The Garage Museum removed “controversial” books and almanacs from its shelves

The bookstores of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art “Garage” have removed from sale the books of the Directio Libera publishing house and the Moloko Plus almanac. All of them are humanitarian studies in the field of sociology, cultural studies, gender theory and modern history of Russia. The museum said that they made such a decision due to the complaints of visitors, “taking into account the current times.”

The Directio Libera publishing house was told in the “Garage” that because of their books, “several unpleasant moments with the store’s visitors” occurred.

Sources in the publishing business told Doxa that the Moloko Plus almanac had already had problems such as the detention of participants or disruption of presentations, but that Directio Libera had not previously had any incidents. “At the moment, it is unclear whether this is pressure on “Garage” or an attempt to interfere with these projects, their authors or heroes (among them, for example, there are “foreign agents”). In fact, we do not know anything, except that there were threats” , – said the source.

Directio Libera called the refusal of “Garage” to sell their books “a wake-up call” and expressed the hope that this case would remain unique. “Unfortunately, in the current political realities, DL cannot rely on any platform. Each of our cooperation is a risk of vague prospects and lack of guarantees that attention to the platform will not result in consequences for us. We continue to remain independent, we do not abandon our convictions , we published and will publish books,” the publishing house said.

Pavel Nikulin, responsible secretary of Moloko Plus, told “Ostrozhno. Novosti” that he had never encountered similar cases before. “In our entire long history, we have never taken books and almanacs off the shelves,” he said. that “Garage” would not do this of its own free will. The fact that “Garage” sites face pressure is outrageous.”

• The countercultural almanac Moloko Plus has been published since 2015. Its authors describe it as “a hybrid of a scientific journal, a punk zine, a political pamphlet, and an art album.” The Directio Libera publishing house publishes literature on social sciences and journalism, mainly of the left-wing.