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has called for “The Gulag Archipelago,” a classic book by author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, to be banned from Russian schools, in a new sign that Russian propaganda is returning to Soviet-style concealment of historical truth. .

He reported on the situation on his page Twitter independent researcher Chris Owen, noting that the first deputy secretary of the United Russia party, Dmytro Vyatkin, called for the removal of works from the school, which, according to him, “have not stood the test of time” and do not correspond to historical reality. curriculum and replaced with textbooks from the Soviet period.

According to Vyatkin, with this measure, Russian lawmakers “will restore historical justice in relation to Soviet works that foster patriotism and preserve historical memory,” reports TASS.

The Russian deputy also states that works that “humiliate Russia and pour mud on it” should be excluded from Russian schools, directly mentioning in this regard the most famous work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, which was first published in the West 3 years ago. after the author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

A Russian MP said that “The Gulag Archipelago” was written to smear Russia

However, Vyatkin notes that “historical analysis has shown that in the Gulag Archipelago, which has not yet been filmed, but I think it will not remain in the school curriculum for a long time, many facts were invented” by Solzhenitsyn.

“Historians have checked all the data. There was an attempt to get a prize for this (not writing a book), for the fact that you smeared your own Motherland with dirt,” the Russian deputy also says.

However, Chris Owen notes that Solzhenitsyn never claimed that the work was a work of pure history, his ex-wife Nataliya Resetovska notes in her memoirs, published in 1974, that the Russian writer considered the book “an experiment in literary research” rather than “a historical study or scientific research”.

Owen also notes that The Gulag Archipelago was introduced into the Russian school curriculum at the insistence of President Vladimir Putin, Natalia Soletin, the author’s second wife and widow, created a school version of the work.

In 2009, Putin’s government made the book compulsory reading for 16- and 17-year-old high school students.

How Putin himself evaluated Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s book

In 2009, in a meeting broadcast on Russian television, Putin personally told Solzhenitsyn’s widow that there was a “great need” for a “Gulag archipelago” in Russian schools.

“Without knowledge of what is presented here, we will not have a full understanding of our country and it will be difficult for us to think about the future,” Putin said then, when he was the Prime Minister of Russia as part of the “government ring” with Dmitry. Medvedev, which allowed him to remain in power in Moscow.

Owen also notes that despite his experience of Soviet totalitarianism, Alexander Solzhenitsyn remained a staunch supporter of Putin until his death in 2008 at the age of 89, and the Kremlin leader instead expressed admiration for his work in literature.

Although rehabilitation of Soviet culture and heritage has begun in Russia under Putin in recent years, long before he launched his invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president told Solzhenitsyn’s widow in July 2019, on her 80th birthday, that her late husband’s works “represent an integral and very important part of the cultural heritage of Russia”.

Putin congratulated Natalia Soletina’s efforts to preserve the author’s works and “to pass on to posterity his role in establishing the principles of justice and democracy in our country.”

Chris Owen points out that the proposal that Vyatkin is now making is unlikely to have been formulated without the prior approval of the Russian president.