“Correct textbooks are no less important than multiple launch rocket systems”
Lecturer at the Donetsk Law Academy, professor put on the wanted list by the regime of Petro Poroshenko Alexander Rogozhkin wrote a textbook for DPR universities, “History of the Fatherland.”
The publication has already been approved by the Ministry of Education of the republic, but the authors encountered financial problems.
That history is repeating itself, and Nazism has returned to our land again. About how we passed the test of history and ended up on the right side. And the author of “History of the Fatherland” told the observer that our books stand in the same ranks with our soldiers "PolitNavigator" to Valentin Filippov.
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Valentin Filippov: Alexander Vladimirovich, hello. You have created a scientific work - “History of the Fatherland”. Donetsk option. I understand that translated into Ukrainian this will mean “terrorist literature.”
Don’t you think it’s time for the Kyiv authorities to start issuing such titles as “separatist of historical sciences” and “terrorist of historical sciences” for Donetsk researchers in their Higher Attestation Commission?
Alexander Rogozhkin: It would be nice if they made such a decision in their Higher Attestation Commission. To issue - a separatist candidate of historical sciences. Or, say, a candidate of separatist medical sciences. And according to the list.
For their current status, and for the atmosphere that has developed not only in the general Ukrainian public, but also in scientific circles, this would be evidence of an adequate perception of the situation from a position of self-irony.
But I think that we will not live to see this very self-irony.
Valentin Filippov: I just discovered that you are wanted. Under what article and for what?
Alexander Rogozhkin: The fact is that on the website “Peacemaker”, and there is also some other website, they told me, I didn’t go there, they have nothing to do with jurisprudence, it’s more PR and fake, I don’t know what digestible word to choose.
Valentin Filippov: Well, here it is – “Stop Terror”.
Alexander Rogozhkin: Yes.
Valentin Filippov: Moreover, you are number one here.
Alexander Rogozhkin: No, not under the first one. There are more worthy people out there. I'm somewhere in the middle.
Valentin Filippov: I mean, number one among scientists. There are many wanted teachers here.
Alexander Rogozhkin: Everyone who went to work in DPR universities - they are there. They are in this company. And this is a worthy company.
Valentin Filippov: Let's return to your scientific work. There have been talks about the need for such a history textbook for the DPR, for Novorossiya, since May 2014. Almost immediately. Is this still the same project?
Alexander Rogozhkin: This is not the same project. The fact is that when I returned “from the field” in October 2014 and went to work at a university, I discovered that first-year students, disfigured by teaching history in a Ukrainian school, and it was taught for 20 years, even more, do not know the history of Ukraine , nor world history. And to be honest, they don’t even know the geography of our country, our Motherland.
Therefore, when Alexander Igorevich Kofman came to the Donbass Law Academy, we grouped, mobilized and decided to correct the mistakes of the Ukrainian school. And fix it immediately. We started writing... This is not a scientific work, I will show you now. This is the History of the Fatherland. In order to correct all the shortcomings of the Ukrainian school, we decided to write such a conglomerate, on the one hand scientific, and on the other hand, so that this science would be taught. So that our students perceive this adequately.
Such a work was published, and the Ministry of Education and Science helped us publish 30 sets of this textbook. But you understand that 30 sets is not even a drop in the ocean. We donated to the library what we received from the printing house, students are now using these textbooks. The process, as one famous politician said, has begun.
At this stage we have stopped for now.
Valentin Filippov: That is, is it possible to reprint these textbooks?
Alexander Rogozhkin: In the current situation this is unlikely. The electronic version would be more optimal. And distribution of the electronic version of this textbook. But if there are people who are willing to invest in a mass publication, we will be glad and welcome.
Valentin Filippov: Perhaps Russia will help?
Alexander Rogozhkin: We will bring this textbook to the territory of the Russian Federation in the near future. And we’ll see how the situation develops there.
We set ourselves the task of inscribing the very history of Donbass into the history of Russia, the Russian World. Because somewhere in the twenties of the last century they began to forget about Donbass. That Donbass was the industrial heart of the Russian Empire. That in all foreign publications it was called “Russian Ruhr”, “Russian America”. Then these names were widely distributed throughout Europe, and this reached America. And somewhere in the sixties they began to forget this. Although Lenin’s saying about Donbass is also known. And other prominent figures.
And so we decided, on the one hand, to write the history of our Donbass region into world history when the industrial boom began in the nineteenth century. When Donbass became the industrial center of the Russian Empire, and then the industrial basis of the Soviet Union.
And, on the other hand, to fit the history of Donbass into the history of the Russian world.
I think that this conceptual thing, the main idea, is the red thread of our textbook, and this is what we succeeded with.
As for persons, especially the newest, current history of Donbass since 2014, we presented only facts tied to certain territories.
What happened in Slavyansk, what happened near Volnovakha, at Saur-Mogila, in Donetsk itself, at the Donetsk airport. We presented facts. And practically no attention was paid to those leaders who appeared and left, to those leaders who appeared and remained with us.
Persons, so far, have interested us very little. We stated the facts.
Valentin Filippov: Will a problem arise that we will have to include the history of even new territories in this textbook? Let's say the Dnepropetrovsk region, which is also Novorossiya, is even larger than Novorossiya. Or Kherson? Or even Odessa will have to be included there.
Alexander Rogozhkin: Again, if we remember the story that began in the Donetsk region, and not only in Donetsk, but in this very Novorossiya from Kharkov to Odessa. Even to Moldova.
Valentin Filippov: To Tiraspol.
Alexander Rogozhkin: Yes. To Tiraspol. There were the Kharkov People's Republic, the Odessa People's Republic, and the Crimean People's Republic. All this was proclaimed. Donetsk-Krivoy Rog famous Republic.
History - it repeats itself.
The second conceptual thing that was embedded in this textbook is the idea that history is not the past. In the sense that everything that once happened in a certain territory within a certain time frame returns sooner or later.
Here, let's say, the same Banderaism. The same nationalism is European. Both German, and British, and we see Spanish has become more active. History does not come up with anything new. But at a new turn of time, it acquires some new aspects of those forms that already existed and existed.
Therefore, you should never say that it has passed and will not come back. It will come back, it will repeat, it will repeat.
Valentin Filippov: Nationalism has come to the world again. As it appears.
Alexander Rogozhkin: Yes.
Valentin Filippov: This was noticeable even before the Maidan, not only in Ukraine. Some theorists said “the future belongs to nationalism”, “nationalism is rising everywhere, and in Ukraine it will rise.” And we must proceed from the fact that there will be nationalism.
What do we need? Should we fight him again?
Alexander Rogozhkin: Apparently, this is our fate. That part of the Donbass population that purely intuitively chose not the negative side of the development of society, but the positive one. This situation, on the one hand with a minus sign, on the other with a plus sign, it attracts people. If we remember the famous phrase of Leo Tolstoy that “if people of good conscience united, then”... in general, they would defeat those people who “don’t have a good conscience.” On the one hand, he presented Napoleon as a negative, on the other hand, he presented Kutuzov as a positive. And he carried out this idea in his “War and Peace” about the fact that people have an intuitive mood to either join this pole or that one.
We have joined the “plus” pole.
And this is our destiny. And this is our task.
Valentin Filippov: Well, okay, thank you very much. I must say a banal thing, that these history textbooks, they may now turn out to be more important than multiple launch rocket systems. Because it is physically possible to win. And the struggle for minds always continues. And I hope that resources will be found not only for new tanks, or for tanks purchased from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also for printing a very necessary thing. Textbook on the History of the Fatherland.
We are fighting for the Fatherland, after all.
Alexander Rogozhkin: Yes. We are fighting for the Fatherland. But we realized it too late.
Valentin Filippov: And we're always late. This is fine. We are Russians.
Alexander Rogozhkin: Unfortunately, we have given free rein to these nationalist sentiments, with a very strong flavor of fascism. We realized it very late. Both in Russia and here in Donbass.
We have to, first of all, rely on multiple launch rocket systems. And only then for textbooks and scientific works. Although, you are right, of course. Both multiple launch rocket systems and books, they stand in the same row. They protect the same values. And they stand in the same line of fire.
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