The first decade of the 21st century witnessed an increasing role of patriotic rhetoric in various areas of education and public life in the countries of the former Soviet Union. In some cases, patriotic education that stylistically, semantically, and conceptually emulates the Soviet patriotic education curricula becomes a dominant and the only framework of citizenship education. This study demonstrates that patriotic education that is interpreted through traditionalistic rationales of mobilization and militarization comes into conflict with the goals of democratic education and does not leave much room for educating democratic citizenry.