Anger on web after poster for classics series magnifies line from Fathers and Sons saying progress and principles are things ‘a Russian doesn’t need’

Penguin has been accused of provoking “anger and ethnic hatred” after running an unattributed quote from Ivan Turgenev’s classic novel Fathers and Sons as part of a poster campaign.

The ads, which have been posted in London tube stations, feature unattributed quotes from classics including Henry David Thoreau’s Walden above a Penguin logo. The line Penguin chose to feature from Turgenev’s 1862 novel runs: “Aristocracy, liberalism, progress, principles … Useless words! A Russian doesn’t need them!”

It drew an angry response on Facebook from the blogger Tanya Solovyeva, who told Penguin on the social networking site that “it is an absolute disgrace that a publishing house is resorting to such low, cheap propaganda, based on ethnic hatred between the nations … your message clearly provokes anger and ethnic hatred.”

Nina Byzantina (@NinaByzantina) London metro ad for Penguin's classic #Russia|n literature misquoting Turgenev. For propaganda. Compare to original. pic.twitter.com/cnq3erC2XT

A petition launched on Change.org says the quote is taken out of context, pointing to the longer version, which reads “Aristocracy, liberalism, progress, principles … what a lot of foreign … and useless words. A Russian would not want them as a gift.”

The Russian news site RT.com said the quote is spoken by the “outspoken nihilist” Yevgeny Bazarov, while Fathers and Sons publisher Melville House describes it as an “obscure” line, reflecting “the opinion of a single character, one of the narrator’s sons who belongs to the ‘nihilist’ movement, which by the 1860s had Russia’s radical youth in an uproar”.

“In that context, it powerfully expresses the feelings of a social movement that was sweeping Russia at the time it was written. But here, critics have found that context so glaringly absent that the ad seems to reflect a desire to benefit from – or worse, incite – anti-Russian sentiment in the UK,” Chad Felix of Melville House wrote on the publisher’s blog.

RT reported that Solovyeva’s post has been shared “hundreds of times”, with some commenters proposing “a thought experiment where a similar quote would substitute Russians for ‘Muslims’ – and wonder[ing] whether that ad campaign would still be allowed”. Others suggested “filing a complaint with UK regulators”.

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“Penguin Random House has intentionally cited the quote to take a true meaning out of context and have intentionally chosen NOT to include the author and the name of the book on their poster,” says the petition, which has been signed by more than 1,400 people, and which calls for the posters to be removed.



A Penguin spokesman said: “The Pocket Penguins series features 20 great works of literature which we believe are true classics and should be read the world over. Alongside Turgenev, there are books by Tolstoy, Gorky, Bulgakov, and it is testimony to the quality of Russian writers that they make up such a large proportion of the series. Our poster campaign is designed to intrigue people to find out more and introduce them to books we believe they will treasure. The campaign is intended as a celebration of these wonderful books.”

She added that the poster campaign was scheduled to run for two weeks from 23 May to mark the launch of a new series of Pocket Penguins, and should no longer be on display.

Not every Russian seeing the poster has taken offence. Echo of Moscow foreign correspondent Tonia Samsonova, who posted a photograph of the poster on social media to a huge response, said: “I didn’t expect such a reaction, but Russian state media are doing a big news story on it now.

“Whether you support Putin or not doesn’t matter – the response I have had shows people are not divided by their political views on this. Even people who admire Turgenev are offended by this poster. There are only 20 books in this campaign and four of them are Russian. I’ve said to people they should be proud.”

