Kiev demands that “false information” in eighth-grade geography materials be edited
Illustration from eighth grade geography textbook published on Hungary’s National Public Education Portal
Kiev has accused Hungary of including anti-Ukrainian falsehoods in its eighth-grade geography textbooks. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry is now demanding that the Hungarian educational authorities correct the information to align with Kiev’s position.
A spokesperson for the ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, wrote on social media on Wednesday that Ukrainian diplomats had already held a meeting at the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, during which they “emphasized the inadmissibility of presenting unreliable and distorted facts about Ukraine” and demanded the correction of “false information” as soon as possible.
The textbook in question is published on the National Public Education Portal. Among other things, it suggests that the only mountains in Ukraine are the Carpathians, thus omitting the Crimean Mountains. Ukraine insists on its sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula, which seceded from Kiev’s rule in 2014 to join Russia.
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Another part of the textbook states that the Russian and Ukrainian languages hold many similarities and notes that much of eastern Ukraine is inhabited by ethnic Russians and that nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s population speaks a mix of Russian and Ukrainian. The textbook points out that despite their similarities, the two ethnic groups “are often at odds with each other” and that this turmoil “provoked an armed conflict over the Crimean peninsula.”
It then goes on to illustrate the struggle over Ukraine by featuring a satirical picture of the Ukrainian flag being torn apart by a bear wearing a Russian flag and two people with the symbols of the US and EU on their backs. The picture is accompanied by the question “who does Ukraine belong to?”
In his announcement that Ukrainian diplomats had expressed their protest to the Hungarian government, Nikolenko linked to an article by the media outlet European Pravda, which insists that what is presented in the textbook repeats Russian propaganda narratives and are an effort to “program” schoolchildren to have a hostile attitude towards Ukraine.
