Ukraine's booksellers are surprisingly thriving

A war zone might not seem like the optimal place to start a new business, but bookstores are doing exactly that in Ukraine. Despite Russia continuing its deadly assault on the country, Ukraine's bookselling industry is surprisingly doing better than ever. 

In the more than two years since the war began, Ukraine's largest bookstore chains have opened up dozens of new locations, with plans to open more by the end of 2024. But not everything is going to plan, as Russian strikes have led to attacks on major players in the country's publishing industry. 

How big is Ukraine's bookselling industry?

The country's publishing industry "has thrived even as Kharkiv," where about 80% of Ukraine's books are printed, has "been under constant attack since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022," said NPR. And rather than shrinking, the industry appears to be mending.  

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The country's major bookstore chains "have opened dozens of new stores in the past year alone" and independent bookstores are "thriving," the Ukrainian Book Institute (UBI) said to NPR. Knyharnia Ye, Ukraine's largest bookstore chain, currently has 57 stores and the "plan for 2024 is 43 more," said Forbes Ukraine. In all, there were 461 bookstores in Ukraine as of February 2024, according to the UBI. 

How is Ukraine's bookselling industry surviving?

It is partially a result of the war itself. With "all the power cuts, when there's no electricity or internet, books are even more popular. People read them by flashlight or candlelight and escape into another world," Artem Litvinets, the editor-in-chief of Ukrainian publishing house Vivat, said to NPR. Beyond this, Ukrainian works specifically have become more popular, as "since the war, there's this interest in everything Ukrainian, and that includes Ukrainian literature."

At Sens, Ukraine's largest bookstore in the capital, Kyiv, publishing companies "had stopped producing Russian language titles. All of the volumes on sale were in Ukrainian," said The Guardian. Immediately after Russia's invasion in February 2022, there was a "literary boom," as "locals were buying ­classical works including a mock-heroic version of the 'Aeneid,' written in Ukrainian by Ivan Kotliarevsky." Additionally popular during the war are "poets and artists from the 'executed renaissance,' a group of Ukrainian Soviet writers from the 1920s and 1930s," while others "sought out books on Ukrainian history and fantasy." 

There has also been assistance to the industry in the political arena; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in 2023 that the country was implementing a ban on the import of Russian-language books. "People want to live their normal lives. Books help them to chill a bit. We are not stopping culture right now. It continues," Oleksii Erinchak, the owner of Sens, said to The Guardian.

How is Russia targeting Ukraine's books? 

Despite the literary renaissance, Russian forces have been working to slow Ukraine's publishing industry. A May 23 attack on Kharkiv's Faktor Druk printing house "destroyed over 50,000 books and printing equipment. It also killed seven employees and injured 22," said The Kyiv Independent. In all, damages from the attack were reported to be $5.4 million. 

While Ukraine's books are still surviving, the "publishing industry has nonetheless suffered from the war and the destruction of Faktor Druk, accounting for 30% of Ukraine's printing market, will only worsen the situation," said The Kyiv Independent. The attack "will limit our development as a publishing house. Important books will not be published. New bookstores will not open," Vivat CEO Yulia Orlova said to the outlet. 

Faktor Druk was "not the first printing house to come under attack," as "just two months before, a missile destroyed the Hurov&K printing facility during another attack on Kharkiv," The Kyiv Independent added. Printing officials have claimed the attacks were "also an attempt to eradicate Ukrainian culture and damage the nation."