The book is Hostia proty nochi, a Ukrainian translation of The overnight guest by US author Heather Gudenkauf. The book had not yet had its hardback cover added when the printing house was bombed. The damage it sustained is largely from water, as Kharkiv firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control. Opening the book would damage it further, so Cambridge has bought an undamaged copy (along with the English original) so that readers can use that for accessing the text, with the damaged copy being specifically reserved in the Library as an object – an artefact of the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine. 

The gift was kindly arranged by the Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv with the assistance of ICOM UK (the UK national branch of the International Council of Museums). It came with the blessing of the book’s publisher, Vivat. Another book that was damaged in the same attack has been gifted to the Imperial War Museum in London.   

Representatives of the Ukrainian Institute and ICOM UK explained that the damaged book was offered to Cambridge University Library because of connections initially forged through a decolonisation seminar which took place shortly after the February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The seminar – with Tetyana Filevska, Creative Director of the Ukrainian Institute, and Mel Bach, Slavonic Specialist at Cambridge University Library, moderated by Maria Blyzinsky of ICOM UK – focused on ways in which curators in museums and libraries could identify and start to address Russian colonial legacies in their collections especially in terms of Ukrainian holdings. 

The University of Cambridge is a major UK centre for the study of Ukraine and Ukrainian and the city is also home to a large Ukrainian population, including refugees of the war.  Cambridge University Library’s Ukrainian holdings have grown hugely since the University’s Cambridge Ukrainian Studies programme was launched in 2008, and the Library’s Slavonic team have written over 100 blog posts celebrating its ever-expanding Ukrainian collections since the February 2022 full-scale invasion. Among these is one from May last year, acknowledging the terrible attack on the printing house in Kharkiv. This year, one year on, a new blog post will commemorate the attack and celebrate the damaged book, which gives readers and especially students the chance to understand the Ukrainian experience of war through a real product of its destruction. 

Conservators at the Library are working with external specialists to house the damaged book as carefully as possible so that it can be clearly visible but protected. Additionally, the Library’s Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab has taken images of the book that will in time be uploaded to Cambridge Digital Library, so that people around the world can interact with it. 

“We are so grateful for this gift. The book provides very moving, real testimony to the impact of the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine, and will be a valued addition to our collections particularly for teaching,” Bach said. “I would like to thank the Ukrainian Institute and ICOM UK for selecting Cambridge as the destination for the book and to thank its publisher, Vivat, and author, Heather Gudenkauf, for their support for its digitisation.” 

Maria Blyzinsky, Co-chair of ICOM UK, said, “Sadly, international conflicts are all too common, with roots that can often be traced to legacies of colonialism and exploitation. It is evident that the control of heritage – as seen in the destruction of museums, libraries, archives and other centres of culture and learning – is a powerful tool for subjugating peoples and rewriting their histories. It has been an honour for ICOM UK to facilitate this gift which will act as a testament to all those who lose their lives in the fight to preserve memory and culture.”