A year ago today, a Russian rocket attack killed seven people and injured many others in the Faktor-Druk printing house in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and a major centre of Ukrainian publishing.  The building sustained heavy damage and most books being worked on at the time were destroyed.  Two surviving but damaged books from the attack were passed to institutions in the UK, and we are very proud that one of these is now in the collections of Cambridge University Library.

The book is Hostia proty nochi, a Ukrainian translation of The overnight guest by US author Heather Gudenkauf.  The book had not yet had its hardback cover added when the printing house was bombed.  The damage it sustained is largely from water, as Kharkiv firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control.  Opening the book would damage it further, so we have also bought an undamaged copy (along with the English original) so that readers can use that for accessing the text, with the damaged copy being specifically reserved in the Library as an object – an artefact of the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine.

The gift was kindly arranged by the Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv with the assistance of ICOM UK (the UK national branch of the International Council of Museums). It came with the blessing of the book’s publisher, Vivat. Another book that was damaged in the same attack has been gifted to the Imperial War Museum in London.

We’ve been hugely fortunate to have connections with the Ukrainian Institute and ICOM UK, dating back to a decolonisation seminar which took place shortly after the February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The seminar – with Tetyana Filevska, Artistic Director of the Ukrainian Institute, and me, Slavonic Specialist at Cambridge University Library, moderated by Maria Blyzinsky of ICOM UK – focused on ways in which curators in museums and libraries could identify and start to address Russian colonial legacies in their collections especially in terms of Ukrainian holdings.

Last year, after the bombing in Kharkiv, I wrote a blog post about the attack and about books we had bought and were now buying from Vivat.  Having the damaged book now in our collections is a hugely moving and important addition for our readers, especially students, to see with their own eyes something of the real impact of the war.

Conservators at the Library are working with external specialists to house the damaged book as carefully as possible so that it can be clearly visible but protected.  Additionally, the Library’s Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab has taken a 3D scan and images of the book that we plan in time to upload to the Cambridge Digital Library, so that people around the world can interact with it.  We are very grateful to the publisher and the book’s author for their kind agreement to the digitisation.

Maria Blyzinsky, Co-chair of ICOM UK, said, “Sadly, international conflicts are all too common, with roots that can often be traced to legacies of colonialism and exploitation. It is evident that the control of heritage – as seen in the destruction of museums, libraries, archives and other centres of culture and learning – is a powerful tool for subjugating peoples and rewriting their histories. It has been an honour for ICOM UK to facilitate this gift which will act as a testament to all those who lose their lives in the fight to preserve memory and culture.”

Many thanks to all involved in this donation and its care.  When the book is ready in the catalogue and in Cambridge Digital Library, I will update this post with links.

Mel Bach (photo credit: Maria Blyzinsky)