On May 31, 2026, the 14th International Book Arsenal Festival was over in the Mystetskyi Arsenal.
For the fourth time, Book Arsenal took place under the conditions of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Festival lasted 3.5 days and offered a rich program of events and a book fair. This year, the Festival program consisted of a record number of events since 2022, and the experts’ community emphasized the exceptionally high quality of the program.
The events of the Book Arsenal program took place simultaneously on several stages and venues: the Main Stage, Literary Stage, Outdoor Stage, Author Stage, Discussion Stage, Publishing Stage, in the Literary Garden, Lecture Hall, BookLab Space and Teens Space. In total, there were over 240 events—public discussions, lectures, presentations, author and poetry readings, talks, workshops, musical events, performances, autograph sessions. Because of the air raid alerts and danger, several events of the program were cancelled or shortened, while some others took place in shelters in an informal setting.
Despite the air raid alerts, which interrupted the Festival work, and numerous warnings of possible massive shelling during those days, the 14th Book Arsenal attracted 27 thousand visitors. Within the Festival, 111 large and 25 small publishing houses, the book.ua bookstore, as well as military and volunteer initiatives presented their stands. 12 graphic artists showcased their works at the Illustrators’ Fair. The space also featured 15 exhibition projects.
The Mala Gallery of the Mystetskyi Arsenal also served as a venue for Book Arsenal. During the Festival, the exhibition Photos to Remember. Yours, AН was presented by the Laboratory of Contemporary Art.
We are glad that we managed to accomplish almost everything we had planned. Air raid alerts, of course, caused us some trouble and interrupted a number of important events. But we are aware that these are the peculiarities of organizing the Festival during the war, and we are grateful to all our participants and visitors, who quickly and calmly went to shelters and, after the air siren was all clear, returned and continued the Festival over and over again. This ability to live and work despite everything is inspiring. We are incredibly grateful to all authors-military servicemen/servicewomen and their commanders who granted leave and allowed the authors to join Book Arsenal. We are delighted by so many publishers and booksellers who were with us all these days. We appreciate each of our thousands of guests, because all this is for them. And I would like to personally hug the entire team of the Mystetskyi Arsenal, everyone whose efforts have made this year’s Book Arsenal exactly what we love it to be—a place where you can clearly hear the heartbeat of Ukrainian culture
—Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, the Director General of the Mystetskyi Arsenal.
The Focus Theme of this year’s Festival was Bear Your Freedom. It was curated by Ukrainian journalist, human rights activist and war veteran Maksym Butkevych.
Writer, military serviceman and volunteer Andriy Lyubka curated the Writer’s Program. During the festival days, events were also held within the Main Program, Kids Program, Professional Program and Performative Program, as well as within the Special Programs of the Festival—Curatorial Program of Iryna Slavinska, Special Teens Program from the LitLab Teens and the Youth Council of the Mystetskyi Arsenal, Curatorial Program of Liuba Morozova and the Theatre of Veterans and Festival of First Plays Special Program.
The best confirmation of the relevance of the focus theme is when it stops being just the Festival slogan and becomes the language the visitors speak among themselves. This year, the metaphor Bear Your Freedom sounded exactly like that. Throughout the Festival, we witnessed over and over again how conversations about personal and collective freedom, about its price, about responsibility became meeting points for very different people. What is also particularly valuable is that today, the Festival naturally incorporates, both in its program and space, numerous military and veteran initiatives, charity fundraising and volunteer projects. And not as a separate program, but as part of our shared reality. Book Arsenal does not provide simple answers to complex issues of society, but creates a space for meetings and conversations that help us better understand our own experiences, maintain connections between people and give us a little more strength to live on and do what we have to
—Yuliia Kozlovets, the Director of Book Arsenal.
A special vector of Book Arsenal activity is the representation of military and charitable organizations at the Festival. Every year, we work together with them to ensure that their participation is organic, meaningful and efficient. We see that this approach gives results, as feedback indicates we rank among the top cultural events in terms of support for charitable fundraising. We are grateful to all our partners for their collaboration, and to our visitors for their care, trust, and steadfast support of the Ukrainian military
— Natalia Stanko, Programme Manager of the 14th Book Arsenal.
Over 230 guests participated in the events of the 14th Book Arsenal. Here, the voices of Ukrainian and foreign guests were heard, namely writers, translators, poets, philosophers, media professionals, publishers, educators, cultural studies scholars, artists, military servicemen and servicewomen, public and cultural figures from Ukraine, as well as from Poland, France, the USA, Canada, Germany, Moldova, Belgium, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and the United Kingdom.
Events featuring Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), philosopher and cultural studies scholar Slavoj Žižek (Slovenia), poet, writer and translator Serhiy Zhadan, who read his new texts, and writer and literary scholar Oksana Zabuzhko caused a special stir.
Traditionally, the Festival was attended by top officials of the state. On the first day, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska paid a visit. She replenished her own book collection and purchased books for the front line.
The Festival was also attended by Prime Minister of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko, Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy – Minister of Culture of Ukraine Tetyana Berezhna, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha, the 5th President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and other guests. The 3rd President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko was one of the participants in the big conversation Ukraine. The World of Trypillia: Discovering a Great History, which was held within the Main Program.
The traditional New Titles project featuring the latest publications was presented during the Festival. This project has been implemented at Book Arsenal in cooperation with the Chytomo media resource since 2015.
This year, the Book Arsenal Fellowship Program—the professional program within which eight foreign publishers, agents and rights managers from the Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Egypt, Georgia and Peru visited the Festival—took place for the third time. 115 B2B meetings involving 31 Ukrainian publishing houses and 5 literary and graphic agencies were held within the Festival.
In 2026, more than 150 volunteers joined the 14th Book Arsenal, assisting the Festival team and visitors.
The 15th Book Arsenal will take place on May 27-30, 2027.
Photos: Andrii Tsykota, Yevhenii Zavhorodnii, Valeriia Landar, Serhii Khandusenko, Anastasiia Baklazhko, Anastasiia Telikova, Office of the First Lady of Ukraine Press Service.
Suspilne Media became the general media partner of the 14th Book Arsenal. During all days of the festival, on-site studios of the Suspilne Culture TV channel, Radio Culture, journalists of the Suspilne Culture website, the Suspilne.Studio information project and the digital platform of Suspilne Media worked at the Book Arsenal location. They made live broadcasts, gave coverage from the Festival, prepared publications and invited the organizers and guests for studio interviews.
In 2026, media partners of the Festival were: Radio NV, NV, Hromadske Radio, Radio Khartia, 1+1 Media, Cases Media, Creative Practice, Liga.net, Hromadske, The Kyiv Independent, Megogo Books, Vchysia Media, Osvitoria, EdEra and ArtWizard
We express our gratitude to the partners who supported the Festival this year.
The 14th Book Arsenal was organized in cooperation with Art Arsenal Community NGO. The Festival was supported by the International Renaissance Foundation and the Mnozhyna Foundation.