{"id":391548,"date":"2025-09-02T09:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T09:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/391548\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T09:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T09:29:10","slug":"tainted-love-how-ukrainians-are-ridding-themselves-of-russian-language-books-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/391548\/","title":{"rendered":"Tainted love: how Ukrainians are ridding themselves of Russian-language books | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day this summer, the Ukrainian artist Stanislav Turina<\/a> took two of his books to his garden near Kyiv. One was a volume of poems by Alexander Pushkin.<\/p>\n

But Turina \u2013 a voracious reader, never without a couple of books in his backpack \u2013 had no plans to pick it up again.<\/p>\n

The 19th-century Russian has acquired a troubling resonance in Ukraine since the 2022 full-scale invasion of the country. He is frequently used by the invaders as a symbol of Russianness: huge posters<\/a> depicting the writer were for example erected in the southern city of Kherson during its occupation.<\/p>\n

A statue of Alexander Pushkin in Kyiv shortly before its dismantling. Photograph: Global Images Ukraine\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

For many in Ukraine, it shows Pushkin is being co-opted as a cultural weapon in Russia\u2019s war. Some would also argue that Pushkin\u2019s poetry reinforced, and even helped form, Russia\u2019s imperial ideology. Numerous statues of the writer have been dismantled since 2022 while many streets named after him (there were at least 594<\/a> in 2018) have reverted to their former names, or been given new ones.<\/p>\n

Turina knew he could not sell the book. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t give it to a friend, you couldn\u2019t give it to a library,\u201d he said. So in his garden, Turina gently, experimentally, placed his volume of Pushkin on the bonfire.<\/p>\n

Feeding Pushkin to the flames was not some grandiose gesture of hate. It was an artist\u2019s private and exploratory act, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid to burn books, to destroy them,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me it\u2019s symbolic of being barbarian.\u201d He said his purpose was quite different. He wanted find out how he would feel. Would there be any catharsis? Grief? Anger?<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t feel anything. I felt nothing good, nothing bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The second book in Turina\u2019s hand was a volume of poetry by the contemporary Russian writer Dmitry Vodennikov.<\/p>\n

For him, this represented a very different literary relationship.<\/p>\n

While a student in the western city of Lviv in the early 2000s, Turina saw Vodennikov perform his work. It was a revelation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was something new, a new voice. I understood he was gay: it was between the lines. It was so tender. It was very cool,\u201d he said. \u201cI started to be his fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told his parents he needed extra money for sports shoes. Then he spent what amounted to more than half his monthly student stipend on a single copy of poems by Vodennikov.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn time, I knew all his poetry,\u201d said Turina. \u201cHe was part of my way of thinking, my vision of my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, after 2022, Turina decided to check out Vodennikov\u2019s position on the war \u2013 \u201cand now,\u201d he said, \u201cI find he is a pro-war poet.\u201d Turina decided to leave his former hero\u2019s book in his garden \u2013 to decay.<\/p>\n

Across Ukraine<\/a>, readers are facing decisions about what to do with their Russian-language books. Many people \u2013 and especially those in the creative and cultural community \u2013 have switched to using Ukrainian in their everyday lives.<\/p>\n

How best to \u201cdecolonise\u201d from centuries of Russian and Soviet cultural influence is a frequent point of discussion.<\/p>\n

In many cases, Russian missiles have taken decisions out of individuals\u2019 hands. On the morning of 23 June, for example \u2013 after a barrage of Shahed drones and cruise missiles \u2013 books in Russian, some apparently stained with blood, were part of the wreckage of an apartment block in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv. Ten people, including an 11-year-old, were killed in the attack.<\/p>\n

Books in the wreckage of an apartment block in Kyiv\u2019s Shevchenkivskyi district after a Russian airstrike. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

When Kateryna Iakovlenko\u2019s apartment in Irpin just outside Kyiv took a direct hit in March 2022, all of the writer and curator\u2019s books, including those in Russian, the language in which she was raised, were destroyed. So were all her other possessions.<\/p>\n

Three years on, she owns just two books in Russian, both translations from other languages, neither available in Ukrainian, and both gifts from their authors.<\/p>\n

Oleksandr Mykhed faced a similar situation when his house in Hostomel, near Kyiv, was hit in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion. In his book The Language of War, the writer, now a member of the armed forces, recounts visiting its ruins and finding his Dostoevskys and Nabokovs among the wreckage.<\/p>\n

The experience of losing his home has transformed his relationship to his possessions \u2013 including his books.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you have become a refugee, you are always thinking like a refugee,\u201d he said. \u201cBetter not to feel sentimental about books. These are just kilos that you might have to think about what to do with, if you need to leave.\u201d There are no Russian-language books, even translations of foreign literature, in his new library.<\/p>\n

Oleksandr Mykhed, a Ukrainian writer and soldier, posing for a portrait at Kyiv\u2019s Knyzhkovy Lev bookshop. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

This June, Mariana Matveichuk, a freelance journalist, took 90kg of Russian books to a recycling centre near her home town in western Ukraine.<\/p>\n

She was raised in a Ukrainian-speaking area, and attended a Ukrainian-speaking university in Kyiv in the early 2000s. Nevertheless at that point most inhabitants of the city, and many of her fellow students, were Russian-speaking.<\/p>\n

Many authors she was studying \u2013 the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Ranci\u00e8re, for example \u2013 were also available in translation in Russian, but not Ukrainian.<\/p>\n

She said she had \u201ca book fetish\u201d and would frequent Kyiv\u2019s sprawling secondhand book market at Pochaina. When she graduated, she hauled her stash of books back to western Ukraine by train.<\/p>\n

These are the volumes that she has now recycled \u2013 sparing Anton Chekhov\u2019s letters and diaries. \u201cI have personal respect for him. Chekhov is funny, I like his sense of humour,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd they are also hidden at my mum\u2019s, so no one will see Russian books on my shelves.\u201d<\/p>\n

She considered trying to sell her books back to dealers at the Pochaina book market, but \u201cI thought no, I don\u2019t want to give them a second life.\u201d<\/p>\n

People browsing the books at Kyiv\u2019s Pochaina market. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Looking back at the number of academic texts she had read in Russian as a student \u2013 despite being a Ukrainian-speaker at a Ukrainian-language university \u2013 she had reflected, she said, on the \u201csubtle Russification\u201d of the culture that had surrounded her.<\/p>\n

Clearing out her Russian books (\u201cI got rid of Tolstoy, of Dostoevsky, of 12 tomes by [poet and playwright Vladimir] Mayakovsky\u201d) was also, she said, a way of \u201csaying goodbye to some of my perceptions when I was 20. I am saying goodbye to what I thought was important.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n

The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

There are, perhaps, as many shades of opinion on the question of what to do about one\u2019s Russian books as their are book lovers. There are those who have decided to keep them because they are part of a family story \u2013 perhaps reflecting parents\u2019 or grandparents\u2019 struggle to acquire them under the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

There are those who have come to hate the Russian language, associating it with the thought-world and media bubble of the invading country, but have still held on to a book \u2013 a treasured Russian translation of Haruki Murakami, say \u2013 because it represents a part of their own past.<\/p>\n

In Kharkiv, for decades a principally Russian-speaking city, the artist Pavlo Makov uses Ukrainian in day-to-day life.<\/p>\n

But he does not intend to get rid of his Russian books.<\/p>\n

A bookshelf at Pavlo Makov\u2019s art studio in Kharkiv. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Many foreign-language titles still lack good Ukrainian translations, he said \u2013 a reflection of the relative dominance of Russia and Russian, compared with Ukraine and Ukrainian, in the post-Soviet global publishing market.<\/p>\n

And he was doubtful about the wisdom of destroying or recycling Russian-language books, since it can create associations with the actions of authoritarian regimes. \u201cI think that for the image of Ukraine, it\u2019s not a good idea to do things like that. OK, you hate the Russian language. I understand it. But a book is a source of information.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, studying Russian books and literature was important, he said, \u201cbecause this country is our enemy, and this is enemy is very close. We should examine, we should research it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Pochaina, the enormous secondhand book market in Kyiv, business is not very brisk. It is certainly the place to go if you want to buy books in Russian \u2013 although maybe not if you want to sell them.<\/p>\n

In one corner, there is what one secondhand bookseller, Dmytro Drobin, called \u201can Egyptian pyramid\u201d of books that no one can sell \u2013 mainly Russian-language, Soviet editions of everything from Tolstoy and Chekhov to popular fiction and Stendhal translations.<\/p>\n

Another bookseller, who preferred not to give her name, sells secondhand and antiquarian books in Ukrainian and Russian. She said the choice of language was largely determined by generation. \u201cYoung people mostly want to read in Ukrainian,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When people offer her Russian books to buy, she rarely takes them: demand is down.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of discarded books, mostly Russian-language, at Pochaina flea market. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Occasionally, she said, customers ask for \u201cnew books published in Russia. There are very, very few of these people.\u201d From 2016, importing books from Russia has been restricted, requiring a permit, and since 2023 it has been outlawed.<\/p>\n

Dmytro Drobin, a bookseller surrounded in his shop by thousands of Russian-language books, said he believed his government is pursuing \u201cforced Ukrainianisation\u201d. He compared the climate to the situation under the Tsarist empire, when publishing books in Ukrainian was severely restricted.<\/p>\n

Russian-language books by Ukrainian authors may be published, but, since 2023, are ineligible for state grants. Since 2023, books by Russian citizens may not be published. Ukrainian is the sole official language of the country, but Russian remains widely spoken; minority languages include Crimean Tatar.<\/p>\n

Business was slow, said Drobin. He attributed that to the millions of Ukrainians who have left the country, to the numbers in the army, and the hard economic times caused by the war. \u201cThe very nature of reading has collapsed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a Ukrainian-language bookshop in a southern suburb of Kyiv, on the city\u2019s left bank, the mood was more upbeat. Alpaca, a world away from the new hipster bookshops<\/a> of central Kyiv, sells mostly children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n

Maryna Medvedeva, the manager of Alpaca family bookshop. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

It has been offering customers a deal: if they bring in unwanted Russian books, they can get discounts of 20-30% on new books to buy from the shop. Any extra funds gleaned by the shop from selling the Russian titles for recycling are donated to the Ukrainian armed forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to give people the opportunity to get rid of their stocks of old books that are just lying around. You can\u2019t give them away, you can\u2019t sell them, it\u2019s a shame that they are just lying there,\u201d said the store\u2019s manager, Maryna Medvedeva.<\/p>\n

She and her colleagues had brought their own Russian books to the scheme. \u201cI\u2019m not sorry. I was going to keep [some Russian books], but then I opened one, I thought I\u2019d read it \u2013 but no, I can\u2019t, it\u2019s just a feeling of repulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yulliia Kavun was shopping in the store with her young son, Myron. Her family was displaced from the city of Kostiantynivka in the eastern Donetsk region after the Russian-backed takeover of parts of the region in 2014. The bulk of their home library \u2013 in Russian, the family language \u2013 was definitively destroyed along with their house on 26 February this year.<\/p>\n

Yulliia and Myron Kavun bookshopping in Alpaca. Photograph: Julia Kochetova\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Now she was contemplating taking advantage of Alpaca\u2019s scheme to help buy the books needed for Myron\u2019s education.<\/p>\n

For Kavun, choices about books reflect a necessary accommodation to her unenviable circumstances as a refugee.<\/p>\n

She planned, she said, to go to Poland, where her graduate daughter is already living \u2013 but that will require yet another linguistic and literary shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are nobody here, and in Poland we are nobody either. So what\u2019s the difference? We might as well just go there. So we\u2019ll have to buy Polish books, once we are there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One day this summer, the Ukrainian artist Stanislav Turina took two of his books to his garden near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-391548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}