Koval: Ukraine needs to immediately allocate UAH 1-1.5 bln to revive book industry
Head of the Ukrainian Book Institute (UBI) Oleksandra Koval said Russia is deliberately destroying Ukraine's book infrastructure and calls on the government to immediately allocate UAH 1-1.5 billion to restore the industry.
"Since the start of the war, Russia has been deliberately destroying our book industry, targeting publishing houses, printing plants, warehouses, and libraries," Koval said on Facebook.
According to her estimates, the exact number of lost books is not yet known, but it likely ranges from 8 to 12 million copies. Reprinting them, provided the rights and layouts are preserved, will cost UAH 1-1.5 billion. The total losses and the costs of restoring the destroyed book infrastructure, she said, amount to billions of hryvnias.
"Russia is targeting the book infrastructure for a reason. They understand very well that books are the foundation and strength of every nation, the repository of collective memory, and the source of the creation and maintenance of national self-identity, resilience, fortitude, the capacity for consolidation, resistance, survival, and revival," she said.
Koval believes that funds must be quickly channelled into the book ecosystem, primarily through the purchase of books to replenish public library collections. According to her, after the removal of approximately 40 million obsolete Russian-language books, the total collection of public libraries has shrunk to 110 million copies, with 40-50% of the collection still of Russian origin.
"First, we need to stabilize the financial flow, and then reform and improve," the UBI head said.
Among other measures, Koval proposes expanding the eBook program to include parents of newborns, who, according to her data, number about 160,000, and later to other age groups of children and adults up to age 25. She also calls for lifting the ban on subsidies for bookstores until the end of martial law and increasing the national cashback on books from the current 15% to 30-50%.
According to her, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is exploring ways to resume the program to replenish public library collections, aims to begin disbursing subsidies to bookstores through the Ukrainian Book Agency (UBA), and intends to extend the Tysiachovesna state initiative to the book sector in 2027.
The Ministry of Education, according to Koval, is working on renovating and restocking school library collections; however, the launch of the corresponding program, originally planned for this year, has been postponed to next year and should be accelerated.
"We need to find this 1-1.5 billion immediately so that most of the publishers and booksellers we know and love can survive until 'Tysiachovesna,'" Koval said.