why russia is obsessed with burning Ukrainian books.

And why a Ukrainian book makes the empire terrified.

here is what's in store for you this week:

(estimated reading time: 7 min)

• From 19th-century bans to burning 1.5 million Ukrainian books in the last month alone, russian warfare recognises the power of a Ukrainian book better than most people abroad. Plus, new titles to update your Ukrainian anti-colonial bookshelf at home with.

• The Greek names on every map of Crimea and southern Ukraine aren't ancient history — they're imperial camouflage. Learn the indigenous towns russia erased underneath them.

• Why Algeria isn't expected to celebrate Camus and Ireland doesn't statue Spenser — but Kyiv gets called "authoritarian" for taking down a russian supremacist novelist.

• The invisible "filter" every Ukrainian-born scholar has to clear that no British historian writing about Britain ever will. And reading suggestions for lesser-known but no less brilliant Ukrainian historians who wrote in English - from the most celebrated historian of Ukraine.

---

Did you know that in July 2026 alone, russians destroyed over 1.5 million Ukrainian books? This is according to the latest data by the Ukrainian Book Institute. During the July 19th attack alone, they burnt 250,000 copies and destroyed yet another printing house in Ukraine.

"These books were created during the full-scale war. We worked through air raid alerts, during power outages, and countless sleepless nights caused by Russian attacks. We never stopped because we believed that Ukrainian books are more important today than ever before," says Svitlana Paveletska, co-founder of Knyholav, one of the attacked publishers, in an interview with Kyiv Independent.

One of the destroyed printing presses in Kyiv after the July 19th attack by russians. Picture is by Konvi Plus, a company that used to operate the production site.

Libraries, printing presses, and publishers' warehouses have remained targets of russian strikes since 2022. We do not know the exact number of Ukrainian books turned to ashes by russians since 2022, but various estimates run from 200 million in 2024 to over 350 million today.

Can you imagine how many books 350 million are? I cannot.

But I looked for comparisons. Turns out it amounts to a 4-year's worth of Ukrainian pre-war book printing output. If compared to how much books Ukraine printed last year, during a war, then just this July russians turned to ashes 5% of that.

Here’s another one. The world’s largest library, the British Library, has a catalogue of around 200 million books. In four years, russians destroyed the equivalent of almost two of the largest libraries on the planet.

Since the russian colonisation of Ukraine in the 17th century, book printing in Ukrainian has been subject to non-stop bans or restrictions. This month, on July 30th, 163 years ago, russia enacted one of them, the Valuev Circular, that banned most publications in the so-called "Little Russian" (Ukrainian) language. There were several after that in the 19th and 20th centuries.

But even after the end of russian occupation, the Kremlin aggressively flooded Ukraine with russian books, making Ukrainian-language books too expensive to print. For example, back in the late 1990s, russian agents in the Ukrainian parliament would legislate the highest tax on book publishing in the world - simultaneously with russia dropping any taxes on russian books altogether. What would it mean in practice? For me, as a kid growing up in independent Ukraine, it was a quest to find a Ukrainian-language book in a store or in a library. But a bigger challenge was to afford it.

The russian war on Ukrainian books never stopped, even if the occupation did.

Only after 2014 did Ukraine stop reacting to russian “that’s russophobia!” bullying against any law supporting Ukrainian-language books. Imagine France attacking Algerian state support for printing books in the official state language as ‘nationalistic.’ Or the UK economically blackmailing Ireland for funding book printing in Gaeilge. Yet, russia doing the same to its neighbours for the last 30 years? Crickets.

IF YOU WISH TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WHY A UKRAINIAN BOOK IS AN ANTI-COLONIAL ACT OF RESISTANCE, HOW TO EMPOWER IT AND ACCESS THIS WEEK’S READING LIST, PLEASE UPGRADE BEHIND THE PAYWALL.

Russian Colonialism 101 is the first newsletter to shed light on Russian colonialism and is part of the Volya Hub network. What is happening to Ukraine has happened many times before, and the rest of the world has been conditioned to overlook or misdiagnose it. This isn’t history. It’s how you stop being shocked by what was always predictable.

“I am a big fan of your work and find it accessible for seeing the larger picture that people seem to be misunderstanding—without this digestible explanation of the history—to appreciate empire strategy and mindset at play currently.”

by Jessica Bee, a paying supporter of Russian Colonialism 101.

By popular demand, and for anyone wanting an alternative to supporting this newsletter on Substack or Patreon. Subscribe via Buy Me Coffee.