Europa Radicale is launching a petition calling for Ukraine to be the guest country at the 2027 Turin Book Fair: this is the right response to Russia’s systematic destruction of Ukrainian printing houses, libraries and books.

There is another war in Ukraine – one that is inseparable from the first – which targets books and, with them, a nation’s very ability to identify with its independence and tell its story to the world. Today, just as in Taras Shevchenko’s time, Russia is targeting the Ukrainian language in an attempt to suppress it and undermine Kyiv’s national identity.

The attack on Ukrainian publishing has deep historical roots. For centuries, the authorities of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union restricted the public use of the Ukrainian language and hindered the circulation of works in Ukrainian. The aim was political rather than linguistic: to portray Ukrainian as a dialect subordinate to Russian, to deny the autonomy of a literary tradition, and to assert the idea of a single imperialist cultural space.

Ukraine in Turin

The appeal launched by Europa Radicale, calling for Ukraine to be invited as a guest country to the next edition of the Turin International Book Fair, deserves everyone’s support. This decision recognises Ukraine’s role in Europe’s resistance to Russian aggression and, at the same time, showcases the work of Ukrainian writers, translators, publishers, booksellers and readers who continue to keep culture alive amidst the bombings.

The Europa Radicale initiative reminds us that, over more than four years of large-scale invasion, Russia has targeted the entire Ukrainian book industry: publishing houses, printing works, warehouses, bookshops, libraries, archives and book fairs. Inviting Ukraine to Turin means supporting it on an international stage; its literature is still far too little translated into Italian, yet it is making great strides in our country.

The bombing of Ukraine’s publishing industry has immediate consequences: lost print runs, destroyed machinery, workers put at risk; schoolbooks are among the hardest hit and are thus taken away from pupils, whilst bookshops and libraries are deprived of their role as civic institutions. In Ukraine, the library is no longer the safe haven we imagine it to be in Europe.

A criminal strategy that must be countered with democracy

Between July and August 2026, 13 million Ukrainian books were destroyed, according to the Ukrainian Publishers’ Union. On this scale, we are not talking about collateral damage; these attacks are part of a Russian strategy.

In this context, Ukraine’s presence at the Turin Book Fair could help raise awareness of both contemporary and classic authors, whilst also bringing to the fore the often-overlooked figures of the publishing resistance: those who print, sell and translate books in a country that the war would like to reduce to a blank page.

Europa Radicale emphasises this point: Ukrainian publishers and authors are not merely a cultural sector in need of support, but a testament to a society that refuses to be subjugated.

Italy and Turin can respond using the tools of a cultural democracy: when a printing house is targeted whilst producing school textbooks or a library is shut down, it is the cultural continuity of a community that is under attack.

Having Ukraine as a guest at the Book Fair would be a European choice. It would be a way of saying that its language, its literature and its right to tell its own story are not merely a side issue of the war, but an essential part of the struggle for independence in Ukraine.

The appeal by Europa Radicale can be signed on the movement’s website.

Please sign, because every Ukrainian book that is printed is a response to those who would like to use the destruction of culture as proof that a people never existed.