Oxford University Press (OUP) has declared itself “institutionally naive”, following the news that it falsely defined Crimea as an exclave of Russia, when it is quite obviously the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within the independent Ukraine.
Tightly masked members of the Oxford University Russian Society have been protesting outside the OUP office all week. Their chanting has caused several noise complaints, and it has been supposed they were chanting “CRIMEA IS OURS”, although the masks have caused problems of clarification. One masked protester commented, “Meh Moxmord mess mare mah munch mof mwats”.
The OUP office’s curtains have been drawn all week, and 15 academics who govern OUP have yet to be seen to leave the building. However, at midnight last night a referendum was called, and TheOxStew can exclusively reveal that OUP has unanimously called for Russian intervention, with 99.9 per cent of the vote.
The OUP Press Office commented, “Fuck. I didn’t think it would come to this. It was a simple mistake, and I never thought anyone in Ukraine or Russia would ever read it, let alone cause such fuss that I can’t even get home and make myself a cuppa.
“I’m desperately hoping that the results of the referendum will calm the protestors, and I’m looking forward to being contacted by our new Russian governor. I’m also hoping this new allegiance will open our arms to all that Russia has to offer. I’ve recently discovered a great upcoming Russian novelist, and am looking forward to the response of my event proposal for later this month: OUP feat. Dostoyevsky.”
Down by Park End, The OxStew found students in, to be quite frank, an absolute mess. A fresher studying Geography commented, “I wrote about OUP’s geography textbooks in my personal statement. This revelation has really shaken me up, and may affect my legitimacy as a student. Can we please just leave it I’d rather not talk about it, it’s really upsetting —”
A third year, wanting to remain anonymous, commented “I don’t know what the word ‘exclave’ means, I have never heard of Crimea, and I don’t actually give a shit, as long as I can still get stuff free on SOLO.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian embassy refused to comment, but did send The OxStew a leaflet advertising Ukraine’s University Press (UUP). They are set to release a new textbook, entitled ‘Geog 3.0’. UUP were reluctant to confirm the textbook’s content, but they did however refer us to the Oxford University Press Wikipedia page, where Ukrainians have flocked to express their disgust.
At the moment of printing, the Wiki description of OUP stands as “an exclave of Liverpool”. The OxStew can confirm that we are pretty sure that this is not in fact true, and that OUP is either part of Oxford or Russia.
