A section on the annexation of Crimea has been removed from the Russian edition of popular author Yuval Noah Hariri’s new self-help guide to living in a fast-changing world.
Hariri, an Israeli historian and philosopher, is known for the bestselling titles “Homo Deus” and “Sapiens.” In Hariri’s third work, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” a chapter on navigating the post-truth era opens with a discussion of the Kremlin’s denials that its troops had invaded Crimea in early 2014.
The same chapter in the book’s Russian-language version begins with U.S. President Donald Trump’s post-inauguration falsehoods and spats with the American news media — a segment which doesn’t appear in its original English version.
Hariri had consented to removing the mention of Crimea from his book’s Russian edition, he told Russian-language television. As he explained to the RTVi broadcaster, Hariri wanted the overall message of his work to reach as wide an audience as possible.
Prominent columnist Maxim Trudolyubov described the replacement as “not censorship, but an attempt to sell the book better.”
“I think it rather tells us something about the author and the publisher,” he was quoted as saying.
Russia’s Sindbad Publishers printed 10,000 copies of “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” in June.
In 2017, a Kremlin transcript replaced a German diplomat’s use of the word “annexation” for “Crimea becoming part of Russia.” His original words reappeared on the Kremlin website shortly following The Moscow Times’ coverage.
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