Publishing purges. Russian law enforcement arrests prominent book publishers in “extremism” raids

BBC Russian reports, citing three sources in the book market, that among those detained are Dmitry Protopopov, a manager connected with Popcorn Books and Individuum publishing houses, and Pavel Ivanov, a former sales director. Majority stakes at Popcorn Books and Individuum were acquired by Eksmo in 2023.

The detentions reportedly took place during the day, but lawyers were only able to contact their clients late in the evening. At least two of those detained are said to no longer be employed by the relevant companies.

Founded in 1991, Eksmo is Russia’s largest publishing house. In 2023 alone, Eksmo released 8,643 titles (comparable with HarperCollins’ 10,000 titles published annually) with a print run—together with sister publishing house AST—of 91 million copies.

While Eksmo itself is a major force in the Russian book market, the current investigation appears to centre on titles produced by a smaller publisher. RBC, a business news outlet, reports that the probe is connected to books from Popcorn Books, an independent press known for its LGBTQ+ inclusive young adult fiction. In 2023, Eksmo acquired 51% of Popcorn Books and lists its titles on its website. 

Speaking to RBC, Eksmo acknowledged this link but stated that their house “has no relation to LGBT propaganda.” While details about the nature of charges have not been made public, this comment, together with the mention of Popcorn Books, suggests that the extremism case is connected to the 2023 ban of a non-existent “international LGBT social movement” in Russia as an “extremist organisation”. The move, while lacking any legal clarity regarding what constitutes the “movement”, provided authorities with sweeping powers to prosecute people and groups for any LGBTQ+ advocacy or association.

Popcorn Books, a relatively modest-scale publishing enterprise, specialised in queer young adult fiction, both original Russian and translated. It became a prominent target for Russian authorities well before the “international LGBT social movement” ban. Its 2021 publication of “Summer in a Pioneer Tie” by Kateryna Sylvanova and Elena Malisova caused an uproar while widely exceeding expectations: a novel depicting a romance between two young teen boys at a Soviet-era youth camp became bestseller and a cultural touchstone became an eyesore to leadership promoting “traditional values”. Its English translation, “Pioneer Summer” will be released in June by ABRAMS. 

The success drew the ire of conservative politicians. In early 2023, an administrative case for “LGBT propaganda”—under a separate, less severe statute—was initiated against Popcorn Books. This followed a public denunciation by Alexander Khinshtein, a State Duma deputy. The authors of “Summer in a Pioneer Tie” were subsequently designated “foreign agents” in February 2023. This label was also applied in October 2022 to Alexey Dokuchaev, then director of both Popcorn Books and Individuum.

Anonymous Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, known for its purported leaks from security services, claimed the investigation is instead tied to books from Individuum, a prominent young non-fiction publishing house in which Eksmo acquired a 51% stake in August 2023. An unnamed source told the channel that “the catalyst for initiating the criminal case was specifically the distribution of little-known books with specific content, not bestsellers.” 

In the spring, a wave of raids swept across Russia’s independent bookstores. In Moscow, the highly-respected Falanster bookstore and its co-founder, Boris Kupriyanov, are now facing administrative charges over alleged participation in the activities of an “undesirable organisation”. It followed a mid-March inspection at Falanster, where works by thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, and Susan Sontag were confiscated, and an earlier forced cancellation in February of a presentation for Kirill Medvedev's book, “Antifascism for Everyone,” after denunciations by a pro-government activist group.

Simultaneously, Podpisnye Izdaniya store in St. Petersburg has been targeted with an “LGBT propaganda” administrative protocol over the sales of Olivia Laing’s “Everybody: A Book About Freedom” and Susan Sontag’s “On Women” and “Against Interpretation”; an official expert assessment identified “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” within these texts, as well as “ideas of the banned LGBT movement”.