Ukrainian and Belarusian language books targeted by pro-russian forces
was a tactic used in Nazi Germany to rid the country of texts regarded as subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to the regime.
Now it has been claimed books published in Ukrainian and Belarusian languages are becoming a target of pro-russian forces in the countries.
In Ukraine, authorities said Russian invaders were“deliberately”destroying all literature in the Ukrainian language as they raided towns and villages.
Meanwhile, in Belarusian capital, minsk, a new bookshop set up by a Belarusian language publishing house was raided on Monday – its first day of opening - amid claims it was selling “Nazi” literature, according to the Belarusian government’s Main Directorate for Combating Organised Crime and Corruption (GUBAZIK).
A nd reyyanushkevich, owner of Knihauka, as well as employee Nasta Karnatskaya, was detained and 200 books were seized. Mr Yanushkevich has been sentenced to ten days in prison.
The kremlin has claimed russian speakers in Ukraine have suffered discrimination and persecution under the government led by president Volodyit myr Zelensky – an accusation that Ukraine has long denied. Many citizens in the east of Ukraine, where Russian is more common, have said they use Russian and Ukrainian interchangeably in their every day lives and have not faced any problems.
The narrative of Nazi factions operating in Ukraine has been one long used by Russian president Vladimir Put in as justification for invading the country.
In an online broadcast, a Ukrainian MP warned Russian soldiers were looting houses and destroying books and literature in the Ukrainian language.
“We have dozens of testimonies that all literature in the Ukrainian language is being deliberately destroyed,” said Nikita Poturaev, chairman of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, in a briefing on‘ countering russian propaganda’.
"That is, while they are there, they destroy everything – text books, children's books, fiction and non-fiction. If they see the Ukrainian language, the Ukrainian characters, they destroy them, as the Nazis behaved.
"The russian military is deliberately destroying all literature in the Ukrainian language in some of our settlements.”
In Minsk, it is believed two TV journalists who support pro-russian dictator Alexander Lukashenko had come to the bookshop and criticised the content of the books, before the authorities turned up.
The store, which trailed its opening with news that it would sell a Belarusian language version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by Edinburgh author JK Rowling, was opened by Belarusian publishing house Janushkevich, which was evicted from its minsk offices in March without reason.
Belarus, which has Russian troops stationed along its border with Ukraine, is one of Russia's only allies. Earlier this week, Mr Lukashenko spoke at a meeting with Mr Putin and leaders of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to call for the countries–known as the collective security treaty Organisation – to unite against the West.
Exiled opposition leader of B el arus, Sviatlana Tsikh a no us kay a, said are an important part of preserving our history and culture. In Belarus, even book stores are re pressed by the regime and writers are targeted. The new knih au ka bookstore in Minsk was searched by security forces on the first day, but our culture is strong and will not be erased.”
Ms Tsikhanouskaya was widely believed to have won the majority of the last election in Belarus in August 2020. However, she was forced to flee the country immediately after the election, with Mr Lukashenko, an ally of Mr Putin who has led Belarus since 1994, remaining in power.
Belarusian and Russian are both considered official languages of Belarus, but only around a quarter of the nine million population speaks the former, whereas more than 70 per cent per cent speaks the latter. No more than one in ten Belarus i ans say they communicatein belarus ian in their day to-day lives.
A resurgence of interest in Belarusian has taken place in recent years – a cultural movement that Russia is likely to want to quell. in the later part of the past decade, crowdfunding was set up to enable the publication of Belarusian-language books and the translation of films into Belarusian. Inscriptions on the shirts of Belarusian football players were beginning to increasingly appear in Belarusian.
However, the number of childrentaught in the language has dropped from around 19 per cent in 2010 to 13 percent in 2018, as the education system leans towards the Russian influence. The figure is a huge reduction from the 75 per cent of children who studied in Belarusian in 1994-95, before Mr Lukashenko – who saw the main threat to his power in the Belarus ian speaking opposition–came into power.
Some belarus ian parents have said they have intentionally taught their child to speak Russian as they learn to talk, rather than Belarusian, amid fears of a future Russian occupation of the country – and potential consequences for Belarusian speakers.
Scottish nurse in Ukraine tells of finding tank wreckage at hospital
A Scottish nurse in Ukraine has told of his shock at coming across a Russian tank that was blown up as it bombarded a hospital.
Montrose-born medic David Anderson said he arrived at the hospital in Trostianets, eastern Ukraine, to find the burnt out wreckage of the tank with its gun still pointing directly at the hospital building. Inside he was shown the devastation of the tank shelling, which has rendered the 170-bed hospital out of action.
There have been more than 130 attacks on healthcare facilities since Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his invasion. More than 100 fire stations and 250 fire engines have been destroyed in Ukraine.
Mr Anderson is a volunteer with frontline aid charity UKMED, which has just received £600,000 from the UK Government to provide humanitarian
support to the war-hit country.
He said: “I find it unbelievable and depressing that a hospital would be deliberately attacked. The tank is being guarded as evidence of a war crime and I could not believe what I was seeing. It had been blown up in the end and its gun turret is still pointing at the hospital it was attacking.
“I was shown round the wards and there was just devastation everywhere where the tank shells had hit.”
UK-MED will receive funding – worth up to £300,000 – from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to help train Ukrainian doctors, nurses and paramedics on how to deal with mass casualties. It has also set up mobile health clinics that are supporting the most vulnerable civilians remaining in Ukraine, including the elderly and young children.
The UK is donating a further £300,000 worth of medicines and pharmaceutical supplies to UK-MED – enough to support a hospital for up to six weeks.
Mr Anderson has worked on humanitarian missions in crisis countries, including South Sudan and Myanmar, and was in Beirut in the aftermath of the devastating 2020 explosion.
He said: “I’ve been in a couple of war zones before, but not on this scale. I don’t think you ever get used to going into conflict zones. I’m reasonably comfortable with seeing limb injuries, having worked in South Sudan and other places, but oh my God, the scale of this.
“We walked into one hospital and they said there were 200 people, but it felt like more. There were people with traumatic amputations, flesh burns, blast injuries, just horrific injuries. It’s the volume that is genuinely astounding.”
He added: “People break down in tears and you are almost in tears with them actually. I think it’s probably the strongest feelings I’ve had going anywhere.
“Very possibly this depth of feeling is because I’ve never been involved in a crisis like this that is so close to home. You are used to humanitarian deployments to conflict zones in Africa, but I never, ever expected to be doing this work in Europe. That doesn’t mean the suffering of people in Tigray is any less, it’s just this situation is unfathomable.”
Mr Anderson continued: “The spectre of war in Europe has not been something we’ve really had to consider in our lifetime. People are going on stag or hen weekends to Bucharest or Warsaw or booking holidays to the Balkans or Turkey and just a couple of hundred miles away you have this terrible thing unfolding.”