Libraries remove from access books published by “foreign agents”

Among them are works by Pushkin, Turgenev and Bunin, school textbooks and children's fairy tales

Russian libraries are removing from public access books in which “foreign agents” were editors, compilers, translators or authors of introductory articles, sources from the library sector in three regions told Vorstka.

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Before this, all books authored by “foreign agents” were removed into a closed storage facility.

Thus, a library employee in the Krasnodar Territory told Vorstka that initially the institution removed all books in which the authors were “foreign agents” into a closed storage room, but recently the list was supplemented with works published with their participation.

“The acquisition department looks through the database and finds all the publications associated with the names of foreign agents that are in the fund. Our library doesn’t even have a computer, so it all comes down to us from above. Everyone understands: this is insanity, but, unfortunately, this is included in the librarian’s work instructions,” she says.

Some of these works relate to classical, children's and educational literature. The list included the collection “ Minor. Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Podschipa ”, in which the compiler was Alexander Arkhangelsky, a collection of Turgenev’s works with an introduction by Dmitry Bykov, the book “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes” with an introduction by Lyudmila Ulitskaya.

Another library employee from the Rostov region also confirmed that her institution had cases of classical works associated with “foreign agents” being confiscated into a closed collection. According to her, the list of such works is published on the National Book Platform in the “Destructive Lists” section.

There are almost five thousand works in the “Destructive Lists”

As Vorstka discovered, the register contains almost five thousand titles of works written by “foreign agents” or published with their participation. The list was added to the collections of Alexander Pushkin, Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, in which Alexander Arkhangelsky was the author of the introductory word or compiler, as well as textbooks on literature for schoolchildren compiled by him.

In addition, the list includes adaptations of “Mowgli” and “Gulliver’s Adventures in the Land of Lilliput and in the Land of Giants,” compiled by Ilya Khrzhanovsky, and the Strugatskys’ novel “Roadside Picnic” with an introductory article by Boris Vishnevsky.

At the same time, an ex-employee of a library in Karelia also told Vorstka that books published with the participation of “foreign agents” - even if they are not the authors - are stored in separate rooms and are issued only to readers over 18 years of age upon request.

In the future, books removed from the collections may be destroyed

“If this foreign agent is also an extremist (Akunin, for example), the books are stored separately and are not issued at all, cards for books are withdrawn from catalogs. If there is no place to store them separately, the books can be written off, but not as waste paper, but for destruction,” added the interlocutor of “Vestka”.

In recent years, books by “foreign agent authors” have been stored separately in libraries, labeled and issued only to readers over 18 years of age. There was no information about the same restrictions for works in the publishing of which “foreign agents” participated in one way or another.

Previously, “Layout” reported that more than two thousand books were included in the list for labeling due to the mention of drugs . Most of all there are works by Pelevin. We also wrote that in Russia they began to label the works of Pushkin, Gogol and other classics because of the law banning drug propaganda .

Illustration: REUTERS/Anton Vaganov

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