Ukrainian Writers and Publishers - 

Praying for Benign Neglect

At the beginning of this year, all domestic publishers stopped publishing books written by Ukrainian authors. Neither new authors nor established ones saw a book come out in print. Moreover, in January, Ukrainian books disappeared from bookshops altogether. Early in February, writers and publishers burned manuscripts and books near the building of the Cabinet of Ministers to protest against a government tax policy which they say discourages the printing and selling of Ukrainian books. In giving them permission to conduct the public meeting, an officer of the Pechersk district branch of the Security Service of Ukraine even expressed solidarity with the writers and publishers, saying, "We wholeheartedly support your action! We cannot stand these taxmen either."
While it is hard to believe that the Ukrainian secret service can be suffering greatly from the Ukrainian tax administration, the SBU officer's light answer contains a bit of symbolic irony. Some 15-20 years ago, the bitterest enemy of Ukrainian authors was the KGB - the notorious predecessor of today's Security Service of Ukraine. In USSR times, ideological pressure on Ukrainian writers was even greater than on Russian authors, and, partially as a result, Russian Soviet literature boasted a consider
ably greater number of respected literally works than the Ukrainian Soviet literature. This, in turn, spurred Ukrainian readers to shift their orientation from Ukrainian literature to Russian literature. Only a small percentage of Ukrainian booklovers noticed Hryhor Tyutyunnyk, Lina Kostenko, and other poets of the '80s. Towards the end of the '80s, when the influence of Soviet ideology diminished and then completely disappeared, several books were published that would have been impossible to print only a couple of years earlier. For example,a large print run of poems by Vasyl Stus was instantly sold out. I remember long queues to the Poetry bookshop and the exclamations of shop assistants, "Not more than two books per person!"
We hoped that Ukraine's declaration of independence would foster the development of publishing and the Ukrainian book. And we believed that the spiritual values in books would become a priority during the tough economic times of the transitional period. But this was not the case. The disappearance of ideological interference in book writing and publishing was quickly compensated for by material difficulties. One of the characteristic features of the first years of independence was empty shelves of bookstores and the fatal conversion of bookstores into various other shops. The bookstores that had once existed in every provincial town vanished. They have yet to all be replaced. Their number critically decreased in large cities too. State-owned publishing houses reduced production volumes by an order of magnitude or went out of business. Accordingly, private publishers began to offer their services, publishing books at the expense of writers or donors, but not everybody could afford it. Even this non-ideal form of printing was no guarantee of success. Authors struggled to sell small print runs, often presented their books to friends. New books were not covered by the press, let alone promoted in other ways.
Meanwhile, book publishing in Russia entered a period of extensive development in the mid-'90s and Ukraine became a major market for Russian books. Domestic Ukrainian bookstores continued to deterioy rate, while at the same time, street trading in Russian books of various kinds and quality was on the rise and these books were readil bought by poor Ukrainians despite the high prices. In the meantime, Ukrainian authors wrote their manuscripts and hoped for a change in the status of the Ukrainian book.
The new millennium heralded a change in the situation in Ukrainian literature for the better. In addition to publishing translated books sponsored by foreign grants, publishers gradually began to release contemporary Ukrainian authors. This coincided with the appearance of new, modern bookstores, at least in larger cities, which, though dominated by Russian literature, had a Ukrainian book department. The problems facing the Ukrainian book began to be discussed in the domestic press. 
Furthermore, newspapers carried critical reviews and interviews with Ukrainian authors. The presence of Ukrainian writers in the domestic media almost became more substantial than the presence of Ukrainian books in bookstores! Such heavy promotion sparked the interest of ordinary citizens who usually speak Russian but are quite at home with reading in Ukrainian. They increased their demand for Ukrainian literature and enabled publishers to earn something on Ukrainian books. It was too early, though, to speak about the commercial success of the Ukrainian book.
It would be pertinent in this context to ask: does freedom of speech exist in respect of Ukrainian belles-lettres? By comparison, Ukrainian journalists generally cannot allow themselves an impartial and independent view on current affairs. However, by-and-large, writers did not feel the same amount of pressure. This may be because the influence of books on people is believed to be much lower, and so the authorities see less need to spend time and effort censoring Ukrainian books. An author selling a dozen copies a month will not influence public opinion in any substantial way.
Alas, even this amount of freedom was too much for government officials. Not for them the policies of countries like Estonia, in which authorities have been able to lower book prices by contributing to author's fees out of profits gained from taxes on tobacco or vodka. Instead, At the beginning of 2004, Ukrainian authorities suspended all tax breaks on books. This suspension has subsequently proven to be even worse than a total cancellation. In the case of the latter, book prices would go up and sales would drop, whereas in the former, bookstores refused to take Ukrainian books at all. Bookstores returned what they had not sold to the publishers and the Ukrainian publishers earned nothing in January. It was in protest against this state of affairs that publishers and writers came to the Cabinet of Ministers to burn their products.
Some, admittedly ephemeral, positive changes have begun to take shape this spring. Lviv-based Kalvaria publisher, which specializes in modern Ukrainian belles-letters, managed to publish the literary magazine "Chetver" and one booklet in the supplementary series, "Biblioteka Chetverha". However, Kalvaria has 80 more books ready for publishing.

Yevhenia Kononenko,
writer, author of four books, numerous publications in periodicals,
and an unpublished book of stories entitled "Prostitutes Get Married Too"