"World's most dangerous book club": how teenagers in occupation secretly read Ukrainian books

Teenagers in temporarily occupied territories secretly read Ukrainian literature despite the risks.

Source: The Guardian

Details: The Guardian uncovered one such underground "book club". Journalists Peter Pomerantsev and Alina Dykhman described it as "one of the most dangerous book clubs in the world".

Seventeen-year-old Mariika (name changed for privacy) said that the meetings are attended by no more than three people at a time.

Before reading, they lock all doors and windows to avoid potential informants reporting them to Russian secret services. 

Quote from The Guardian: "Informants frequently report anyone studying Ukrainian in the occupied territories to the Russian secret police. Ukrainian textbooks have been deemed ‘extremist’ – possession can carry a sentence of five years.

Parents who allow their children to follow the Ukrainian curriculum online can lose parental rights. Teens who speak Ukrainian at school have been known to be taken by thugs to the woods for ‘questioning’."

Details: It is difficult for teenagers to find books in Ukrainian under the occupation. The Russians removed and destroyed Ukrainian books from several libraries in Mariika's hometown.

Teenagers rely on online books but must erase their browsing history, as Russians inspect phones and computers.

Quote from Mariika: "They don’t teach us knowledge at school, but to hate other Ukrainians. They’ve taken down all Ukrainian symbols and have hung portraits of Putin everywhere. History is all about ‘great Russia’ and how it’s always been under attack by others."

Details: The book club favours Lesia Ukrainka’s poetry, particularly the dramatic poem The Boyar Woman, where the protagonist chides a Ukrainian who has fallen under the influence of Muscovy and praises the humiliating peace with the tsar. "Is this peace," she asks, "or a ruin?"

The Guardian draws a parallel between this "peace" and the one Trump’s administration suggested Ukraine should make with Putin by ceding territories.

One of the reasons why Mariika and her friends continue to gather for the book club is to show that even under occupation, there are people who are fighting for the right to remain Ukrainian.

Not all the books read in the underground club are political. There are ordinary stories about the lives of Ukrainians – dates, shopping, everyday things.

But under the occupation, even these simple stories help to keep in touch with a free Ukraine and feel part of the community, journalists say.

Quote from The Guardian: "But still there is no getting away from the all-too-relevant ideas of [Lesia] Ukrainka’s writing. One of her main themes was to meditate on the relationship between personal freedom – the freedom of the imagination and to define your life – and the political freedom of the nation. ‘Whoever liberates themselves, shall be free,’ she wrote.

Mariika’s book club makes those words real every day."

Background: 

• Russia has long been destroying Ukrainian books and cultural heritage. In Mariupol, Russians obliterated the central library and removed books from universities and schools. 
• In 2024, the Russians struck Ukraine’s largest printing house in Kharkiv and destroyed the Lesia Ukrainka Museum in Yalta.
• The language ombudsman reported that by September 2024, the Russians had damaged or destroyed nearly 1,000 Ukrainian libraries since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
• Human Rights Watch also reported forced Russification of education in occupied areas.

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