Ignorance of Soviet Russia’s violently repressive imperialist history and the uncritical adoption of language that echoes modern Kremlin disinformation has landed the University of Toronto’s education faculty in hot water. Article content

The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) — which offers graduate degrees in teaching — is currently leading an educational research project that risks legitimizing Russian state narratives that seek to marginalize and delegitimize nations once colonized by the Soviet Union, including Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine.

The fallout is sparking diplomatic concern from all three Baltic embassies, which have formally expressed their concerns to the university.

Titled “Post-Soviet Canadian Diaspora Youth and Their Families,” the project claims to explore the integration experiences of youth whose families came to Canada from countries colonized and oppressed by Soviet Russia. While its stated intent may indeed be to foster a deeper understanding of these communities, the project’s language and conceptual framing are historically inaccurate, politically insensitive, and risk reinforcing harmful Kremlin-aligned stereotypes about the very groups it aims to study.

By lumping together all nations once occupied by Soviet Russia into a single “post-Soviet” identity, the project risks distorting the unique histories, cultures and political experiences of Canadians who are of Baltic and Ukrainian heritage, as well as all nations that were violently subjected to Soviet cultural annihilation. Worse, this framing unintentionally echoes Russian propaganda efforts that seek to blur the line between occupier and occupied, casting doubt on the legitimacy of these nations.

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