Pioneer Summer. Photo: Popcorn Books
Russian publisher Popcorn Books, which is known for its often daring choice of subject matter in a country with increasingly draconian laws about what can and cannot be considered literature, announced that it was ceasing operations on Tuesday.
“Popcorn Books is closing down. We are very grateful to everyone who has been with us over the past seven years: authors, partners and, of course, you, dear readers,” a statement shared on its Telegram channel read. “It was your support that helped us to work on regardless of circumstances, even when we barely had the strength”, it continued.
Founded in 2018, Popcorn Books focused on young adult titles, which led it to have repeated run-ins with the Russian authorities. The most notable of those concerned its decision to publish Pioneer Summer by Ukrainian-Russian duo Katerina Sylvanova and Yelena Malisova, a novel set in the final years of the Soviet Union about a same-sex relationship between two teenagers at a summer camp.
After Russia expanded its “LGBT propaganda” law in 2022, bookshops began removing the novel from their shelves, while Sylvanova and Malisova were forced to leave the country. In May, police in Moscow detained at least 10 publishing professionals, including Popcorn executive director Dmitry Protopopov, and charged them with organising an “extremist community” for publishing books “promoting LGBT propaganda”.
Though a representative from Popcorn’s parent company Eksmo denied that the publishing house had any connection to the “international LGBT movement”, which Russia deemed “extremist” in November 2023, three publishers were placed under house arrest, while Protopopov was added to the register of “terrorists and extremists”.
All forms of art have come under increasing pressure and scrutiny in Russia in recent years, as a plethora of censorship laws limiting freedom of expression on topics such as the war in Ukraine and LGBT issues has led to a widespread crackdown, including police raids on bookshops that sell titles effectively blacklisted for promoting “LGBT ideology”.
“Thank you for creating the story with us and not turning away, even when the story took a tragic turn,” the Popcorn statement concluded. “If at least one of our books remains on your shelves, in your memory or in your heart, none of this was in vain.”
