On January 23, 2024, the leading specialist of the Institute of History, Ethnology and Archeology of the Carpathians Bohdan Paska took part in the meeting of the expert commission on history of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The meeting was chaired by the head of the Department of Source Studies and Special Historical Disciplines of the Institute of Historical Education of Mykhailo Drahomanov Ukrainian State University, prof. Potylchak Oleksandr Valentinovych (chairman of the expert commission), the secretary was a senior researcher of the department of scientific and educational and methodological support of the content of general secondary education at the State Scientific Institution “Institute of Modernization of the Content of Education”, candidate of science in science. Olena Kostyantynivna Hurska.
During the meeting, 10 objects of marking were considered – textbooks from the courses “History of Ukraine”, “World History”, “History: Ukraine and the World” intended for students of the 7th grade. Bohdan Paska presented to the commission an expert opinion on the textbook from the “History of Ukraine” course for the 7th grade authored by Vitaly Vlasov, Oksana Danylevska and Dmytro Vashchuk. The expert’s opinion was supported and approved by the expert commission. The commission suggested giving the appropriate textbook the label “Recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.”
After examining the textbooks, an interesting terminological discussion took place between the members of the expert commission with the participation of scientists and teachers Oleksandr Potylchak, Lyudmila Hrynevych, Oleksandr Udod, Svitlana Wieser, Yuriy Latysh, and Viktor Dotsenko regarding the feasibility of using the term “Russia-Ukraine” in the educational literature, which appears in the model curriculum of the course “History of Ukraine. 7-9 grades”. It was agreed to recommend textbook authors to use the term “Rus-Ukraine” in relation to the socio-cultural community that inhabited the IX-XIII centuries the territory of modern Ukraine. Regarding the medieval state of the corresponding period, experts suggest using the term “Rus” or “Kyiv State”.