A Russian almanac stole Iya Kiva’s poems, calling her a resident of “Russia and the regions”

The Russian pro-government almanac «Русскоязичная Всєлєнная» (Russian-speaking Universe), which operates in Estonia, illegally published poems by Ukrainian poet Iya Kiva in the section “Russia and the Regions”. The poet reported this on her Facebook page.

According to Kiva, the Russian-speaking Universe almanac is an openly propagandistic affair, and it is difficult for the poet to fully understand its purpose.

The Almanac recognizes the temporarily occupied Crimea and Donetsk as part of the Russian Federation, the subjectivity of the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, uses the terms “Pribaltic” instead of the Baltic countries, “Belarussia” instead of “Belarus”, etc.

“I do not live and have never lived on the territory of the Russian Federation, let alone its ‘regions’, whatever that means, I did not study in Russia and have no relatives there with whom I would keep in touch,” emphasizes Iya Kiva.

She was informed about the theft of the texts by a Russian-speaking author from Estonia. “She knows that I have nothing to do with either good or bad Russians after February 24 and I’m not going to do anything after February 24. But she reacted to the fact that in this online edition Crimea and Donetsk are ‘regions of Russia’,” the poet told Chytomo.

Iya Kiva is currently planning to file a lawsuit against the almanac for copyright infringement.

“I don’t know if I have enough resources for all this and if other Ukrainian authors support this idea, because joint lawsuits work better, but I will definitely consult with Ukrainian and Estonian lawyers and human rights activists to weigh the feasibility and what the cost of the lawsuit might be, the damage, time and resources that will have to be spent. Because this almanac is openly propagandistic, and its editor-in-chief, Alexei Ratseyevich, is an Estonian citizen, I would like to somehow draw the attention of the Estonian authorities to this,” Kiva said.

Ukrainian writers Pavlo Goldin and Elina Sventsytska also reported the theft of their texts.

(I’m another author who was forgotten to be asked for permission to publish! My hometown of Donetsk is a region of Ukraine. I demand to immediately remove my works from this publication. @VSI how about a joint action? there are a lot of us!)

In addition, the works of numerous Russian and Belarusian poets were used in the almanac without the authors’ knowledge.

You can contact the authors of the almanac by e-mail at russianalbion@narod.ru.

Local newspaper brands were reportedly stolen and misappropriated on a massive scale in the temporarily occupied territories: similar cases were reported in Mariupol, Melitopol, Kherson, Donetsk and Kherson region.

Read also: Great russian authors are from Ukraine

The main collage: Ukrainska Pravda