"One day this summer, the Ukrainian artist Stanislav Turina took two of his books to his garden near Kyiv. One was a volume of poems by Alexander Pushkin. But Turina a voracious reader, never without a couple of books in his backpack had no plans to pick it up again. The 19th-century Russian has acquired a troubling resonance in Ukraine since the 2022 full-scale invasion of the country."
"Turina knew he could not sell the book. You couldn't give it to a friend, you couldn't give it to a library, he said. So in his garden, Turina gently, experimentally, placed his volume of Pushkin on the bonfire. Feeding Pushkin to the flames was not some grandiose gesture of hate. It was an artist's private and exploratory act, he said. I'm afraid to burn books, to destroy them, he said."
Stanislav Turina took two books to his garden near Kyiv: a volume of Pushkin and a contemporary Russian poet's book. Pushkin has gained a troubling resonance in Ukraine since the 2022 full-scale invasion and is often used by invading forces as a symbol of Russianness. Numerous statues have been dismantled and many streets once named for Pushkin have been reverted or renamed. Turina felt unable to sell or donate his Pushkin volume and experimentally placed it on a bonfire to test his own emotional response. He described the act as private and exploratory and said he feared the destruction of books.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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