Moscow Orders ‘Destructive Literature’ Be Kept in Special Library Collections Most Russians Won’t be Allowed to See

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – The Lenin State Library in Moscow is setting up a special restricted access collection (in Russian, spetskran) to hold what officials call “destructive literature” that scholars and officials may need to see to do their work but that ordinary Russians will not have access, according to Zhanna Alekseyeva.

            The Russian deputy culture minister says other libraries will follow suit and will place books not on the approved list in such restricted collections (kommersant.ru/doc/8764633, echofm.online/news/minkult-vedyot-rabotu-po-sozdaniyu-zakrytogo-hranilishha-destruktivnoj-literatury and rbc.ru/society/25/06/2026/6a3cdc739a7947fd3cda0872).

            The push for such special collections began in June 2024 when the Duma passed on first reading a measure that would restrict access to writers classified as foreign agents and extremists. But the bill was never brought up for a second and third reading. Alekseyeva’s words suggest that may be about to change.

            In one respect, of course, this recrudescence of a notorious Soviet-era practice in fact represents a step forward. In December 2022, Novyye Izvestiya reported that officials had told librarians not just to make objectionable books inaccessible but to send them to be burned  (newizv.ru/news/culture/20-12-2022/to-li-sozhgut-to-li-spryachut-iz-bibliotek-moskvy-izymayut-knigi-znamenityh-avtorov).

              The image of book burning is so horrific given its echoes with the Hitler regime that it appears cooler heads around Putin blocked this from happening; and their restoration of this Soviet practice is thus less horrific that book burning even though it imposes similar restrictions on the rights and freedoms of the Russian population.