France: In April 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, two gentlemen arrived at the collection of the University of Tartu, in Estonia’s subsequent- largest metropolis. They informed the librarians that they were Ukrainians fleeing the war and that they were asked to read the second editions of Alexander Pushkin, the country’s national poet, and Nikolai Gogol’s works from the 19th century. In Russian, they claimed to be an uncle and nephew who were researching repression in czarist Russia but the nephew may apply for a scholarship to the US. Eager to help, the library obliged. They spent 10 weeks studying the textbooks.
Four months later, during a regular monthly products, the collection discovered that eight of the men’s books had vanished and had been replaced with reproductions of such great quality that only qualified eyes could recognize them. At first, it seemed like a one- off — poor chance at a provincial collection. It was n’t. Police are now looking into what they believe to be a sizable, organized collection of rare 19th-century Soviet books, most notably the first and early Pushkin books, stolen from European libraries.
Since 2022, more than 170 books valued at more than$ 2.6 million, according to Europol, have vanished from the National Library of Latvia in Riga, Vilnius University Library, the State Library of Berlin, the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the National Library of Finland in Helsinki, the National Library of France, university libraries in Paris and Lyon in France, and Geneva, and from the Czech Republic. The Polish collection at the University of Warsaw lost 78 ebooks overall.
The publications have a price range of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars each. In the majority of cases, the originals were swapped out for high-quality copies that mimicked perhaps their foxing, which is a sign of a superior operation. According to experts, it is exceptional for books of the same author to disappear from so many different nations in such a short time. Books have increased surveillance as a result of the incidents.
Officials have nine people been detained, according to Europol, in connection with the incidents. Four were detained in Georgia in late April, along with more than 150 publications. In Nov, European officers placed three defendants into prison. A second suspect is currently imprisoned in Lithuania, while another person has been found guilty in Estonia. The investigation is being coordinated across Europe by a specific French police unit dedicated to combating social theft. Authorities paint a picture of a network of associates, some blood relatives, travelling across Europe by bus with library cards occasionally under assumed names to scout unique Soviet books, make higher- quality copies, next swap them for the originals, case files reveal. The probe has been dubbed” Operation Pushkin”.
Pushkin, Gogol, and Mikhail Lermontov, the holy trio of Russian romantic authors, published in the lifetimes, have seen dramatic increases in the price of books over the past 20 years, in line with the rise in Russian collectors ‘ wealth. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Western sanctions placed in place forbid dealers selling to residents of Russia, creating a shadow market for rare books. Europol said that some of the stolen books had already been sold by auction houses in Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia, “effectively making them irrecoverable”.
