A book authored by President Viktor Yanukovych has become mired in controversy amid accusations of plagiarism and a refusal by the presidential administration to clarify how the book was financed.
“Opportunity Ukraine” was published in August in Austria, aimed at potential investors in the country. Its publisher, Mandelbaum-Verlag, told the Kyiv Post that the book had been paid for by a publisher in Donetsk.
Mandelbaum Verlag refused to say how much it was paid. The Donetsk publisher, Noviy Svit, originally acknowledged involvement, before later backtracking and denying it, refusing to answer emailed questions. The presidential administration, meanwhile, said it would not answer any questions about the book as it was not paid for by state funds.
More explosively, the Ukrainska Pravda news website published two separate articles on the English-language book, reporting that it had discovered sections of the book that appeared to have been copied from a variety of authors’ works without attribution. The website reported that pro-Yanukovych journalist Viacheslav Pikhovshek and former leading state official Vasyl Volga, who is now facing criminal charges, were among those plagiarized.
If true, these allegations, strenuously denied by advisers to Yanukovych, would be a further embarrassment for a president not known for his literary and linguistic prowess. When he unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 2004, he was widely derided after misspelling his academic title as “proffessor.”
“Opportunity Ukraine” was published on Aug. 19 by the small Viennese publishing house Mandelbaum-Verlag. In an interview with the newspaper 2000, the firm’s director Michail Berlusceau said he had received an email asking to publish the book.
Berlusceau said the publication had been paid for by Donetsk-based publisher Noviy Svit. He added that the intermediary who arranged publication was Sergei Kichigin, editor of 2000. Kichigin furiously denied having anything to do with Noviy Svit when reached by telephone.
The book shines a light on the immense potential of Ukraine as a haven for investments and reviews the milestones of country’s social and economic development.
– Anna Derevyanko, executive director of the European Business Association.
The publishing costs will have been anything but cheap. The cost of translating, printing and editing the print run of 50,000 hardback books retailing at 19.90 euros would be between 100,000 and 120,000 euros, according to another Austrian printing house, Molden Verlag.
The book is a 320-page work aimed at foreign investors, according to the president’s press service.
It is “a book for foreigners that presents the image of Ukraine as a country full of opportunities,” said a spokeswoman for Yanukovych.
The president told the Obozrevatel news website on Aug. 18 that he had started the book while he was in opposition “and finished it just now while on (summer) holiday.”
The book still had to be translated, edited and printed by Aug. 19, raising questions as to how this was achieved if Yanukovych claimed to have finished it only in August. Molden Verlag told the Kyiv Post that the process of editing, translating and printing takes at least 11 to 13 weeks.
The accusations of plagiarism by Ukrainska Pravda and other publications further damaged the credibility of the project. The respected online news portal published several passages from the book that appeared to closely mirror texts from other authors.
Yanukovych’s office denied plagiarism. On Sept. 8, Obozrevatel reported that the book’s translator, Konstantin Vasilkevych, had been told to remove some attributions to make the text more readable and said he had taken the task “too seriously.”
Observers, meanwhile, said the book was unlikely to have a major impact on Ukraine’s poor image as a destination for investment, which can only be improved by significant legislative overhauls.
“The book shines a light on the immense potential of Ukraine as a haven for investments and reviews the milestones of country’s social and economic development,” said Anna Derevyanko, executive director of the European Business Association.
But more investors will only come “when they start sensing dramatic changes in the court system reform, VAT refund, transparent work of state bodies and, what is more important, presence of rule of law in Ukraine,” she added.
