KIEV, Jan 21 — Ukraine yesterday ruled out lifting a legal ban on the Russian edition of renowned British historian Antony Beevor’s book Stalingrad, a decision the writer said had “no justification”.
A Russian edition of Beevor’s 1998 popular history book on the pivotal World War II battle between the Soviets and Nazis was blacklisted by Kiev on January 10 under a law restricting the import and sale of books published in Russia.
The law is part of measures by Kiev to restrict Russian “propaganda” as the neighbours’ relations hit a post-Cold War low and the war in eastern Ukraine with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow has claimed more than 10,000 lives.
The head of the Ukrainian committee that rules on publication of books from Russia, Sergiy Oliynyk told AFP: “The committee will not review its decision.”
“That’s what the law is and we must carry it out,” he said.
He said that Ukraine has permitted the sale of the Russian edition of another book by Beevor on the same period, World War II and that the ban does not cover any other Russian-language editions of Stalingrad nor the original English book.
The Russian edition that has been banned was first published in 2015.
The committee said Stalingrad was blacklisted after receiving a “negative conclusion” from an expert commission.
However, Oliynyk earlier told Radio Liberty’s Ukraine service that the ban was over specific paragraphs referring to Germans ordering Ukrainian nationalists to shoot children under World War II Nazi occupation.
He said the paragraphs were baseless and sourced to Soviet secret police reports and correspondence.
However, Beevor hit back, telling AFP yesterday: “That’s absolute rubbish... All of the reports are from German sources.
“We double-checked, the translation is absolutely accurate, and it also gives the sources accurately so they have no justification whatsoever for banning it or even attacking it.”
“It’s a sign of a government which is not confident, particularly one which has to start to control the past.
“Every country has embarrassing elements in their past, but most democracies do not try to eliminate that or destroy archives”.
The Russian embassy in London jumped on the scandal, posting on Twitter that the ban was a “shameful act of censorship and betrayal of WW2 victims”.
Beevor has also had his books restricted in Russia.
In 2015 a Russian region ordered books by Beevor and another British historian John Keegan to be pulled from libraries, saying that they misinterpreted information about World War II. — AFP
