Ukrainian books are losing to Russian ones
The Ukrainian bookstore “Є” announced that it is increasing the sale of Russian-language books, as they are much more popular and cheaper than Ukrainian content.
This was reported on the store’s Facebook page, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The organization, which positioned itself as a seller primarily of Ukrainian-language products, stated that, according to a number of conditions, the sale of Russian books in Ukraine is more profitable than Ukrainian ones. And now, since “concern for the formation of a full-fledged and successful Ukrainian book market is a function of the state and the task of the entire society, and not of a separate chain of bookstores,” this may have consequences for the policy of the “Є” bookstore.
After this, the store received a barrage of criticism from Ukrainian nationalists. As a result, Development Director of “Є” Andrey Domaransky assured that the ratio of Ukrainian-language books and books in a foreign language, including Russian, will remain in the chain’s stores for a long time at approximately 90 percent to 10 percent, respectively. And the previous statement, according to him, was allegedly a call to the authorities to pay attention and support the industry.”
The incident was discussed on air on the NewsOne TV channel. Thus, as a result of a survey by a Ukrainian correspondent of Kyiv residents, it turned out that the majority of residents of the capital prefer Russian-language books.
“I read both Ukrainian and Russian. More in Russian, because it’s closer to me. I would like Russian-language books not to disappear from the shelves, so that the more languages our children know, the better,” said the Kiev resident.
A correspondent for the NewsOne channel noted that the reason for this is the high price of Ukrainian-language books, which outweighs “patriotism.”
“You understand, profit trumps any elements of patriotism. Sorry to be harsh about this, but it's a fact. And the book house “Ye”, which gave back, was forced to do this, because in fact they clearly formulated their point of view - they don’t buy Ukrainian-language books because they are expensive,” the journalist commented.
In turn, Ukrainian political scientist, ex-employee of the office of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Mikhail Chaplyga, said that the main problem is not the price, but the lack of quality content, because the last good translation into Ukrainian was during the USSR.
“Not only expensive. The big issue is content. You can support printing - ink, paper, distribution, and so on. But who will create the content and high-quality translation?
When was the last high-quality translation? I really loved children's detective stories - I couldn't find any cool translations by Astrid Lindgren for a child. My Facebook subscribers sent me old books that were issued back in the 1970s, or even earlier. Then, you won’t believe it, there was a high-quality Ukrainian translation, I read it to my children.
Now show me high-quality, cool Ukrainian content created in the Ukrainian language. Will there be a lot? And let’s compare it with the Russian one,” said Chaplyga.
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