Loading index package with memoir

Question

The standard makeidx package writes ind/idx in LaTeX's internal representation file. The index package writes in utf-8 and works fine with the book, article, report standard classes. But when trying to use the index package with memoir, the output is still like with the makeidx package. Can the makeidx emulation can be turned off or overridden with the index package with memoir?

Here is a minimal example:

\documentclass[a4paper,9pt]{memoir}
\usepackage[T1,T2A]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english,russian]{babel}
\usepackage{index}
\makeindex
\begin{document}
\section{Indexing something}
\index{здравствуйте}здравствуйте
\printindex
\end{document} 

The idx file content is

\indexentry{\IeC {\cyrz }\IeC {\cyrd }\IeC {\cyrr }\IeC {\cyra }\IeC {\cyrv }\IeC {\cyrs  }
\IeC {\cyrt }\IeC {\cyrv }\IeC {\cyru }\IeC {\cyrishrt }\IeC {\cyrt }\IeC {\cyre }}{1}

Now change memoir to book and rebuild index and document again. Now the idx file content is

\indexentry {здравствуйте}{1}

as expected.

Answer 1

By default, memoir will prevent any packages (including index) from being loaded if their functionality is emulated by the class. To override this, one must add \DisemulatePackage{index} before \usepackage{index}. The following MWE produces the "expected" .idx file content. (\renewindex is used to correct the index name.)

\documentclass[a4paper,9pt]{memoir}
\usepackage[T1,T2A]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english,russian]{babel}
\DisemulatePackage{index}
\usepackage{index}
\makeindex
\renewindex{default}{idx}{ind}{Предметный указатель}
\begin{document}
\section{Indexing something}
\index{здравствуйте}здравствуйте
\printindex
\end{document}