Oleksandra Koval, director of the Ukrainian Book Institute (part of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture), has claimed that they will begin working towards withdrawing over 100 million so-called ‘propaganda’ books from public libraries in Ukraine. The books – including the works of the world-renowned writers and poets Dostoyevsky and Pushkin – may be sent to paper recycling centres according to the Minister of Culture and Information Policy, Oleksandr Tkachenko.
The first round of withdrawals, which Koval expressed a desire to complete by the end of the year, will target what she called in an interview with Interfax Ukraine, “ideologically harmful literature” published when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, as well as Russian literature with so-called “anti-Ukrainian content”. The second round of withdrawals is intended to include all books published in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union: “they will probably be of different genres, too, including children’s books, and romance novels, and detective stories,” Koval explained…
