On May 18, Russian schools held the final Conversations About Important Things lesson of the academic year, devoted to “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.” The class effectively served as a summary of the year’s central themes — patriotism, collectivism, service to the state, and the “primacy of the spiritual over the material.”
Schoolchildren were told that traditional values help people “feel like part of a united nation, contribute to strengthening society, and support the development of the country.”
As examples of people who embodied these values, teachers were instructed to speak about physician Fyodor Haaz, Tsarist adviser Fyodor Rtishchev, philologist Dmitry Likhachov, and Kremlin museum director Nikolai Zakharov — people who lived “not for themselves, but for society.” Likhachov’s arrest in the 1930s on charges of counterrevolutionary activity was described merely as “difficult life испытания” that “did not break the scholar.”
A separate section of the lesson focused on patriotism. Children were asked to define the meaning of the word “patriotism” and to provide examples of “true patriotism” based on material from previous lessons.
“Spiritual and moral values help us not lose our way, avoid making terrible mistakes, and follow the straight path laid out by those who lived before us and did everything possible so that we could become worthy people and citizens of our country,” the teacher says according to the lesson script.
A mandatory part of the lesson for high school students was watching an episode of BesogonTV, this time recorded specifically for Conversations About Important Things. The video opens with a clip from the film The Barber of Siberia, in which Mikhalkov’s character delivers the following speech:
“The Russian soldier is brave, resilient, and patient — therefore invincible.”
Mikhalkov then explains to students that corruption, internet restrictions, and public discontent are not real problems, but rather tools used by outside forces trying to divide society and “destabilize” the country.
He concludes by defining patriotism as “putting the national interests of your country first under any circumstances.” To those who doubt this, he proposes the question: “What would those who fought for the country say about you?” He also describes patience not as weakness, but as “the ability to endure difficulties without blaming everyone around you.”
