Paul Goble
Staunton, April 10 – Prior to Putin’s launch of his expanded war in Ukraine, the Russian government rarely sought to remove books from the shelves of booksellers; but since that time, it has forced sellers to remove “at least” 600 books with the number of bans peaking in 2024 but again on the rise, according to Vlad Gagin of The Insider portal.
In addition, he reports that more than 50 Russian writers have been declared “foreign agents,” that numerous publishers and bookdealers have been charged with administrative or criminal violations for books containing materials about LGBT+ subjects or drug use and that the siloviki have raided shops looking for “satanic” literature (theins.ru/obshestvo/291184).
Publishers sometimes publish books that they feel have such minimal amounts of materials the authorities find objectionable rather than cave immediately. Sometimes that strategy works, Gagin says; but sometimes the books are confiscated and the publishers are fined.
Large publishers are in a better position to pay fines and thus may take risks, but smaller houses are increasingly unwilling to take risks and therefore far quicker to reject for publication manuscripts that they fear may get them into trouble. That makes it difficult to predict what will be published by at least someone, a difficulty exacerbated by the confusion of court findings.
The situation is further complicated, Gagin continues, by the rise of a new generation of samizdat publishers who use printers at home; but so far, the number of copies and the kind of books disseminated in this way remains small. A far bigger impact is had by tamizdat, Russian-language books published abroad and then brought into Russia one way or another.
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