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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the maybe-they're-on-kindle dept.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-library-idUSKBN16M0PW

First, armed police seized some of its books. Next, its director was put on trial accused of stirring up ethnic hatred. And now, quietly, its shelves have been emptied and its volumes packed up, ready to be merged into another library's collection. A year and a half after Russia's only state-run Ukrainian language library, Moscow's Library of Ukrainian Literature, was dragged into a political dispute between the two countries, Reuters has learnt that authorities are quietly winding it down.

Officially, what is happening to the library -- its 52,000 books are being transferred to Russia's main foreign language library -- is "a change of address" not a closure. But the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, some of the library's employees, and members of Russia's large Ukrainian diaspora say it is a closure in all but name.

Tatyana Muntyan, a library employee, said that even before the transfer its director had reduced opening hours, stopped home lending, halted acquisitions, and made readers show passports to gain entry. The library's director declined to comment. The saga, along with other measures, suggests political differences between Moscow and Kiev are driving a wedge between two peoples whose cultures have been interwoven for centuries. It is likely to stoke Ukrainian fears that their culture, as well as their territorial integrity, is under siege.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @01:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @01:54AM (#481321)

    I really don't think you can repair the popular definition of socialism, by posting on SN...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @02:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @02:28AM (#481336)

    It appears that for you propaganda == popular.
    I'll bet that you also believe that USA is "a force for good" rather than an an imperialist aggressor.
    (USAians are now seeing first-hand what an empire in decline looks like.)

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