Last week, in a powerful address at the International Publishers Association Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk emphasized the critical role of documentation and publishing in preserving truth and human dignity during times of conflict. Matviichuk, who leads the Centre for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, has spent the past decade documenting Russian war crimes since shortly after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, and has ramped up her efforts since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

“We are not just documenting violations of Geneva Conventions,” Matviichuk told the Congress, highlighting the fundamental purpose behind her organization's work. “We are returning people their names. Because people are not numbers, and the life of each person matters.”

The human rights lawyer drew particular attention to Russia's systematic attacks on Ukrainian cultural identity, including attacks on publishing. "In May this year, Russia deliberately targeted the Factor Druk printing plent in Kharkiv,” Matviichuk reported. “It was one of the main publishing institutions in the country. More than 50,000 books were destroyed. Seven people were killed.”

Matviichuk pointed to the fate of children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who disappeared during the Russian occupation and was later found in a mass grave. "The murder of children's writers is not coincidental," she said. "Russia is trying hard to erase Ukrainian identity. They assert there is no Ukrainian nation, there is no Ukrainian land, there is no Ukrainian culture."

Vakulenko’s secret wartime diary was unearthed by another writer, Victoria Amelina, who was a friend Matviichuk, and killed in an missile attack last year. Both Valkulenko and Amelina were honored by the IPA with Prix Voltaire awards from the IPA, in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Russia’s systematic destruction of cultural heritage, including literature, Matviichuk argued, forms part of a broader strategy of erasure. This effort has extended, she explained, to the kidnapping of children who were then put in Russian reeducation camps, as was reported early in the war. “They told Ukrainian children that they are not Ukrainian,” she said, “that they are Russian children, that their parents refused them.”

The work of Matviichuk’s organization, which earned it the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, extends beyond mere documentation and into the active preservation of a cultural identity under threat, she explained, emphasizing that to write and publish Ukrainian books has become "an act of resistance" in itself. "Even when we have no tools, we always have our own words and our own position," she said. "And eventually, it is not so futile."

Georgia is also under threat

Ukraine, it must be noted, is not the only country threatened by Russia’s imperialist efforts—or that has been at war with Russia in recent memory. Georgia too has had portions of its land subsumed by Russian, when, following a five-day war in the fall of 2008, the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, representing 20% of percent of Georgian territory, were occupied by Russia.

That year, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which followed shortly after the brief war, Georgian publishers—whose stand was adjacent to that of Russia—staged a protest throughout the fair. The protest included speeches by prominent writers from both Georgia and abroad as well as a memorable act of defiance: some publishers surreptitiously pulled books from the Russian stand and turned the pages into paper airplanes, with which they “bombed” the Russian stand throughout the fair.

The week prior to the IPA’s Congress in Guadalajara had seen an escalating crisis in Georgia, where citizens have taken to the streets of the capital Tbilisi to protest and contest the election of a pro-Russian government. The protests, which echo the 2014 Maidan protests in Kyiv, have led to mass arrests and violence against civilians.

Gvantsa Jobava, the incoming president of the International Publishers Association, took to the stage in Guadalajara to talk about the protests unfolding in her home country. "Every day is becoming harder and harder,” she said. “My heart is back to my country because I feel that I should be standing next to my authors, my colleagues, and my people."

Jobava, who currently serves as VP of the IPA and heads international affairs at Georgia's Intelekti Publishing, described a deteriorating situation where "300 people are in jail right now and they are poisoned with gas and sprayed in the cold weather with water cannons." She reported that police are now entering homes, adding: "no one is safe anymore."

Jobava, who established Georgia's Banned Books Week, has long been an advocate of the freedom to publish. Highlighting how government actions have historically undermined publishing freedom in Georgia, she cited a 2013 incident in which the education ministry circumvented normal textbook selection processes and violated copyright laws, calling it "the strongest example of copyright infringement and giving the society, from the state, example that copyright just means nothing."

As she prepares to assume the IPA presidency on January 1, Jobava acknowledged her conflicted position. "As incoming president, I need to be safe to be able to serve you,” she said. “But on the other hand, I'm thinking that if I'm not capable to speak out for my authors, for myself, for my country, how will I be able to speak out for so many members who are facing so many challenges and difficulties?"

Jobava then called on democratic nations to take action. "I want you to fight for democracy," she said. "That's the only thing I'm asking you, especially those countries who are strong enough, who are still capable to do that."Jobava added, by way of warning: “We feel that we are European countries. We are people with European values. If Ukraine falls, if Georgia falls, if some other countries like us fall... your democracies will fall as well."