Very scary to absolutely everyone

The new laws on “foreign agents” and “gay propaganda” plunged the book market into a shock state. Galina Yuzefovich says what his players think

The recently adopted law prohibiting the “gay propaganda” completely changed the cultural life of Russia: films, TV shows and other works, at least somehow related to Quir Tematics, were banned. A serious crisis is experiencing a book publishing house: shops are withdrawn from sale world bestsellers, publishers hide books in film. At the same time, the problems of “foreign agents” began: it seems that the authorities are trying to make their works disappear from free circulation. Galina Yuzefovich spoke a literary critic of Medusa with representatives of the industry, who do not yet understand how to work in a new reality.

Confusion at the fair

The first extremely alarming signals for the book industry sounded on the Non/Fiction Fair that ended last Monday, December 5. In 2022, it was marked by the unprecedented number of scandals associated with the clumsy attempts of the organizers to remove or hide the books of “foreign -agents”, as well as publications containing, according to the authorities, “propaganda of non -traditional sexual relations”.

Attempts to censor the composition of Non/Fiction participants and the list of books presented were undertaken by the organizers of the fair earlier - so, two years ago, the presentation of the novel of the writer and political activist Kira Yar “Incredible incidents in the female chamber No. 3” was canceled without explanation. However, in 2022, the pressure on publishers and booksellers reached a qualitatively new level.

“At the [current fair] Non/Fiction came to our stand by Vasily Bychkov, the director of the Expo Park , the organizer of the fair, and asked to remove the book of Leo Rubinstein from a prominent place. Our employees left this “request” unattended. Following Bychkov demanded to remove Kira Yarmysh from the counter of the book, - says Corpus, the editor -in -chief of Corpus, Varvara Gornostaeva. “On the grounds that there were less than a hundred meters from our stand to the children's zone.”

Even more wild stories took place with other participants. Thus, the Ripipus publishing house forced to remove Anna Starobin’s novel“Fox Brody” from the stand-despite the writer, although he was publicly expressed against the war, was not declared a “foreigner”, and in her book there is not a word about “non-traditional relationships” (unless, of course, to consider such a love affair with a 2-turn fox). As a result, the publishers simply transferred the book by Starobinets to the stand of a friendly book trade organization, which safely traded “fox boards” until the end of the fair.

Several books, including the classic “war” of the Portuguese Jose Georges Potaria andAndrei Sakharov: the person who was not afraid ” of Ksenia Novokhko, the organizers demanded to remove the self -propelled sheet from the stand.

“On the first day of the fair work at the Individuum, two men came to the organizers of the fair, and asked to remove the book of [journalist] Olga Allenova“ Expost ”[about events in Beslan]. The reason was called the impending check by a certain organization that may not be satisfied with the presence of a book, ”the representative of Individuum tells Medusa. “Neither they nor the organizing committee provided any confirming documents, so the book was sold at our stand all the days of the fair.”

The book of Rustam Alexander, “Closed”, dedicated to the life of homosexuals in the USSR, also released in Individuum, for some reason did not raise questions.

Initially, Individuum was supposed to divide the stand with the friendly PopCorn Books publishing house (read more about it below) - however, right before the fair, when the stand has already been collected, the organizers “asked” Popkorne not exhibited. As a result, at the finished stand it was necessary to seer the name of all books of the publisher with black island, and even those in which there is no hint of LGBT PROBLATIC.

“At the Non/Fiction Book Fair, they tried to force us to remove the books of all authors,“ foreign agents, ”says Meduza, the publisher, head of Research Elena Shubina. “However, most of these books are already sold in a film and with a marking of 18+, so we consulted with a lawyer and still left them at the stand.”

However, if the attempts of censorship at the fair looked unsystematic and it was relatively easy to fight off from them, then from December 1, after the entry into force of the Law on “foreign agents” and the so-called law on gay propaganda , the situation has changed radically. Non/Fiction turned out to be a prelude to a real storm.

"Ino -Agents" and booksakers

More precisely, the current situation in the Russian book market can be described by the words “confusion” and “confusion”. Due to the blurring of the formulations, laws can be interpreted in an arbitrary way, and the boundaries of the permitted and prohibited remain vague (and hardly by chance). The industry froze in anticipation of indicative processes - which will demonstrate how in reality the authorities plans to apply new repressive laws.

The most likely “ritual victim” is already called the PopCorn Books Publishing House, which has successfully published Quirry Litigature for the young reader over the past years-in particular, “Summer in the Pioneer Tip” by Elena Malisova and Katerina Silvanova, who predictably collapsed with Russian propagandists. After that, the writers began to act threats, and theywere forced to leave Russia.

However, one “popcorn” is hardly limited to: in addition to the predictable “guilty” for a more effective intimidation of publishers and booksakers, the authorities will need someone less obvious, and this role is trying to avoid this role. That is why their actions on minimizing risks so far make the impression of panic and inconsistent.

In the main risk group were booksellers and distributors who have to literally decide how to treat potentially dangerous books on the move and without reliable guidelines.

Despite the fact that the Law on Ino -Agents does not require selling their books in opaque packaging (simple film and age marking 18+ is enough), many stores are reinsured. So, a video appeared on the Web with packed in craft paper and hand -signed by the books of the writer Mikhail Zygar in one of the bookstores of Moscow. At the same time, in the Alpine publishing holding, which produces a scourge, they reject the assumption that the idea to pack the book in this way came from them.

“In the online stores of the book“ Ino-Agents ”-in our case, these are the novels of Kira Yarmysh and the book of Sergey Parkhomenko “ All first ”-are sold, but with empty covers, without a picture,” comments Varvara Grozostaev from Corpus. “In some, the covers is an opaque dick“ adult content ”that you press on - and you need to confirm that you are already 18 years old, after which the book gains both the cover and everything else.”

In general, despite some restrictions, bookstores are not in a hurry to massively abandon the books of “foreign agents”, among which there are a lot of popular authors.

“The publishing house was informed that stores have not yet seized my books from the sale, with the exception of local initiatives,” says Dmitry Glukhovsky, Medusa. - My position in this matter is as follows: until they have been banned and started to burn, let them sell and read. However, I am ready for the ban: in any case, I post all the books for free in my telegram channel so that people do not lose the opportunity to read them, even if they are removed from the sale. ”

However, the Russian future of books written by “foreign agents” causes concerns. “What will happen in the future with circulations - time will tell,” Elena Shubina thinks. - The film and age restriction sometimes scare away readers. Or not…"

Glukhovsky is more pessimistic: "I am convinced that the complete ban of the books of" foreign agents "is a matter of time."

How stores and publishers react

If things are not too good with the books of “foreign agents”, then in the field of literature, potentially falling under the law on the prohibition of “gay propaganda”, it is still much worse.

Some offline stores have already begun to return the books “controversial” topics to publishers: different publishers are reported about the wave of return, both large and small. What to do with these books is unknown: keeping them in warehouses for an indefinite time is too expensive, therefore, probably, the circulation will have to be written off as a marriage.

Online stores are still selling Quir-book, although the pressure on them is intensified-on December 7, the State Duma deputy Alexander Hinshtein demanded that Ozon and Wildberries remove all books containing, in his opinion, “promoting non-traditional sexual relations”. And although the requirement has not yet been satisfied (or, in any case, not in full satisfaction-many books with Quir Tematics in both stores are still available), it is not clear how long the marketplaces will be able to resist the pressing of the authorities.

The only significant exception in this area is the Labyrinth store, which hastened to remove books with LGBT Tematics in November, without even waiting for the law to enter into force. “I specially checked the other day -“ Labyrinth ”removed all our books in which there is the plot of LGBT+, for example,“ Little Life ”by Hanya Yanagikhara. And Michael Cunningham’s novels-for some reason everything except “Selected Days”, ”comments in a conversation with Medusa the editor-in-chief of Corpus, Varvara Gornostaev.

However, not all are a panic. “My colleagues from independent bookmarks conducted a zoom-meeting,” tells Medusa Inna Mironova, a practitioner and co-founder of the Baby bookstore in Irkutsk. - From the analysis of the normative, it is clear that all this can be sold, given the current norms. That is, everything is in packages, all with a marking 18+ and ****** [dick] “foreign agents”. Together with the Constitutional Court , I believe that fiction and other works of art cannot be propaganda, but may be a “demonstration”, so they cannot be sold to a minor. Therefore, online stores will have additional dies with age confirmation. And in offline, in doubt, we will ask a passport. ”

In the same way among the booksellers, publishers appreciate the prospects differently. Popcorn Books publishing house announced the suspension of Quirry literature, and for the already published books on the eve of Putin, the law on the ban “Gay Propaganda” conducted a grand sale on Wildberries. They refused to talk about further plans in the publishing house: the strategy has not yet been developed. Representatives and other publishing houses (mainly small and independent), in which books are published, have been published in one way or another affecting Quir Temi, told Medusa about complete disorientation and misunderstanding what to do and how to survive.

Publishers included in the orbit of the exmo----AST holding are rather determined to resist the new law. “Now every book in which this [Quir] is present, we show our lawyer: if he misses, then everything is fine,” the publisher Elena Shubina shares. “So far there were no problems, but we have a relatively few of these books.”

Varvara Gornostaeva from Corpus is also preparing to keep the defense: “At the moment, we are trading with all the books that have already been published (yes, and Khanya Yanagihara too), and continue to work on new ones, including the new novel by Yanagihara to Paradise, which will be released in February. So far, our position is not to remove anything from the sale that, in our opinion, is not propaganda. ”

Among its employees, the leadership of Eksmo-AST has spread a memo on the publication of books with LGBTs. It, in particular, involves the preparation of expert conclusions in each individual case, justifying the legitimacy of the publication of “controversial” books. In addition, it is planned to apply an information letter to each book, including a link to the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of 2014. Among other things, it contains the following passage:

None of the bills establishes a complete ban on the publication and sale of books containing information about non -traditional sexual relations. <...> Thus, the sale of a book containing information about non -traditional sexual relations without signs of propaganda, marked by the 18+ sign in closed packaging, is not a violation of the current legislation.

How effective a similar practice will be, we will find out in the near future - but in itself the mood of the flagship of Russian book publishing inspires cautious optimism.

The request to rewrite

In different ways react to what is happening and network platforms of self-publication. The Litres unit, engaged in electronic samizdat, asked the authors to independently remove the texts from the site that fall under the law on gay propaganda-or rewrite them in such a way that they can be returned by fear of sale. According to the service management, this process will affect about 1% of the authors.

The Ridero publishing house, which also specializes in the network of samizdat, began to apply a neural network published by them, which will find in the books “Gay Propaganda”: ​​Previously, Ridero moderation algorithms were signs of extremism, propaganda of prohibited substances and other illegal things, according to the Russian authorities, now they were re -iented now. for new tasks.

A different method of minimizing the risks was chosen by the largest literary Internet resource “Fikbook”, which publishes fan fictions, which are in demand primarily among young readers (for example, it was there that “Summer in the Pioneer Tip” was originally published). In their telegram channel on December 6, the project managers published new rules of work: in fact, a popular site bifurcated- a copy was added to the usual “ficbook”. All the texts containing “Slash” and “Femslash” moved there - the fan fictions that describe the same -sex romantic relationship (for example, love between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson or between Captain Kirk and Spock from the Universe “Startrek”).

“Fikbook and Slashbook are like different glasses through which you look at the same site. All profiles, subscribers, reviews are the same, but there will be no slash on the “ficbook”, and there will only be a slash on the “slashbook”, ”the project creators say. At the same time, the Fikbook team guaranteed users complete safety, confirming that it is abroad, does not store and does not issue user data.

The book market has no clear agreed strategy how to respond to threats: some are ready to surrender without a fight, others plan to occupy a circular defense and hold on, as much as enough strength, others are looking for intermediate paths. The sense of total uncertainty and anxiety is common to all market participants: how the law will work, which will give the first demonstration blows and how cruel they will be, it is impossible to predict. Therefore, so far it is very scary to absolutely everyone.

Galina Yuzefovich