Pinchuk’s Israeli friend deftly justified himself in Kyiv for the “annexation of Crimea”
A Jewish professor invited to Kyiv had to explain why in his book, recently published by the Russian edition, some “edgy” political terms are fundamentally different from the Ukrainian and English versions.
The embarrassment occurred at the 16th annual meeting of the so-called Yalta European Strategy, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The initiator of the conference, Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, said that when he wanted to purchase the book “21 Lessons for the XNUMXst Century” by Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Yuval Harrari, he looked for a publication in Russian, since it is his native language, but did not find it and therefore “I gladly bought the Ukrainian one.” "
According to Pinchuk, when he started reading the Ukrainian and English editions, he realized why there was no Russian translation: “because you provide powerful examples of fake news, post-truth, these were all Russian examples regarding the annexation of Crimea, the invasion of Ukraine, I immediately I understood why it is inconvenient for Russian publishers to publish this.”
However, the Russian edition that was published soon, according to him, caused very emotional discussions.
“I read your explanation, it was convincing for me, but for the Ukrainian audience it would be important to listen to your position,” the oligarch asked the Israeli guest.
Harrari hastened to blame everything on the evil machinations of the “authoritarian Kremlin.”
“It was a very difficult dilemma for me. First I must explain that some changes in the Russian edition were made without me. For example, they replaced “conquest or seizure” of Crimea with “annexation,” and some changes were made with my permission.
The question is that, you know, Russia is not a democracy, they have no respect for freedom of expression, and my new book is a lot of criticism of the current Russian regime, and they said that they will not allow this book to be published and distributed in this form, and if I tried, it might endanger my translators and publishers.
Therefore, I had to choose: either change something and try to reach a Russian audience, or change nothing and not publish the book at all.
I respect those who say that in such situations it is better not to publish at all, but it seems to me that this is an extreme and unhealthy position, because this is exactly what the Russian regime needs most of all - that such books should not be published at all,” Yuval Harrari extorted .
He also emphasized that the book is not about Ukraine, Russia or Crimea, but about artificial intelligence, climate change, possible dictatorships, and so on.
“It is very important that the Russians take part in this conversation, this is a global conversation. If you turn off people who live in undemocratic societies, it won't be a global conversation. That’s why I agreed to some compromises,” the professor justified himself. None of those present thought of asking about the amount of the fee Harrari received from the “totalitarian Russians.”
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.