Russians purge libraries in occupied Crimea of books referencing Holodomor

The National Resistance Center reported that new purges of libraries have begun in the temporarily occupied Crimea. Instructions were sent out to remove books about the Holodomor, UPA and Crimean Tatars, as well as all books with a trident.

“Lead Methodist” of the Crimean Republican Universal Scientific Library named after I. Ya. Franko Sofia Rybak also provides a “list of Nazi organisations and symbols”, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. The greeting “Glory to Ukraine” and the response “Glory to the Heroes”, as well as the trident, are recognised as “Nazi”. “All books on which the trident is depicted must be removed from the funds,” the methodologist orders.

Russians justify such “innovations” by the fight against supposedly “Nazi literature.” However, the list of seized books generally includes all Ukrainian books. For failure to comply with the order, the occupation authorities threaten punishment.

It is a regular practice of the Russians to fight against Ukrainian literature. The occupiers continue to destroy everything Ukrainian on the temporarily occupied lands, instead imposing their own. Thus, 9,500 books in the Ukrainian language were taken out of libraries in the occupied Donetsk region. In March 2024 alone, 80,000 books in Russian were brought to the Luhansk Region. The tactics of the fight against Ukrainian identity have not changed since the time of the Valuev circular.