RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE  13 October 1999

ROMANIANS SCANDALIZED BY DE-MYTHICIZED HISTORY TEXTBOOK. The
Education Commissions of the two chambers of the parliament
are meeting on 13 October to discuss demands for the
withdrawal of a history textbook that the Ministry of
Education has approved for the 12th grade. The Romanian
Academy has protested against the use of the textbook, as has
the opposition Party of Social Democracy in Romania, the
Greater Romania Party, and the Party of Romanian National
Unity. The editor in chief of the daily "Adevarul" claims
that the textbook is the result of Hungarian machinations
undertaken in league with the U.S.-sponsored Project on
Ethnic Relations. The textbook (whose use is optional)
questions some of the major Romanian historical myths (the
Dacian-Roman origins of the Romanian nation as well as the
roles of Vlad the Impaler, Michael the Brave, and others)
that were propagated under the Ceausescu regime to promote
nationalism. MS

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