Moscow Wants to Restore Something Like Soviet-Era Spetskhan System But Discovering that Doing So is Anything but Straightforward

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 4 – The Duma has passed on first reading a measure that will restore departments of special collections to which free public access is allowed in the libraries of Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine, a measure deputies say is needed because the collections were formed by Ukrainians before the return of the Russians and contain fascist materials.

            But a second measure, one that would extend the restoration of such special collections, known as spetskhrans in Soviet times, to libraries across the Russian Federation, while it has the support of the Russian government, is facing tougher sledding because of the complexities of the problems involved.

            And now, even according to both skeptics and at least some of its supporters, that measure is unlikely to be revised and then passed before the fall at the earliest, Profile journalist Mariya Rybakova reports (profile.ru/society/spechran-vozvrashhaetsya-kakie-knigi-v-bibliotekah-dadut-ne-vsem-1542691/).

            Opponents of the measure say that such special collections, which existed from the 1930s to 1990 in the USSR, can’t work now in the age of the Internet and that banning books from public access will be counterproductive in that it will attract more readers to them online who will want to see what such “forbidden fruit” really tastes like.

            But supporters of the measure also have problems. Among the most prominent of these is whether all writings by someone identified as a foreign agent or some other ideological judgment, apparently the main reason for including their works in such special collections, should be put there or only those works that such a writer produced after being so declared but not before.

            Creating a mechanism to make that and other determinations is no easy task, and much of the debate about new spetskhrans is in fact about who should make that decision and how it should be applied. Because such discussions are likely to be both heated and prolonged, the entire absurdity of this Putinist enterprise will be on public view.