4:59 p.m.
Från The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/war-in-ukraine-on-the-front-line-of-a-co…
In a vast, chilly warehouse on the outskirts of Kyiv, men in padded jackets
and thick gloves stand on the edge of a lorry, cutting open bundles of
Russian books and throwing them on to a conveyor belt. A thick copy of
Tolstoy’s *War and Peace *chugs its way up towards the pulping machine,
followed by a leather-bound Russian-English dictionary.
Russian classics from Pushkin to Turgenev come after, along with
Russian-language translations of western fiction from Sidney Sheldon to
Cecilia Ahern. On top of a vast square of pulped literatures lies, still
visible, a copy of Dostoevsky’s *The Insulted and Humiliated*.
Much of the de-Russification has come from the bottom up, including the
book-pulping project started by the Syayvo bookstore in response to
customers asking, when it reopened three months after the invasion, whether
it was still selling Russian-language books.
Now it collects them from customers, schools and libraries and sends them
to the recycling plant in return for payment that is channelled to civilian
and military charities for the war effort. Some 72 tonnes of
Russian-language books have raised more than 250,000 hryvnia (£5,630) on
their journey to be remade into egg cartons and toilet paper. The money has
also funded Ukrainian lessons for Russian-speaking refugees relocating from
the east. The first class drew 250 students.
--
Jan Szczepański
F.d Förste bibliotekarie och chef för f.d Avdelningen för humaniora,
vid f.d. Centralbiblioteket, Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek
E-post: Jan.Szczepanski63(a)gmail.com