Despite the threat of Russian missile and drone strikes, the Kyiv Book Arsenal literary festival attracted large crowds to the city's 18th-century military arsenal, with attendees buying books and socialising. Organisers noted a slightly quieter atmosphere than previous years, attributed partly to unseasonable weather and repeated warnings of an imminent attack.
The festival took place against a backdrop of heightened tension. The previous week, Russia had launched 60 missiles and 600 drones at Ukraine, mostly targeting the capital. Although a major attack did not come until after the festival ended on Monday night, the venue was evacuated several times on Friday. Deputy culture minister Bohdana Laiuk presented a prize for best foreign translation of a Ukrainian book to Nina Murray for her English version of Lesia Ukrainka's feminist verse drama Cassandra, with the announcement competing with an air-raid alert.
Military presence was conspicuous. The 8th Air Assault Force ran a popular coffee stand, distributing bookmarks urging donations, while army cultural units collected donated books in an ammunition box for the frontline, including Ukrainian translations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, alongside works by poet Halyna Kruk and frontline memoirist Pavlo "Pashtet" Belyanskiy.
The festival featured numerous soldier-writers, reflecting the war's long duration. Maksym Butkevych, a festival programmer and former prisoner of war, said he saw increasing numbers of books describing the experience of joining the army. He suggested the festival's tagline "bear your freedom", noting that reading was a symbol of freedom, something forbidden during his two years in captivity.
On stage, soldier-memoirists discussed the balance between freedom and responsibility. Writer Artur Dron', whose essay collection Hemingway Knows Nothing has become a bestseller, argued that self-censorship should not be a matter of forbidding oneself but of feeling responsibility for what one writes.
