(opinion article)

Very often I come across the question among foreigners, “How can I be useful?” I admit, it cannot help but please… Such sincere attention and concern for the Ukrainian population and culture of Ukraine gives wings and allows you to truly believe in the future. So, I have collected a list of cool Ukrainian initiatives that are focused on supporting the Ukrainian cultural book market.

One of the most powerful volunteer projects for the preservation of Ukrainian libraries is ‘Riznytsia Ye’ from book blogger Emma Antonyuk and Knyharnia Ye.

The essence of the project is simple: once a month, people buy two books at ‘Ye Bookstore’ and they go to libraries in de-occupied Ukrainian territories.

In addition to the purchase and transfer of books, ‘Knyharnia Ye’ arranges meetings with Ukrainian celebrities, who also often support similar projects. These can be literary critics, bloggers, writers, etc.

With the help of this project, libraries in Odesa region (Lyubashivka village – 450 books), Chernihiv region (Novobykiv library – 700 books), Kherson region (Borozen library – 541 books), Kharkiv region, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy region and many other cities of Ukraine that have been Russian occupation.

Bookstore ‘RID’– at the beginning of 2024, the bookstore, together with Ukrainian bloggers the Kapranov brothers, collected 100 books for the library in the village of Myrolyubivka, Kherson region.

On November 10, 2022, the village was liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine after 8 months of Russian occupation. The library’s assortment was in critical need of updating, so the coordinator of humanitarian projects of the civil-military cooperation unit approached the bookstore with a request to help fill the library’s shelves.

This is a volunteer project, the essence of which is that, during January 2024, anyone who wishes could bring a book in Ukrainian to the bookstore and then it will travel to the Myrolyubivka’s library.

The ‘Sens’ book club is an event where readers discuss and analyze the books they have chosen in advance to read. It takes place in an interactive format, where literary critic Anastasia Evdokymova moderates the conversation and asks questions.

In other words, the participants read the presented books of Ukrainian literature, prepare their consciousness, write down their thoughts, share them and expand the circle of discussion with ideas and new discoveries.

The functionality of the book club expands the reader’s diary, developed by Anastasia Evdokymova specifically for each book selected for discussion. It helps to effectively organize self-reflection after reading and, in a playful, unobtrusive way, go through the events again, consolidate impressions, build associations, thoroughly analyze problems, and come to conclusions.

‘The Ukrainians Media book club’ is a space to stick to your own. The club unites readers in a society open to different readings, to discuss classic and modern literary texts with each other, as well as with famous guests. Meetings take place online and offline.

The club analyzes non-obvious questions, teaches to observe literary techniques, readers exchange reading experiences. There is no right or wrong in this club.

The main thing is to read and speak.

All these initiatives have a very positive effect on the book’s role in mass culture. Bookstores and book clubs make books well-known and popular – this is the most important thing. It works for a completely different audience and, importantly, for one, that at this particular moment, under various circumstances, cannot or does not want to buy a book, so a person can go to the library to read a book for a club or just for themselves.

However, all these projects are very important precisely within the framework of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, as they allow us to preserve the interest of Ukrainians in their own literature and protect literature from invaders.