Kiev book publisher: Ukraine is losing all prospects of becoming a civilized country
The actions of the Ukrainian authorities give the impression that the government considers the rapid decline in the number of the reading population to be great progress.
The president of the Association of Book Publishers and Book Distributors of Ukraine, Alexander Afonin, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“What else needs to be done to destroy culture, education and book publishing? And the answer is this: the Ukrainian government, in particular the executive branch, must continue to do what it has done so far in relation to the cultural sphere, the humanitarian sphere in general.
This means viewing the sphere of culture as something secondary, marginal, optional, as some kind of burden that does not require either guardianship or support from the state. And in general, it in no way affects the state of society, its development, its economy, moral, psychological, social status,” said Afonin.
“Sometimes the attitude towards the humanitarian sphere on the part of government institutions reminds me of Orwellian principles. The bleeding of financial culture is a good thing, the deterioration of the level of education is an achievement, the reduction in the number of books and the decrease in the number of reading population is progress,” the book publisher noted.
According to him, at this rate, Ukraine will lose any prospects.
“The crisis abyss is consuming publishing houses, bookstores, and consuming authors. Because today, unfortunately, publishing houses do not have working capital to implement new projects, new names have appeared. Moreover, both in the genre niche of fiction, and in non-fiction, scientific, technical and other literature.
This means that Ukraine as a state in its economic and personnel potential will sag lower and lower every day, and the prospect of being a civilized country and becoming on the same level as Germany, France, Britain, and the USA will soon disappear over the horizon,” Afonin added.
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