In September 2022, seven months into an all-out war in Ukraine that was only supposed to last a few weeks, Russian schoolchildren started compulsory patriotism lessons. Since then, Monday mornings have been set aside for “conversations about what is important” – a class on the glories of national history; western perfidy; the virtue of self-sacrifice for the Motherland; Vladimir Putin’s wise leadership.
Authoritarian regimes never trust people to love their country spontaneously. Organic national identity, the kind that grows without state cultivation, contains stories of dissent and cultural idiosyncrasy. Variety is subversive.
