Publishers should fight censorship 'whenever they get the chance', says Beevor

Publishers should be fighting censorship "whenever they get the chance", Sir Antony Beevor has said, while observing that "more and more" attempts are being made by governments to "rewrite history".

He was speaking to The Bookseller following the ban in Ukraine last week of his 1998 award-winning bestseller Stalingrad (Penguin). His account of the second world war battle was barred for import in the country alongside 24 other books, mostly by Russian authors, including titles by Boris Akunin and Boris Sokolov, by an organisation called the "expert council" set up to censor "anti-Ukrainian" books. 

The decision to ban Stalingrad' was made particularly because it contains passages documenting the massacre of Jewish children by Ukrainian militia at the order of the SS. The head of State TV and Radio Broadcasting's licensing and distribution-control department, Serhiy Oliyinyk, alleges the account is based on material from the Soviet secret police which hasn't been proven. However, Beevor has refuted the claim, calling it "absolute rubbish". The author said in both the English and Russian editions of the book, it was "quite clear" that his sources were "thoroughly reliable German sources; not Soviet sources". He said his information was based on a book by an anti-Nazi German officer, Helmuth Groscurth, backed up by eye-witness accounts.

The author has insisted the Stalingrad's ban in the Ukraine was  "an open and shut case" of censorship deserving of an apology, and argued that the authorities scored "a tremendous own goal" by misjudging the mood in Ukraine. "[Oliyinyk] has made a tremendous own goal. Many people in Ukraine are outraged too that they should start banning books," he said. "What's so ridiculous is there is Ukraine trying to pretend they're not like the Russians, and then they go ahead and censor books: not just mine but Boris Akunin who is well known, not just there but in this country."

With the Ukraine Human Rights Commission also demanding that the ban be lifted, Beevor has said he is "pretty confident" the authorities will back down because their "proposterous" position is "completely unsustainable". The Canadian foreign minister and the British Embassy in Kiev have also been weighed in on Beevor's behalf.

Penguin, which publishes the book in the UK, is being "completely supportive", Beevor said. "Any publisher would be appalled at the idea of books being banned and censored in this particular way. Even if what I was saying was inaccurate, there should be a debate rather than censorship."

Beevor went on to say the "rewriting of history" is becoming increasingly common and, in the face of censorship, it should not only be left to politicians to speak up.

"What's worrying is it's linked to the conflict in Ukraine and Russia and the Ukrainians are very sensitive indeed to anything implying they behaved badly in the war ... One of the great duties of historians has got to be to fight against generalisations and sweeping judgements about collective groups or whole populations.

"The only way one can deal with this is to protest very loudly indeed. No state should be allowed to interfere in the writing of history, but I'm afraid we are seeing more and more of rewriting of history and not just by dictatorships. Occassionally we see rewriting of history by democracies too. This is really the duty of academics and historians, to fight it and to stop this use of 'history' as a form of patriotism or to support a particular political part ... History should not be dealt with through legislation in my view."

Beevor continued: "Publishers should certainly be fighting it whenever they get the chance, as do human rights groups. I don't think it should be entirely something for politicians.

"I'm afraid it's going to be a struggle for some time but one certainly hopes politicians will fight for openness in this particular way and will fight censorship as much as they possibly can."

Stalingrad has sold 459,932 hardback copies for £5.86m, and 346,983 paperback editions. It has won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature.

Military historian Beevor has also published Berlin-The Downfall 1945 (Penguin) and The Second World War (W&N) , among other titles. In May this year he will release Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges 1944 (Viking).