Ukraine's parliament on Sunday approved two laws imposing severe restrictions on the circulation of Russian books and music, as Kyiv seeks to smash what remains of many cultural ties between the two countries in the wake of Russia's invasion.
One of the laws forbids the printing of books written by Russian writers unless the writer gives up his Russian passport and obtains Ukrainian citizenship.
The ban will only apply to those who obtained Russian citizenship after the collapse of Soviet rule in 1991.
The same law would also ban the commercial import of printed books into Russia, Belarus and the occupied Ukrainian territories, while importing books written in Russian from any other country would require a special permit.
Another law would ban the playing of music composed by musicians who held Russian citizenship after 1991 in the media and public transport, while increasing Ukrainian-speaking content and local music on television and radio broadcasts.
Both laws require the signature of President Volodymyr Zelensky to take effect, but there is no indication that he opposes them.
Both received broad support from all currents in the Verkhovna Rada, including deputies who were seen by the media and civil society as supporters of the Kremlin.
Change the names of the features
A few weeks ago, extensive campaigns were launched to change the names of streets and landmarks associated with Russia or its ally Belarus, in a move reminiscent of similar campaigns since 2014. Previous campaigns targeted everything related to Russian-Ukrainian relations within the framework of the common Soviet policy and past, from statues, monuments, addresses and names glorifying the Bolshevik Revolution and communist symbols.
As for today's campaigns, they target hundreds of sites, including all fields and other scientific, cultural and artistic symbols, and everything that refers to the phrase "peoples' friendship" spread in all cities, according to a previous report by Al-Jazeera Net.
For example, metro stations in Kyiv bear the names of "Minsk" (which will turn into "Warsaw" according to one suggestion), as well as "Friendship of Peoples" and the literary "Leo Tolstoy" and "Heroes of the Battle of Dnipro" during World War II, and streets in Kyiv and hundreds of other cities bear the names of "Moscow", the musician Tchaikovsky, the writer Pushkin, the literary thinker Dostoevsky, and many others.
In a previous interview with Al Jazeera Net, Professor Solomiya Bok, a professor of languages at the Academy of "Culture and Lifestyle" in Lviv, said, "Our duty is to honor the steadfast and supportive cities, and our heroes who died in the battles. There will no longer be any mention of Moscow on the map and Ukrainian paintings, such as the names of bridges and neighborhoods. and squares, etc., but rather to the heroes of Kherson, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and the cities of the Donbass region.”
"This does not detract from the status and influence of symbols of art, science and literature in Russia, but the priority today is for Ukrainian symbols and attitudes," the professor added.
Several cities are planning to organize events celebrating the names of their new landmarks after the end of the war, such as the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, which celebrates the seventh of May annually as "Lviv Day" and has recently changed the names of 30 streets in it.
Exclude Russian from the curriculum
The use of Russian is one of the most controversial and heated issues at the political level between Russia and Ukraine, as the latter refuses to be an official language, and Moscow sees in its prevention "a persecution of the rights of nationals and minorities."
Restrictions on the use of Russian were focused on the names of places, shops, government transactions, and others. These restrictions emerged and began after the events of the “Orange Revolution” in 2005, and were strengthened after the so-called “Freedom and Dignity Revolution” in 2014, to include the ban of Russian television channels and websites.
Lviv, western Ukraine (Getty Images)
These "restrictions" also include the imperative that Ukrainian be the only language in all state institutions and transactions, and essential in universities, schools and state kindergartens, and here may lie the "greater controversy".
In addition to the previous extensive campaigns, calls are being raised in Ukraine to cancel the Russian language course from schools by the beginning of the school year next September, so that it is not an additional foreign language in the approved curricula.
Apparently, these calls are met with great positivity in political and popular circles, which Prof. Bock explains by saying, "There is no limit to anger and hatred towards everything that is Russian today because of aggression. The adoption of Ukrainian as the only official language since 2014 has protected our identity and strengthened our unity, to the point that we have not witnessed Any separatist movement during this heaviest war."