Books Burned in Russian Attack on Kharkiv Become Art Installation at Frankfurt Book Fair

Twenty-two books damaged in a Russian attack on the Ranok publishing house’s logistics center in Kharkiv have been brought to Germany and incorporated into an art installation at Ukraine’s National Stand at the 2026 Frankfurt Book Fair.

The installation, titled Born/Burn Alive, was created by Ukrainian artist Valentyna Veremko and features books recovered after the August 1 attack on Ranok’s automated logistics center. It will be displayed throughout the Frankfurt Book Fair from October 7 to 11.

The books, with burned pages and traces of ash, are arranged in a vertical tower inside a glass display case. They are among the surviving copies from the attack, which, according to the press release, destroyed approximately 8 million books, including more than 620,000 school textbooks.

“These books were supposed to reach readers: schoolchildren, students, everyone who opens a page to learn something new. Instead, they went through fire,” said Viktor Kruglov, CEO of Ranok publishing house.

“Looking at this installation, I see four centuries of history contained in a single glass display case,” he added. “The red scale on the glass begins in 1626, when Ukrainian books were first burned. Since then, our language has been banned again and again, yet it remains alive because in every generation there were people who printed and read it.”

According to the press release, the idea for the project emerged in 2024 following a Russian strike on a printing house in Kharkiv, but she was only able to realize it this year.

Alongside the damaged books, the glass case features a vertical red timeline marking 12 dates spanning exactly 400 years, from 1626 to 2026. According to the project’s concept, the chronology connects the destruction of Ukrainian books during the current war with earlier restrictions on Ukrainian-language publishing and episodes of destruction of Ukrainian cultural institutions and literature.

Among the events highlighted are the 1720 decree banning the publication of new books in Ukrainian, the 1863 Valuev Circular  restricting Ukrainian-language educational and religious publications, and the 1876 Ems Ukaz  banning the publication and import of Ukrainian books.

The timeline also marks the Executed Renaissance in 1937, the removal of Ukrainian books from libraries in occupied territories beginning in 2014, and the destruction of libraries and book collections following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

More recent entries include the 2024 missile strike on Kharkiv’s Factor-Druk printing house, which the press release says destroyed 50,000 books, and the continued removal of Ukrainian books from occupied territories and destruction of libraries, printing houses, publishing companies, and warehouses in 2026.

The installation’s title reflects the same theme. In the word Born, the letter “o” is crossed out and replaced with a “u,” transforming Born Alive into Burn Alive. According to the artist’s concept, the change symbolizes Ukrainian culture and books that face physical destruction but continue to serve as evidence of what happened.

Two additional red marks above the 2026 entry have deliberately been left without dates, raising the question of whether 2026 will be the final point in the installation’s chronology.

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The installation also accompanies a discussion scheduled at Ukraine’s National Stand on October 7 titled “What Remains After an Attack? Ukrainian Publishers on Loss, Resilience, and Reconstruction,” featuring representatives of the Ranok and Zhorzh publishing houses.

The Frankfurt display follows further losses to Ukraine’s publishing sector in recent months. On August 28, more than 60,000 books were destroyed after a Russian drone struck a storage facility in the Kyiv region.

The strike hit a Nova Poshta sorting center, where a warehouse containing stock belonging to several major Ukrainian publishers and online booksellers was completely destroyed by fire.

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