Russian singers who support Moscow’s war on Ukraine will tour schools across the country ahead of plans to add patriotic songs to the national school curriculum, a Russian lawmaker said in an interview published Thursday.
“Our artists proposed the idea of holding patriotic music lessons,” State Duma deputy Sergei Kolunov, a member of the ruling United Russia party, told Parlamentskaya Gazeta.
“Shaman, Oleg Gazmanov and our colleague Denis Maidanov will travel to schools, talk to children and sing together around February, March and April,” Kolunov added.
The school tours are part of a State Duma initiative to compile a list of patriotic songs that would be taught in music classes as soon as the next school year this September, the lawmaker said.
Shaman and Gazmanov joined other musicians, teachers and principals for a parliamentary round table in the fall to discuss “integrating” patriotic music from the first to eighth grades.
Kolunov said members of that round table will meet again next week on Thursday to finalize the list of patriotic songs to be included in the curriculum. He stressed that “foreign music” would not be banned from schools, naming The Beatles and jazz as examples.
The latest initiative is part of a broader government effort to bolster children’s patriotic education and win over public opinion for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Critics see Russia’s patriotic education as a tool of indoctrination.
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