“The aggressor confiscates all books printed in the Ukrainian language from the catalogues of libraries and schools. The destruction of about 100 libraries has already been confirmed, 221 were damaged”, said the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, 12 August 2022.
A recurrent flashback to my Ukrainian childhood: I am sitting on a sledge, dragged by my tireless granddad Misha. He walks with a slight limp, the result of a leg wound during the 1918-21 Civil War and because of this – to my sheer delight – the sledge makes little zigzags in the snow. I am seven years old. In my hands, clad in varezhki (woollen mittens), I am holding a couple of dog-eared books by James Fenimore Cooper. We are going to the library in Inzhenerna (Engineers) Street. At seven, I am already a voracious reader and a hardened armchair buccaneer, with that small local library being my only window to the world, an imaginary launch pad for my no-less imaginary spaceship, similar...