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A university in Northern Russia has burned 53 textbooks associated with the Soros Foundation, George Soros’ NGO.

The organization was recently labeled a security threat by Russian several weeks ago. The books were related to a “Renewal of Humanitarian Education” program at the school, according to reports. CNBC has the scoop:

College libraries in the Russia’s northern republic of Komi were searched last month to find textbooks and manuals related to a project run by Soros’ foundation, the local Russian news site 7×7 reported on Wednesday, citing an official letter from the regional education ministry.

Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky has criticized the incident calling it “completely unacceptable,” The Moscow Times reports.

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I should have known better. When I received a mysterious email with a link to an unnamed video, I should have trashed the thing. It didn’t look like SPAM, but hackers are becoming more sophisticated these days and can transmit a virus quicker than a kindergarten class after a field trip to the consumption ward. Actually, I would have been lucky if it was just a virus. The link led to something far more insidious than that. It led to…

Well, let me start by reminding you that about a year ago I had a run-in with two of the most ruthless book critics on the circuit. You can read about it here. I have since recovered from the incident, but the video below has resurrected all those feelings: the fear, the shame, the hunger to eat a jar of peanut butter and a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. The only thing I have done in the last 17 hours is sit by a window, sighing and watching the rain trickle down the glass. After watching this, you may be tempted to the same:

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Toni Morrison's books have been challenged on a consistent basis. Hear what she has to say about censorship. According to an Associated Press article by Hillel Italie,

Morrison, 78, has long experience with censorship. Her novels "Beloved," "Song of Solomon" and "The Bluest Eye" have frequently been threatened with removal from library shelves — and sometimes pulled — because of sexual, racial or violent content.

Burn This Book is a collection of essays on censorship, edited by Toni Morrison and published in May 2009. Read a review at "Travels of a Bookworm" and check out the links, including one to an excerpt of Burn This Book.



Join us in reading banned and challenged books. The Banned Book Challenge continues until June 30. Set your own goal.

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Where they have burned books, they will end in burning humans.

— German Poet Heinrich Heine, 1820

The TribStar of Terre Haute, Indiana features Bruce's History Lessons which is about the Nazi book burnings. On May 10, 1933, the Nazi party in Germany held a nation-wide bonfire during which 25,000 books went up in flames. Anything considered "un-German in spirit" that did not line up with Germany's political and social goals was censored. The German Student Association developed an “Action Against the Un-German Spirit” campaign that saw student members of the Nazi Party participating in town by town book burnings. Censorship eventually began to be applied to more than books and included “un-German” music, paintings, photographs, plays, films, newspapers and magazines. were banned or censored, and then religious groups, cultural institutions and political parties.

As Bruce Kaufmann puts it so eloquently,

And finally, as Heinrich Heine predicted a century earlier, Jews and other “un-German” people (gypsies, Slavs, the mentally and physically handicapped) were themselves banned, censored, and — in the crematoriums at Auschwitz, Dachau and elsewhere — burned.

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I leave for Cuba in two days. It may be interesting to see what differences there are in our perception of "Freedom to Read." I will be in an academic setting, so I will try to ask questions about censorship and let you know what I have observed. From my understanding, there are librarians, then there are librarians in Cuba. Some adhere to the state's restrictions while others keep private libraries from which they lend prohibited books. For more information on Cuba, visit our friends at Freadom. Included on the site is a list of the top ten books burned in Cuba.

Check out our "Banned Book Challenge."

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In a press release dated January 23, 2007, authors and librarians are urging people to "Read a Burned Book."

Some of the most famous Cuban writers have joined with the head of Cuba’s major independent library group in endorsing a new “Read A Burned Book” campaign, aimed at getting high school and college students to read the books which Fidel Castro has ordered burned. An organization named Freadom has information and links on how you can support this campaign.

“Castro can destroy everything, except for books,” said legendary Cuban revolutionary and author, Carlos Franqui. “He may censor, ban or even burn them, but the ideas contained in books can never be destroyed.”

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