"a creeping re-Stalinisation"

So I am now working in the world of academic publishing, and it gives you a sense of the power that learning material can have over an audience of readers. The publisher can sometimes have the ability to steer the direction of a curriculum to focus on a particular set of material by making certain information readily available - of course this has to be bought into by the institutions it is selling this material to. And the librarians have to be on board, but it is amazing to see how academic material can shape a course structure when you are at the other end of the spectrum, from being the student at one end, to working on the publishing side of things and working out what a market of readers wants, and what a market of readers needs.

What do I need this week? Pens, pencils, notepad featuring tyrannical Russian dictator..

So when I came across an article in the Guardian about academic textbooks in Russian schools, I was interested to see the debate going on over the "creeping re-Stalinisation" currently being felt in the country. It seems that the Alt Publishing house refuses to withdraw a notebook for children, which features a picture of dictator Joseph Stalin on its front cover, a poignant debate within Russia's Public Chamber, where there is a high level of criticism over the cover and what it potentially stands for. Although it is necessary for schoolchildren to learn about their heritage and the history of their country, this book appears to glorify the dictator to an extent that could be unhealthy for young children to associate themselves with, equating power with fame, perhaps leaving out a few minor details of the mass purges that were carried out in between. Just a minor detail perhaps to remind people of. I don't think I'd been too keen if there were notebooks for schoolchildren in circulation featuring Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler on their front covers in the same sort of context. Or maybe there are. It just makes you wonder what is being taught in schools and how these figures are being perceived and their histories contextualised. As aforementioned, there is a great deal of power in the presentation of history and the propagandising of figures, particularly when this information is aimed at young children.