You will be surprised what Hungarian children are learning about the Russian war in Ukraine

New school year, new schoolbag, new pencils, and of course, we cannot miss the new books either. Eighth graders in elementary school will get the chance this year to delve into the fresh topic of the Ukrainian crisis and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

They will learn about the recent events happening in Ukraine. Everyone has access to the materials on the website of the National Public Education Portal. The country’s regions, agriculture and industrial development remain unchanged in every textbook. However, the new additions start with more emphasis on the composition of the population, as an introduction to its recent conflicts.

Ukraine is an independent country, part of whose territory, Crimean Peninsula, was occupied by the Russian military in 2014. Soon after Crimea was annexed by Russia through an internationally disputed referendum. In February of this year, Russia’s military forces attacked Ukraine using the composition of the population in Ukraine’s eastern regions as a Casus Belli. Since then, the nation of the country has been fighting for its independence, with the aid and support of the western states (excluding Hungary).

“The majority (of the population) is of Ukrainian nationality, but in the eastern part of the country there is a significant proportion of Russians, and in the Crimean Peninsula they form the majority. The two East Slavic languages ​​(Russian, Ukrainian) are similar. In the parts of the country inhabited by Russians, one fifth of the population speaks a mixed Russian-Ukrainian language. Despite this, the two ethnic groups are often at odds with each other. Their opposition also triggered an armed conflict for the Crimean Peninsula (4.2.).”

4.2 illustration of Ukraine’s conflict, photo: Nemzeti Köznevelési Portál, 8. grade geography textbook

–  says the new textbook that the eighth graders will use from this September. The (4.2) leads us to an illustration that feels like it was straight out of a 1950s newspaper’s caricature section. It shows the European Union, the United States and Russia fight over the country. (Not even mentioning the upside-down flag on the ushanka of the Russian bear.) This caricature is the way they introduce the events of a neighbouring country suffering from wartime aggression, half hiding the facts of the occupation of Crimea too – writes Telex.

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Source: Telex