The Krasnaya Stroka Book Festival in Yekaterinburg, a major city in the Urals, has removed St Petersburg’s Ivan Limbakh Publishing House from its programme. This was reported by It’s My City.
According to journalists, the publisher’s books were excluded after accreditation, agreements and the shipment of copies to the festival had already taken place.
The festival’s director, Evgeny Gorenburg, stated:
“Ivan Limbakh Publishing House was not admitted. We are really hoping for authors’ self-censorship. It’s a pity they don’t understand this.”
Meanwhile, the publisher’s CEO, Alexandra Trofimova, pointed out that she had not received any official explanation from the festival organisers.
“We were simply informed that there was an order from above. No reason was given. This happened at the last moment, when our staff member and books were already in Yekaterinburg. If previously we had some issues with organisers of other festivals, they would usually get in touch with questions and we’d solve them,” Trofimova noted.
She also explained to OVD-Info—in response to reporters’ questions about whether the books were removed due to the authors being labelled “foreign agents”—that:
“Right now we are not publishing any books by ‘foreign agents.’ We had one book from 2011, which has long since sold out, and another still on sale—which we will remove from 1 September. Both books were published long before the author was designated a ‘foreign agent.’”
On 1 September, a ban comes into effect, prohibiting “foreign agents” from engaging in educational activities. Although the law does not clarify what constitutes educational activity and there is no explicit ban on distributing works by “foreign agents,” bookshops and publishers fear the rule will be interpreted in a “repressive” manner.
In June this year, the Russian Book Union issued a bulletin saying that, due to tighter legislation, books by authors, translators or illustrators labelled as “foreign agents” now pose a heightened risk for bookshops. The union recommended removing from sale any books by “foreign agents” who are wanted, convicted in absentia under criminal charges, or included in the Rosfinmonitoring register.
This month, the educational platform Arzamas restricted access to materials by anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova on its website. Meanwhile, the publishing house New Literary Observer, Moscow’s Falanster bookshop and St Petersburg’s Word Order announced a sale of “foreign agent” books. Ivan Limbakh Publishing House has also posted that such titles will be “involuntarily withdrawn from sale.”
This article has been modified. The words of Alexandra Trofimova, which were a paraphrase of her comment by another publication, have been removed. OVD-Info apologises for the error.
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Illustration: OVD-Info