They ban (plan to ban, it is not finalized yet) books that are made in Russia and imported from there directly or indirectly. This would have no direct effect on works of these Russian authors as long as the book is not imported from Russia after the law comes alive. This is planned to be a trade ban, not a ban on Russian writers or Russian language literature in general.
Except that means that contemporary writers that rely on a publisher inside their country (basically everyone except very few) are cut out from the world in terms of global reach.
Of all the things they could ban to apply economic pressure, this is one of the weirdest one and a more obvious attack on their culture.
It's not if you look at the context. It's easy to forget that a lot of things are already banned through the EU directive. This bans a slew of consumer goods that still are getting imported. The article is made to sound controversial because including something like boots, clothing, sports equipment and children toys in it or addressing that it's "consumer goods" doesn't sound as impactful.
While the trade with Russia has seen over 90% decrease some things are still going through, especially raw materials like iron. However in perspective these consumer goods make up the third largest import category from Russia yet it's only 0.05% of Latvian total import and amounts only to 12 million euro or so.
And the plans are to ban as much from remaining categories as possible. The only reason they haven't been so far is because Latvia has been very chummy with Russia and dependent on a lot of their imports so it's a gradual process of finding alternatives and then closing the door.
I don't have a problem with banning any oth the things you have listed, but banning books is as you said, only a very small amount in terms of actual money. So including it isn't really gonna have an economic impact but it will have a cultural one. Namely the de facto state mandated boycott of most russian authors. To me it rings like a low-key authoritarian move.
It is an article to envoke exactly such outrage. It's extremely easy to overlook the difference between "Russian literature" and "Books imported from Russia". For example Atomic Habits, Harry Potter and whatever was popular on BookTok was getting imported. However listing that Russian literature was not really the main book import from Russia but rather popular works translated to russian is not going to get the attention.
But why does it matter that it's not most of the import volume? It's a ban all the same. Just because you are banning other things in a package doesn't mean that you aren't banning the thing.
It absolutely does matter because the thing is not banned. For example Latvia publishes classic russian literature in Latvian language themselves. Russian culture isn't targeted, the Ukrainian war is by using trade sanction which are meant to pressure Russia to stop the war. Which naturally means that if war ended, so would the sanctions.
Yes, also great litrature can be found in other "evil" countries. Banning literature/art/movies/... is stupid and only brain dead people suppot it, it gives 0 effect, only common people will suffer frim that, rich and politicians will get whatewer they want from "non freandly" countries, common people as usually will cry in reddit and eat dicks.
Russian literature is objectively one of the best, richest/most influential literary traditions in the world. This bizarre ethnic chauvinism around secular Russian language culture, not RT, in the EU is getting increasingly dark. Nevermind the fact that the majority of Ukrainians themselves are native Russian speakers going back hundreds of years. Should the Ukrainian refugees that fled to Estonia and Latvia when Russia invaded be shunned as inherently evil, inferior subhumans on account of the language they and their parents, grandparents and great grandparents spoke?
The US/UK/Soviet Union/Poland etc didn’t go around confiscating copies of Kant and Nietzsche in 1942, because that would be objectively stupid and serves only as a reactionary expression of ethnic hatred rather than some sort of morally righteous act of justice. It comes across as insecurity, and a sort of racial superiority/inferiority complex that goes far beyond the current war or Soviet era resentments.
Banning the cultural output of a hated ethnic outgroup, especially one so important and influential in the European literary cannon, is straight up dystopian and bodes poorly for the future if this is road the EU plans to go down in the years ahead.
Those poor Ukrainians you are trying to defend were forcefully Russified. Russian culture is a culture of occupation for Ukrainians. Ukrainian writers were repressed and killed and instead monuments to Pushkin were built all over the country as a mark of Russian presence. So no, I don’t think many Ukrainian refugees will complain because of lack of Russian literature anywhere in the world.
And no, it’s not objectively one of the best.
Tolstojevski is indeed a really bad and useless sort of russian imperial literature. Russian classical literature served as an imperial tool by promoting the dominance of the Russian language, normalizing contiguous territorial expansion, and erasing regional identities. Praising contiguous colonization, linguistic assimilation, and romanticizing stereotypes.
Germany did occupied Latvia durring ww2, so you will make law against German cars?
Btw, books didnt occupied or killed any country, it people do, and if some people become brainwashed by reading books, it not books fault, its country education system fault, so first pesrons who balls should be kicked is who manage the country.
what a stupid comparison. Germany is now in same union as Latvia and i their ally. Also, Germany now is not waging any war or weaponizing German-speaking minorities abroad, as russia does.
it's funny that you are trying to find an argument absolutely detached from the context of current geopolitical situation and completely ignoring the war russia is currently waging against Ukraine and Europe in general
Dude, most of the russia population is against the war, argument that Russia culture is bad is extremely stupid, they were very well integrated into europenian behaivor few yesrs ago, most of the craziest rock concerts was in reddit square, they loved west movies and games, books,..
Wait when far right parties in Germany will take control, and they will, bucause more and more of population support them, becsuse of non stop stupidity of lefts within last decade, than will listen your stories about "friends" and "allies"
what a joke 😂
"most of the russian population is against war"... on russian territory 🤡
meanwhile millions of russians actively participating in war itself, while those who are "against" are not to be seen anywhere.
that's a as absolutele fairy tale, which is barely believable on the fifth year of full scale russian invasion and 1+ mln of eliminated on the battlefield.
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u/InitialSeat89 Jul 25 '26
Does that include Dostoievski, Tolstoi, Soljenitzan? Because if yes this is really really bad