MOSCOW — Russian officials have ordered libraries to remove books by well-known British historians John Keegan and Antony Beevor, saying they promote Nazi-era stereotypes, a spokeswoman says Wednesday.
The move is part of a broader official push in Russia that is seeing school curricula and textbooks reshaped to cut out alleged foreign influences and provide a Kremlin-backed narrative of history.
The regional education ministry in Sverdlovsk, near the Ural Mountains, issued a decree telling school and university libraries to “check the availability of books” by the historians and “take measures to remove them from access by students and teaching staff.”
Both Keegan, who died in 2012, and Beevor are reputed military historians with a focus on World War II.
Beevor tells AFP that the ban is “quite ridiculous” and that the Russian government is “trying to control the history of the past” due to its current isolated geopolitical position.
“The Russians consider that 1945 is the greatest moment in their history, so they consider any criticism as an insult,” he adds.
— AFP
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