Back to School Without Books: russias War Turns 12 Million Ukrainian Books to Ashes
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine ??
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Pochaiv The week that ends today is the first of the fifth school year to open in a Ukraine at war since russias full-scale invasion. We began it by walking little Sasha to third grade. As every year since he first held a pen in his hand, we were there with him. His father, in fact, is listed as missing after taking part in some of the most important campaigns in the countrys recent history, while his mother works abroad to support her son and to meet the unforeseen burdens the war has placed on the family.
Split between in-person and remote teaching, this first week ran in hybrid mode because of the constant air-raid alerts. We are talking aboutsome fifteen warnings of imminent strikes every twenty-four hours, warnings that set the rhythm of the circadian cycle as they try to grind down peoples nerves before the facades of their buildings. As in the capital, whichplannedlessons in shelters for the youngest, blended teaching and second shifts while asking schools to be ready to reorganize according to the security situation, many other municipalitiesadoptedsimilar solutions. Every new attack, however, can change the timetable, the place where class is held, and the very possibility of meeting teachers and classmates.
This year, however, for the first time since we started walking little Sasha to school,the books were missing from his desk too.The war has in fact reached the very pages on which it should have been studied.
As the BBCreports,recent russian attacks have destroyed some 12 million books in Ukraine, hitting more than 35 publishing-related facilities. A quantity that, in the Ukrainian press estimates relayed by that report, amounts to roughlya third of the books printed in the country this year. Among those losses, unfortunately, are a great many school textbooks. russian bombs have reached printing houses, publishers warehouses, distribution centers and even second-hand book markets, like Pochaina in Kyiv, for instance. In practice, russian strikes have crippled the entire chain that carries a Ukrainian text from the press to the hands of its reader.
The Konvi printing plant in Kyiv washiton the night of July 19. Nearly 250,000 ninth-grade textbooks, already packed to ship to schools, were completely destroyed, while another 350,000 volumes and works in progress were damaged. According to the BBCs reconstruction, the plant was due to produce 1.3 million schoolbooks, about 10 percent of the national requirement. Unfortunately, though, with the roofs caved in and the machinery destroyed or flooded, the delivery deadlines were blown as well.
A russian attack on August 1 in Kharkiv against the warehouse of the Ranok publishing housedestroyedanother eight million or so books, some 600,000 of which were, once again, textbooks bound for the new school year. The damage was done by two jet-powered drones launched at the same spot a few minutes apart. For the publisher, it trulyamountedto a planned attack to destroy Ukrainian textbooks and schoolbooks. Its director, Viktor Kruhlov,estimatesa period of three to five years for a full recovery of operations, since the files and the layouts were saved but turning them back into books takes paper, money, machinery, warehouses and transport. Even before this latest blow, Kruhlov hadwarnedthat the textbooks burned at Konvi were new ones, impossible to replace with the old, and that one pupil in ten would be left for weeks without part of their books, forcing teachers to work in the meantime from electronic materials.
The scale of thismass destruction aimed at erasing Ukrainian cultureweighs especially on a sector in which,during the years of russias invasion, demand for Ukrainian booksgrewsharply.Every lost print run absorbs resources needed for the next one, and every idle plant reduces the chance of reprinting in time. For a family already hit hard by the war, like little Sashas, all this becomes a book to hunt for, an added expense and a lesson to make up under conditions that are already very difficult.
The school buildings themselves tell the scale of the assault on education. As of August 23, Ukrainian Ministry of Education datarecorded4,650 educational facilities hitsince the start of russias full-scale invasion:4,227 damaged and 423 completely destroyed. A tally that covers schools, kindergartens, universities and other institutions but probably fails to convey the full measure of the havoc. Behind every bare number there are, in fact, classrooms, libraries, laboratories and entire communities forced to relocate, with children who must start over somewhere else. Shelters and remoteteaching do allow lessons to go on, but continuity of study depends on security, electricity, connectivity and the presence of adults who can look after the youngest. As we documented at some Points of Invincibility set up directly inside school buildings with basements and rooms where meals can be cooked or children can even sleep when russian aircraft bomb their homes, every roll call means drawing up lists of those present, for the purposes of study, and of the survivors, for the purposes of security.
In the occupied territories, the erasure of Ukrainian books goes hand in hand with the imposition of the russian school system. Confirming the first-hand accounts we have relayed from relatives and friends whom the very presence of the occupation authorities still holds hostage in their own land, Human Rights Watchcollected, in a June 2024 report, testimony aboutbooks burnedin Borova and documents on theconfiscation of textbooksfrom the schools of Yakovenkove and Balakliia. The report describes the introduction of russian textbooks and theforced russification of teaching.
The russkiy mir thus keeps entering the classrooms, deciding the language of instruction and dictating which past is to be handed down. We are talking aboutcrimes still underway, which we consider it our duty to denounce and to which Western media should give the greatest prominence. A child born in 2022 in the occupied territories today holds a pencil and writes and learns what the russian authorities teach him.
To take a recent example, on August 26 Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) chaired by Vladimir Medinsky,announcedthat a textbook on the history of Ukraine from ancient times is in preparation. To grasp the scale of the havoc already underway since 2014 in Crimea and the Donbas, and for five years in the other occupied territories, it is enough to report how he previewed its framing: the unity of the people of ancient Rus and the origin of so-called Ukrainianism. To outline the gravity ofthe criminal design behind this project of cultural replacement that is, of russification it is enough to listen to how he raised the problem of getting that narrative to students in the territories still under the control of the Kyiv regime. A still that expresses a precise claim: to extend that dominion to children like Sasha, who today study in free Ukraine.
It is inside this war against the very possibility of growing up and knowing ones own country that Sasha attends third grade. Who will tell him one day that his father, walking into a classroom of the same grade he attends today, but in a school in Balakliia he had just liberated alongside other Ukrainian defenders from the rashist occupation,sawa girl the age he is now, nailed to the blackboard by her hands and feet and ripped open from the groin to the mouth? On that blackboard it was written that before reducing her to that, twenty men from the same special unit of the russian army had raped her, and that they would be back to finish the job with the rest of the Ukrainian whores.
There it is:the missing books belong to the same daily experience. To a terror of the same stamp.
Walking Sasha to school means trying to guarantee him a bit of the continuity every child should be able to take for granted.
That is why we have set out to organize lives with several Italian schools. We want to bring into their classrooms what we have seen and lived through, to give the students the chance to ask questions and learn about the lives of their Ukrainian peers. We want the story of this generation to find room also in the places where one can still study without going down into a shelter. Among them are little girls named Javelina and Bayraktara, in gratitude to those who did not leave us alone when they were born in 2022. Today those little stars are talking and, in kindergarten, are beginning to hold a pen in their hands. Little Sasha, pulled from the rubble that same year, today has a right to his books, to his language and to the history of the country his father fought for. And we have the duty to help preserve it.
In 1.654 days of war, we recorded over 300 videos from ground zero and wrote more than 3,000 articles at least 1,600 in English, and over 1,400 in Italian.
Were doing our best to provide genuine, first-hand reports from zones where almost no press dares to go. This means living in a kill zone constantly. We take the risk, but without your invaluable support, our voices would remain unheard and silent. Without brave people sharing our articles from afar, they would remain unread. Our reports would go unseen, and our efforts would be lost. Theres still a lot of work to do here, as the people around us are also in no better situation.
Were renewing our fundraising campaign and thanking everyone who joins us in helping to restore what Russia is destroying. Moving forward, not even with a small reimbursement for each article we write, is extremely challenging. Thats why we are grateful to all the kind people who support us and trust in our mission.
Even a small donation helps.
Well keep you updated on developments.
Thank you all, dear friends ??
没有书本的新学年：俄罗斯的战争将1200万册乌克兰书籍化为灰烬
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
乌克兰前线报道??
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波恰伊夫今天结束的这一周，是自俄罗斯全面入侵以来，乌克兰在战火中迎来的第五个学年开学后的第一个星期。我们陪着小萨沙走进三年级开始了新学年。自从他第一次握笔以来，每一年我们都陪在他身边。事实上，他的父亲在参加了这个国家近代史上几场最重要的战役后，被列为失踪人员；他的母亲则在国外工作，以供养儿子，并承担战争强加给这个家庭的种种额外负担。
（图：小萨沙和我们一起在学校附近版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
由于持续不断的空袭警报，新学年第一周采取了线下与远程教学相结合的混合模式。我们说的是每24小时大约15次迫在眉睫的袭击警报。这些警报在建筑物的外墙被摧毁之前，便已经开始侵蚀人们的神经，支配人们的昼夜节律。首都基辅也采取了类似安排：为低年级学生在防空掩体内安排课程，实行混合教学和轮课上课，同时要求学校根据安全形势随时做好重新调整的准备。许多其他市镇也采取了同样的办法。然而，每一次新的袭击，都可能改变课程表、上课地点，甚至改变师生能否见面的可能性。
然而，今年是我们开始陪小萨沙上学以来，第一次连他的课桌上都没有了课本。战争已经触及那些本应被阅读和学习的书页本身。
（图：由于俄罗斯袭击，孩子们背包里的书越来越少版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
据英国广播公司（BBC）报道，俄罗斯近期的袭击摧毁了乌克兰约1200万本书，并击中35处以上与出版业有关的设施。据乌克兰媒体估算并由BBC转述，这一数字大约相当于该国今年印刷书籍总量的三分之一。
遗憾的是，其中相当大一部分是学校教科书。俄罗斯的炸弹袭击了印刷厂、出版社仓库、配送中心，甚至位于基辅的波恰伊纳这样的二手书市场。实际上，俄罗斯的空袭已经瘫痪了将乌克兰书籍从印刷机送到读者手中的整个产业链条。
7月19日夜间，基辅的孔维印刷厂遭到袭击。近25万本已经打包、准备运往学校的九年级教材被彻底摧毁，另有35万册正在制作中的图书和出版物受损。根据BBC的调查，该印刷厂原计划印刷130万本教科书，约占全国需求的10%。然而，随着屋顶坍塌、机器被摧毁或被水淹，交付期限也随之化为泡影。
8月1日，俄罗斯袭击了哈尔科夫拉诺克出版社的仓库，又摧毁了大约800万本书，其中约60万本同样是为新学年准备的教材。袭击由两架喷气式无人机实施，它们在相隔几分钟时间内击中了同一地点。对这家出版社而言，这确实是一场旨在摧毁乌克兰教科书和学校用书的蓄意袭击。出版社社长维克托克鲁格洛夫估计，企业要完全恢复运营需要三至五年。虽然文件和排版设计得以保存，但要把它们重新变回书本，还需要纸张、资金、机器、仓库和运输能力。即使在遭受这次最新打击之前，克鲁格洛夫就已经警告说，孔维被烧毁的教材都是新版，无法用旧教材替代。这意味着每十名学生中，就有一人会在数周内缺少部分课本，教师不得不暂时依靠电子材料开展教学。
（图：乌克兰普里卢基医学大学现场报道??。由于俄罗斯袭击，今年许多课桌上将没有课本可用版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
这种旨在抹去乌克兰文化的大规模毁灭，尤其沉重地打击了一个在俄罗斯入侵期间对乌克兰书籍需求大幅增长的行业。每一批被毁的印刷品，都会消耗掉原本可以用于下一批印刷的资源；每一家停摆的印刷厂，都会降低及时重印的可能性。对于小萨沙这样一个已经深受战争创伤的家庭，这一切意味着：必须设法寻找课本，必须承担额外开支，还必须在本就极其艰难的环境下补上落下的课程。
学校建筑本身也在诉说这场针对教育的攻击究竟有多么严重。截至8月23日，乌克兰教育部数据显示，自俄罗斯全面入侵开始以来，已有4650处教育设施遭到袭击，其中4227处受损，423处被完全摧毁。这一统计涵盖学校、幼儿园、大学及其他教育机构，但恐怕仍不足以呈现这场浩劫的全部规模。每一个冷冰冰的数字背后，都是教室、图书馆、实验室和被迫迁移的整个社区；都是不得不在别处重新开始生活的孩子。避难所和远程教学确实让课程得以继续，但学习的连续性取决于安全、电力、网络连接，以及是否有成年人能够照看年幼的孩子。正如我们此前在一些坚不可摧点所记录的那样，这些地点直接设在带有地下室的学校建筑内，那里可以做饭；当俄罗斯飞机轰炸他们的家园时，孩子们甚至可以在那里睡觉。每一次点名，不仅是在确认出勤学生名单，以维持教育教学；同样也是在确认幸存者名单，以保障安全。
（图：照片摄于基辅一所学校的地下掩体内。俄罗斯轰炸首都期间，孩子们曾在那里睡觉。当时室外温度为零下30摄氏度版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在被占领土上，乌克兰书籍遭到抹除，与俄罗斯学校体系的强行推行同步进行。
正如我们此前通过仍被占领当局困在故土的亲友所获得并报道的第一手叙述那样，人权观察组织在2024年6月发布的一份报告中，收集了关于博罗瓦焚烧书籍的证词，以及有关从雅科文科韦和巴拉克利亚学校没收教科书的记录。该报告描述了俄罗斯教材的引入，以及教育教学被强行俄罗斯化的过程。
于是，俄罗斯世界不断进入教室，决定教学语言，并规定哪些历史应当被传承。我们谈论的是至今仍在进行中的罪行。揭露这些罪行是我们的责任，而西方媒体也应当给予它们最大的关注。一个2022年出生、生活在被占领地区的孩子，如今正握着铅笔，学习俄罗斯当局教给他的知识。
举一个最近的例子：8月26日，由弗拉基米尔梅金斯基担任主席的俄罗斯军事历史学会（RVIO）的科学主任米哈伊尔米亚格科夫宣布，一本关于乌克兰历史、从远古时代讲起的教科书正在编写之中。要理解自2014年以来在克里米亚和顿巴斯、以及此后五年来在其他被占领地区持续进行的浩劫究竟有多么严重，只需看看他对这本书内容框架的预告：宣扬古罗斯人民的统一，以及所谓乌克兰主义的起源。
要看清这一文化替换，也就是俄罗斯化，计划背后的犯罪性质，只需听听他如何提出一个问题：如何把这种叙事传授给那些仍处于基辅政权控制之下的地区的学生。仍然这个词表达了一个明确的主张：要把这种统治延伸到像萨沙这样的孩子身上，那些今天仍在自由的乌克兰学习的孩子。
（视频：我们在乌克兰基辅一所被用作坚不可摧点的学校内拍摄了这段视频??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
（视频：我们在乌克兰丘胡伊夫一所被俄罗斯人摧毁的学校内拍摄了这段视频??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
（视频：我们在乌克兰哈尔科夫一所被俄罗斯人摧毁的学校内拍摄了这段视频??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
正是在这场针对孩子成长、针对他们认识自己国家之可能性的战争之中，萨沙开始了他的三年级学习。有一天，谁会告诉他：他的父亲曾走进一间与他今天所在年级相同的教室，那间教室位于巴拉克利亚的一所学校，而那座城市刚刚被他和其他乌克兰守卫者从俄罗斯法西斯占领者手中解放出来。在那里，他看见一个与萨沙如今同龄的女孩。她的手脚被钉在黑板上，身体从腹股沟一直被剖开到嘴部。黑板上写着：在她折磨成那样之前，来自俄罗斯军队同一个特别部队的20名士兵强奸了她；他们还会回来，把剩下的乌克兰婊子也处理完。
这就是现实：那些消失的书籍，属于同一种日常经历，属于同一种性质的恐怖。
陪萨沙上学，意味着努力为他保留一点每个孩子本应理所当然拥有的生活连续性。
（视频：与普里卢基医学院的学生在一起。他们大部分时间都在地下掩体内度过版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
正因如此，我们开始与几所意大利学校共同组织交流活动。我们希望把亲眼所见、亲身经历带进他们的课堂，让学生有机会提问，并了解乌克兰同龄人的生活。我们希望，这一代人的故事也能在那些仍然可以不用走进避难所、仍然能够安静学习的地方占有一席之地。
其中有两个小女孩，她们的名字叫贾韦琳娜和拜拉克塔拉，这是为了感谢那些在她们于2022年出生时没有丢下我们不管的人。如今，这些小星星已经开始说话，也开始在幼儿园里学着握笔。同样在那一年从废墟中被救出的萨沙，有权拥有自己的书籍、有权使用自己的语言，有权了解他父亲曾为之战斗的国家的历史。而我们有责任帮助守护这一切。
（图：停止资助俄罗斯的恐怖主义）
***
在1654天的战争中，我们从前线录制了300多段视频，并撰写了3000多篇文章其中至少1600篇为英文，1400篇为意大利文。
我们尽最大努力从几乎没有媒体敢进入的地带进行真实的一手报道，这意味着我们长期生活在杀伤区。我们承担风险，但若没有你们宝贵的支持，我们的声音将无从传出。若没有远方的勇敢的人们转发分享我们的文章，它们将无人问津。我们的报道会被忽视，我们的努力将付诸流水。这里还有大量工作要做，周围的人们境况同样艰难。
我们正在更新筹款活动，感谢每一位加入我们、帮助修复俄罗斯破坏的人们。仅靠一家勇敢的报纸为我们每篇文章支付微薄稿酬以维持前线报道极为困难。因此，我们感激所有支持并信任我们使命的善良人们。
哪怕是小小的捐助也有助益。
我们会持续为你们更新事态进展。
谢谢大家，亲爱的朋友们??
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