— Do you have Russian books?
the children ask, ringing intercoms in the yards.
They collect waste paper for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and such children can be observed in different Ukrainian cities.
This means that the fight against Russian books has reached its final stage.
Children are raking Russian books into black bags.
The names of the authors - Turgenev, Bunin, Pushkin and even Dostoevsky - do not tell them anything, because in Ukraine, even before the special operation, Russian writers were almost removed from the school curriculum.
Somehow in the spring of 2022, I met teachers on the newly liberated territory - in Volnovakha.
Among them was a teacher of literature.
She said that according to the program, she was given only an hour and a half for Dostoevsky.
“But how to convey such a great writer to children in an hour and a half?”
she asked.
We were talking, standing at the school, destroyed by Ukrainian tanks.
The teacher said that she was happy when one student asked: “And Dostoevsky, who wrote about the man who stabbed the woman?”
“Well, at least I remember that…” she said.
There are big books, they are the pinnacle of the development of human civilization.
They educate a person.
Reading the same "Idiot", in which "a man stabbed a woman", a person penetrates into such secret places of the human soul that he involuntarily comprehends its logic and, without killing, turns away from murder.
Without betraying, begins to value loyalty.
Having not experienced suffering, he learns to sympathize.
The teacher of the former Ukrainian school spoke about this with pleasure in Russian, which in recent years under Ukraine was forbidden to speak Russian with students.
Yes, Russian writers have created a powerful school for educating the soul.
Europeans continue to study there as well.
Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were published in European languages in incredible quantities.
At least until SVO.
And for Ukrainian, Russian-speaking children from birth, this school is the most organic both genetically and mentally.
That is why Russian writers have become the first target in Ukraine.
After all, the war is for souls, and Russian writers are invincible in it.
That is why a large Russian book must be taken from the darkest shelf and removed.
As part of the fight against Russian at enterprises, Ukrainians must hand over everything to waste paper - detective stories, dime novels, translations of foreign authors into Russian.
But the calculation is that among them there will still be large books.
It is certainly not easy for an adult to give away his Dostoevsky: he studied him at school, that teacher and part of his soul, no matter what this adult now has against Russia.
And the child, who was allocated an hour and a half for Dostoevsky, will take this volume from the parent's shelf and easily give it back.
He is not yet able to realize what value he puts in the bag, at the same time receiving a powerful installation against the Russian book and books in general.
And no one knows whether he will be able to defeat this installation in the future or not.
Ukrainian schools and gymnasiums regularly hold actions against Russian books under the slogan “This is written by enemies.
Hand over the Russian book, help the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
For example, in Krivoy Rog at the end of last year, schools and gymnasiums collected 10,580 kg of Russian books for processing.
The children carried them out of the house - they got them from the dark shelves.
But the books in the houses ended, and the excitement to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not pass, and the children went from house to house.
The fight for children's souls has reached its final act.
And here comes the evil one.
His presence is evidenced at least by the cunning with which the crime against children is committed - by the hands of the victims themselves, who do not know what they are doing.
However, all this has long been described by Russian classics.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.