GLASNOST DEFENSE FOUNDATION'S DIGEST No. 217 (February 14, 2005)

Ukraine bans literary publications mentioning politicians' names.

By Mark Agatov,
GDF staff correspondent in Ukraine and Autonomous Crimean Republic

The Ukrainian Civil Code which came into effect earlier this year imposes an actual ban on any literary description of today's developments in the republic.

Article 296.2 of the Code stipulates:

"Using an individual's name as a character of a literary or other written work shall only be permissible with such individual's consent, and in the event of his or her death - with the consent of his/her children or widow/widower, or, in their absence, with the consent of such individual's parents, brothers or sisters."

This means that heroes of the Orange Revolution will either be portrayed positively or not be portrayed at all. The authors will have to forget all about such genres as the historical novel, political detective story or memoirs.

Supposing such a law had been in effect in the Soviet Union, we would never have read novels or novellas about the Civil or Great Patriotic War, or about Stalin, Zhukov or Brezhnev. We would never have seen a single feature film depicting real facts or real heroes of the past.

True, there is one reservation (Section 7 of the said Article) allowing use of the initial letter of a person's family name in media stories and literary works. To be sure, this legal trick will make historical novels by Ukrainian authors far more thrilling and mysterious than those written by their Russian colleagues.