(opinion essay)

In our country, tragic events have been going on for more than a year. The bloody war took many lives of Ukrainians. Of course, the war affects all areas of the country’ s economy. And the publishing market is no exception.

A significant number of publishing houses partially ceased their activities due to damage to their head offices, bookstores and suffered financial losses. Many publishing houses ceased their activities because of lack of workers and resources. Some publishing houses lost everything. For example, Kharkiv has always been a leading publishing city. Most of the publishing houses are based in Kharkiv. Besides, there are the best printing houses too. \

When the war started, the city began to be bombarded with rockets, mines and shells. A certain percentage of the region was occupied, unfortunately. Terrible times began not only for ordinary people, but also for publishing houses, which had to go to other cities and export their products. Some of these are Folio, Vivat and ACCA. In 2022, the volume of Ukrainian book publishing fell by 60%. I hope that this year the number of released titles will increase a bit.

Another bad influence is book prices rising. In a time of war hardships, the majority of the population is unable to buy books at a high price, so this also affected the number of sales.

But there was also significant growth during this period. Firstly, cooperation with Russian authors has stopped, and now there are almost no books in Russian on the Ukrainian market. Secondly, e-books have become very popular. It is much cheaper and more convenient for many, but it is not better than a well printed book. Our citizens have begun to read more in Ukrainian, and this trend needs to be streamlined and developed. Now it is a Ukrainian book that has become popular among readers, and publishing houses are trying to focus on it more than anything else. During this time, the level of national dignity among Ukrainians has greatly increased, and the native book contributes to this to a great extent. Also, more Ukrainian books began to be printed abroad.

Ukraine participated in international book fairs and presented books about the war. There will also be many book events this year. For example, Ukraine will take part in the Leipzig Book Fair, and will be the focus of the London Book Fair.

So, of course, the war greatly affected the Ukrainian publishing market. But it holds on, even though the enemy wants to break the Ukrainian spirit of the country’s population and instill despair in us. However, the publishing market of Ukraine stands strong and makes a great contribution to the future.