Campaign of stealing rare books by Russian classical authors grapples Europe

Between spring 2022 and winter 2023, nearly 170 rare books by Russian authors—worth an estimated €3 million—vanished from libraries across Europe.

Among them were 78 volumes, valued at around €900,000, stolen from the University of Warsaw Library, according to a report by Polish outlet TVP World.

The missing works included first editions by renowned Russian-language authors such as Alexander Pushkin, Ivan Krylov, Nikolai Gogol, and Mikhail Lermontov.

An international investigation—nicknamed the “Pushkin unit”—was launched to track down the culprits. This week, the Warsaw Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that one suspect has confessed.

During questioning in Lithuania this September, Mikhail Z., a Georgian citizen whose full name is withheld under Polish privacy laws, admitted to stealing all 78 books from the University of Warsaw between December 2022 and October 2023, said Piotr Antoni Skiba, spokesperson for the Prosecutor’s Office.

According to Skiba, Mikhail Z. acted “on behalf of a Russian citizen” who instructed him which titles to steal. The stolen originals were later sold at auctions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities.

Investigators say the suspect avoided early detection by replacing the stolen books with high-quality fakes. The thefts made headlines in late 2023. “It was like gouging out the crown jewels,” recalled Hieronim Grala, a former diplomat who helped the university assess the losses.

Founded in 1817, the University of Warsaw Library was created during a period of Russian rule over Poland. “Those books were given to Poland at very significant historical moments,” said Bartosz Jandy, Poland’s chief prosecutor leading the case, in an interview with The Guardian. “The fact that they are a testimony to Russian imperialism doesn’t mean they don’t belong to our heritage.”

It soon became clear that Warsaw was only one of several targets. Skiba said that Mikhail Z. helped form a Georgian-led gang specializing in the theft of 19th-century Russian-language books across Europe.

The suspect reportedly registered as a reader in national and university libraries across multiple capitals, including Prague and Vilnius. The Guardian described the operation as an “unprecedented grand tour of bibliophilic crime” spanning Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, and France.

Skiba added that authorities are still verifying the extent of Mikhail Z.’s cooperation with other suspects. Georgian law enforcement has since detained two more Georgian nationals accused of stealing five additional antique prints from the Warsaw University Library.

Searches in Georgia led to the recovery of several historical books now being examined to confirm whether they came from Warsaw. Efforts are ongoing to return the cultural property to Poland, but so far, none of the 170 missing works have been found.

“I don’t have any hope we will get them back in the near future,” Jandy told The Guardian. “That would need cooperation with Russia, and while we’re almost at war that’s impossible.”

By Nazrin Sadigova