15.04.15 www.thebookseller.com


FEATURE RUSSIA


19


I predict a Riot


Pussy Riot was just the beginning: Russia’s book trade may be the next target of the Putin regime, says publisher Irina Prokhorova. She tells Benedicte Page why Russia’s trade must stand up to censorship


T


he Russian publishing industry could find itself the target of public trials such as those undergone by the feminist


punk-rock protest group Pussy Riot, publisher Irina Prokhorova has warned. Prokhorova is head of the New Literary


Observer, Russia’s leading literary magazine and publishing house of the same name. It produces book series ranging from philosophy, to children’s literature, to academic journals, and it runs scholarly conferences. A literary critic and cultural historian whose honours include France’s National Order of the Legion of Honour, she is also the sister of billionaire


and politician Mikhail Prokhorov, who stood as an independent candidate in the 2012 Russian presidential election. With 22 years as a publisher behind her,


Prokhorova shrugs off the economic crisis sweeping across her country: “It’s my fourth crisis as a publisher and editor, so it’s nothing new. We had hyperinflation at the very beginning of my career and couldn’t plan beyond a month. We have to be creative and inventive [to cope]”.


But she is less sanguine about the “really disturbing” political climate in Russia. “Publishers are tough guys and girls, but we must be


prepared,” Prokhorova says. “At the moment, probably the book market is the last stand for independent thinking. Up to this period, practically everything has been free for publishers and distributors. But the situation is worsening and the authorities are seizing control of many sides of social life, and this will inevitably come to the book market. The problem with authoritarian rule is that it can never stop anywhere, it needs to control all sides. So this could produce quite a lot of havoc.”


THE MACHINE OF TERROR Whereas under the old Soviet regime censorship was institutionalised, with strict rules, Vladimir Putin’s regime operates in a more sophisticated way, Prokhorova says. “Nowadays there is no official institution. [The authorities] are doing it through the so-called ‘offended feelings’ of believers, or by creating scandals which create an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship.” She cites the notorious case of Pussy Riot (three band members were sentenced to


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