Putin Says State History Textbooks Will Not Impose Ideology

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday defended planned standardized history textbooks, lashing out at some current teaching materials that he said criticize the Soviet Union's role in World War II.

The state textbooks, proposed by Putin last year, are expected to replace many alternative editions that exist now and will be used in public schools nationwide. Some analysts have accused the Kremlin of using the new textbooks to promote its ideological agenda and crack down on academic freedom.

But Putin dismissed concerns that the new historical methodology would mean imposing a single state ideology and said many alternative theories would be tolerated.

"Unified approaches on the teaching of history do not imply state-imposed, bureaucratic and ideological unification," Putin said at a meeting in the Kremlin devoted to the issue....