Screenshop of Russia Post article. Fair use.

This article, in which publisher Vladimir Kharitonov looks at rising book censorship in Russia, describing the tools used to get rid of “bad” books and explaining how current practices differ from Soviet times, was originally published in Russia Post. Global Voices republished the article, shortened and edited for clarity, with permission from Russia Post. 

No censorship, but more and more banned books

In Russia, censorship is prohibited by the constitution. This does not in the least prevent books from being banned both de facto and de jure, however. In the past month — on the recommendation of the expert council of the Russian Book Union — the publishing house that published Vladimir Sorokin’s “Nasledie” (Heritage), as well as translations of “Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin and “A Home at the End of the World” by Michael Cunningham, took them off the shelves.

The books “The Song of Achilles” by Madeleine Miller and “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara were also pulled following a letter from the Prosecutor General and sent for “expert examination” by that expert council. Meanwhile, the biography “Pasolini: Dying for One’s Own Ideas” by Roberto Carnero went on sale with big chunks redacted.  All these books are suspected of spreading “LGBTQ+ propaganda.”

The law on the “prohibition of LGBTQ+ propaganda” provides for very strict penalties for legal entities — i.e., publishing houses — including hefty fines and a suspension of operations for an extended period.

At the end of 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court declared the nonexistent “international LGBTQ+ movement” an extremist organization, so now if “propaganda of extremist LGBTQ+ activities” is found in a book, the publisher risks not only a big financial hit but also criminal prosecution.

Publishers know very well how accusations of abetting extremism can end. The state tarred as an extremist Boris Akunin (the pseudonym of Grigory Chkhartishvili) — perhaps the most successful Russian writer of the last two decades, whose books have been printed in the tens of millions — and, to send a message, searched the editorial office of the Zakharov publishing house, one of those that published Akunin’s books. His books immediately disappeared from stores and even libraries.

Yet no Glavlit (as the censorship department was called during the USSR) was needed for this. The mechanism for banning books in modern Russia differs from the Soviet (or tsarist) one: now, the country does not have an institution where professional censors, following instructions and looking out for sedition, study manuscripts and stamp “Approved by Censors” on books deemed trustworthy.

The current censorship machine has been built over the past few decades, and not only for the book industry, but for the entire political space. It consists of several parts, two of which are organic to any autocratic regime: servile courts, which do not represent an independent branch of government, and a servile law enforcement apparatus, which exists mainly to produce reports on uncovered crimes.

Both institutions embody bureaucracy, which must constantly justify the necessity of its existence. Law enforcement officers regularly uncover crimes (if there are none, they are created, such as, for example, membership in the “international LGBTQ+ movement”), while the courts invariably convict all the accused, because, otherwise, law enforcement officers or the judges themselves might be suspected of incompetence.

The third component of the censorship machine is a set of legislative prohibitions, not directly related to books, that have accumulated historically, as well as their interpretation in practice.

None of the prohibitions provide for censorship; rather, they prohibit one activity or another, with the result, however, being censorship. Moreover, each such prohibition is formulated deliberately vaguely and allows for the broadest possible interpretation.

How does it work?

The Russian state tested its censorship machine on the issue that causes the most moral panic and the least resistance among the public: drugs. At the beginning of the 2000s, on the basis of old, Soviet legislation on drug control, several books by the publishing houses Ultra.Kultura and Factoria were banned: “Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine” by Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar (YaleUniversity Press), “Inside Clubbing” by Phil Jackson (Berg Publishers) and “Apocalypse Culture” edited by Adam Parfrey (Feral House).

After this, books on drug policy and the anthropology of drugs were practically never published in Russia. Self-censorship works well when it is accompanied by tangible financial losses — by court decision, the books were not only banned, but the remaining copies held in the printing house’s warehouse were also destroyed.

There is no law in Russia prohibiting criticism of the authorities, but there is a 2002 law on “extremist activities” — essentially the first censorship norm of the Putin regime. It prohibits “insulting” government officials. Likewise, criticism of the police is not banned, but the state has made it a crime to incite “hatred toward a social group,” which may include police officers.

The state did not prohibit studying the history of World War II, but it did prohibit “comparing” the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Publishing houses duly began to take out entire chapters from books on the history of Russia in the 20th century (this, for example, happened to the book “Unmodern Country” by Vladislav Inozemtsev — in the electronic version of the book this chapter was removed, with the above legislation cited as the reason).

Another ban concerns “disrespect shown toward those involved in the defense of the country,” as well as “insulting the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland,” and “degrading the honor and dignity” of veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

Censorship is unconstitutional, but it is not needed if self-censorship takes its place.

Updating censorship methods

In 2024, the censorship arsenal was replenished with new tools. The state still does not explicitly ban homosexuality, but equates any sign of queerness to “extremism,” like wearing rainbow earrings. Books are frequent victims of this vogue censorship practice.

Russian ultra-conservatives have largely copied this agenda from their right-wing-Republican American mentors. However, unlike the latter, the former face virtually no obstacles in the form of liberal legislation, an independent judiciary, or an active civil society.

Unlike tsarist and Soviet times, preventive censorship is not on the menu today. Instead, the state keeps publishers on their toes, encouraging self-censorship.

To do this, the state has feedback at its disposal — it gets “signals” from members of the public, i.e., friendly informants and state-affiliated pranksters and activists. These “signals” lead to cases, expert examinations and the right decisions by courts.  It was denunciations — formal and informal — that set off the biggest recent censorship scandals, with books by the most popular authors, such as Dmitri Bykov, Boris Akunin, Vladimir Sorokin and others, being taken off the shelves.