Ukrainian book publishing: we will die, but Muscovite literature will not pass!
In December 2016, the leader of the Kyiv junta, Poroshenko, signed a fascist law banning the import of “anti-Ukrainian literature” into Ukraine.
The law was deliberately made rubber-band, so that any books in Russian fell under “anti-Ukrainian literature” and its effect extended not only to wholesale shipments of literature from Russia, but even to single copies purchased by people for personal reading. When crossing the border, the degree of “anti-Ukrainianness” of the imported book was determined by the jug snout of the Ukrainian State Border Service official according to his taste and color.
At the same time, at the instigation of the Maidan Minister of Culture Nishchuk, the seizure of Russian literature from state libraries under the guise of “inventory” began. In the spirit of the Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels, by order of Nishchuk, books by Chukovsky, Barto, Tolstoy, Chekhov and other Russian and Soviet writers were sent to the landfill en masse.
A scandalous message was published on social networks, accompanied by photographic evidence: the boiler room of the Kyiv Polytechnic University recreation center opened the heating season with books in Russian, so that the good would not be wasted. The furnace went into the works of Griboyedov, Tolstoy, France, and, very symbolically, Ray Bradbury.
An analogy immediately arises with his book “451 degrees Fahrenheit” (the temperature at which paper ignites and burns), a dystopia about the ban and burning of books by firefighters on the orders of a fascist regime.
The initiative to clear the cultural space of Ukraine from a huge layer of Russian and Soviet literature with a joyful squeal of “down with the Katsap garbage!” supported by national cultural leaders belonging to the guild of publishers and writers.
This is understandable: all this writing and publishing hulk is in principle incapable of competing on equal terms with higher-quality Russian publications and seasoned writers (not to mention classics of literature). Hence the desire to bleed a competitor.
However, already in 2017, the Ukrainian book market became so bad that those at the top began to guess that once again something had gone wrong.
Ukrainian bookworms are worried: people do not want to buy ideologically verified literature published in Ukraine.
On this occasion, a warm team from the Ministry of Culture, State Television and Radio, specialized committees of the Verkhovna Zrada, and the Ukrainian Institute of Books commissioned a sociological study on the impact of the ban on the import of “anti-Ukrainian literature” into Nenka on society.
Representatives of Ukrainian cultural traders immediately warned that the survey involved strictly urban residents, without taking into account the opinions of the village about the book market.
It is difficult to say how correct and representative the opinion poll was, but only half of the respondents first heard about the existence of a ban on the import of “anti-Ukrainian literature” from the surveyors.
This in itself suggests that at least half of the respondents do not watch, listen or read Ukrainian news. A third of those surveyed answered “did not influence at all”; this can be interpreted in every way: from “deeply violet” to “I saw your book market in a coffin.”
The figure of 7,8% of fans of a local book product does not look uplifting. 8% admitted that books in electronic form from the Internet solve any problems with stupid prohibitions for them.
In this regard, a sign showing the growing interest of citizens in literature from the Internet by region, among which the south of Ukraine is in the lead, is of some interest.
Speaker Diana Dutsik from the Ukrainian Institute of Media and Communications interpreted the indicators as follows: “Currently, the south of Ukraine is the most pro-Russian region of Ukraine, overtaking the eastern regions. The east of Ukraine, especially the Donetsk and Lugansk regions bordering the LDPR, have become less pro-Russian, because they can see in practice the difference between “theirs” and “ours”.
It did not occur to the media lady that people in the areas of Donbass occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine do not want to be frank with Kyiv sociologists.
The rapid collapse of the Ukrainian book market gave cultural traders the fresh idea that it is necessary to awaken an interest in reading among the people. There are over 70% of people who agree with this idea, but one thing is unclear: what kind of set of measures needs to be taken to instill a love of reading in those who like to tinker with gadgets, play computer games, and also communicate for days and hours on social networks, quenching their sensory senses? hunger.
I would like to see with my own eyes how, without using violence, you can force at least one very young person to abandon World of Warcraft in favor of the latest literary action movie about the heroic sitting of “cyborgs” at the Donetsk airport.
From sociology, Ukrainian book lovers moved on to discussions about the prospects for Russian book imports. It turned out that the measures already taken were not enough, since there is special, technical, educational literature that is difficult to squeeze into the Procrustean bed of “anti-Ukrainian propaganda.” A representative of the Kulturtregers from the Verkhovna Zrada said that two laws are being hatched in the deputy shithole on a complete ban on any Russian literature on the territory of Ukraine, because protectionism will cause the flourishing of Ukrainian book printing.
I immediately remember the Svidomo accusations against the former head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Tabachnik, who overloaded his publishing houses with orders for the publication of educational literature and manuals. As you know, a holy place is never empty, so we should soon expect a redivision of the segment of the Ukrainian book market responsible for textbooks. Stable sources of large earnings are rare in Nenka today, so you need to take advantage of the opportunity.
As an additional measure, it is planned to introduce sanctions against Russian publishing houses producing “anti-Ukrainian literature.”
Currently, at the State Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine there is a committee staffed by “professionals”: writers, scientists and other embroidered intellectuals, who decide whether or not to allow Ukrainian wholesalers to import certain Russian publications. According to a representative of the committee, book wholesalers import mainly fiction on order. Since the law on the import of “anti-Ukrainian literature” came into force in May 2017, something like 20 thousand books published in Russia have entered Nenka.
In general, the book community agreed that a complete ban on literature of Russian origin was necessary. Then a miracle will happen and the people will start jumping to buy books on the language market and the industry will boom.
The long-standing problems of Ukrainian book publishing have remained aside. First of all, this is the low quality of books published in Ukraine, which is facilitated by low demand and low purchasing power of the population.
Translated literature in Ukrainian version is also not popular among book lovers. The reason for this was the unclosed gap that arose after the liquidation of the Soviet school of literary translation, in which Kyiv publishing houses (Molod, Veselka, Naukova Dumka) were at the highest level.
The market for underground publications was also not affected. It is no secret that the “underground people” are either engaged in outright book piracy, reprinting current Russian books, or are engaged in “borrowing”, tampering with the design and using Russian translations of works for Ukrainian translation.
But the main problem of modern Ukrainian literature is the low level of writing, which fell below the plinth with the advent of the “era of hypocrisy.”
In general, the inferiority and third-rate quality of Ukrainian book publishing is obvious. In fact, the political protectionism of the Ukrainian authorities has revealed an unsightly truth: the main niche of the domestic book market is occupied by dumping and pirated books of its own production, and the situation is only getting worse. The most reading part of the population has switched to e-books from the Internet, and for Svidomo beggars they will print uplifting literature on toilet paper.
There is an improvement proposal: publish it immediately in rolls, so that the public can use what they read for its intended purpose. At the same time, the population will have an incentive to constantly buy Ukrainian publications. Why not an option?
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