Dina Khapaeva /The Conversation Beginning in September 2025, Russian middle and high school students will be handed a new textbook titled “My Family.” Published in March 2025, the textbook’s co-author Nina Ostanina, chair of the State Duma Committee for the Protection of the Family, claims that it will teach students “traditional moral values” that will improve “the demographic situation in the country” as part of a “Family Studies” course that was rolled out in the 2024-2025 school year. But some of those lessons for modern living come from a less-than-modern source. Among the materials borrowed from in “My Family” is the 16th century “ Domostroi” – a collection of rules for maintaining patriarchal domestic order. It was written, supposedly, by
