Under the yoke of censorship: 10 authors whose books were banned in the USSR

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Censorship exists all over the world, and books, theatrical performances and films are often subjected to censorship. In Soviet times, literature, like many other spheres of culture, was under the total control of the party leadership. Works that did not correspond to the propagandized ideology were banned, and they could only be read in samizdat or by taking out a copy bought abroad and secretly brought to the Land of the Soviets.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In the Soviet Union, virtually all major works written by a dissident writer were banned. Among them are the famous "GULAG Archipelago", "New World", "Cancer Ward". The latter was even handed over to the printing house, but only a few chapters of the novel were typed there, after which an order was issued to scatter the set, and prohibit printing. Novy Mir planned to publish a magazine of the same name, but, despite the signed contract, the novel never came out.

But in Samizdat, the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn were in demand. Small stories and sketches were occasionally published in print.

Michael Bulgakov

For the first time the novel "The Master and Margarita" was published a quarter of a century after the death of the writer. However, censorship was not at all the reason. The novel was simply not known. Bulgakov's manuscript was read by the philologist Abram Vulis, and the whole capital started talking about the work. The first version of the cult novel was published in the Moscow magazine and consisted of scattered passages in which the semantic line was hardly traced, because some of the key points and statements of the characters were simply cut out. Only in 1973 was the novel published in full.

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Boris Pasternak

The novel, created by the writer for 10 years, was first published in Italy, later published in Holland in the original language. It was distributed free of charge to Soviet tourists in Brussels and Vienna. Only in 1988 was Doctor Zhivago published in Russia.

Until the beginning of the publication of the novel in the magazine "Novy Mir", its samizdat version was passed from hand to hand for reading for one night, and by hook or by crook the books brought from abroad were kept under lock and key, they were given to be read only by the most reliable people who could not convey on the owner.

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Vladimir Nabokov

His novel "Lolita" was banned not only in the Land of the Soviets. Many countries refused to publish the provocative and scandalous work, explaining this by the inadmissibility of promoting the relationship between an adult man and a young teenage girl. For the first time "Lolita" was published in 1955 by the Parisian publishing house "Olympia Press", which specialized in very specific works that were in demand among fans of "strawberries." In the West, the ban on the novel was removed quite quickly, but in the Soviet Union it was published only in 1989 year. At the same time, today "Lolita" is considered one of the outstanding books of the twentieth century, included in the list of the best novels in the world.

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Evgeniya Ginzburg

The novel "Steep Route" has actually become a chronicle of the author's link. It describes everything that happened to the repressed Evgenia Ginzburg, starting from the moment of imprisonment in Butyrka. Naturally, the work is permeated with hatred of the regime, which condemned a woman to a life in prison.

It is quite understandable why the novel was banned from publication until 1988. However, through samizdat, Steep Route spread quickly and was popular.

Ernest Hemingway

Foreign authors also fell under the ban on censorship in the Soviet state. In particular, the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, after publication in Foreign Literature, was recommended for internal use. And, although there was no official ban on the work, only representatives of the party elite included in a special list could get it.

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Daniel Defoe

As surprising as it may seem, the seemingly innocent novel "Robinson Crusoe" was also banned at one time in the USSR. More precisely, it was published, but in a very loose interpretation. The revolutionary Zlata Lilina was able to consider in the adventure novel the discrepancy between the country's ideology. Too great a role was assigned to the hero and the influence of the working people on history was completely missed. Here is a cropped and combed version of "Robinson Crusoe" and read in the Soviet Union.

H. G. Wells

The author wrote his novel Russia in the Dark after visiting Russia during the Civil War. And the country made a very negative impression on him, amplified many times over by the chaos and devastation that reigned at that time. Even meetings with the ideologically inspired Vladimir Lenin did not make the writer feel the importance of what was happening for history.

In 1922, the book was first published in the Soviet Union in Kharkov and was preceded by a lengthy commentary by Moisey Efimovich Ravich-Cherkassky, who explained the erroneous position of the English publicist. The next time in the USSR the book was published only in 1958, this time with a foreword by Gleb Krzhizhanovsky.

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George Orwell

After "Animal Farm", in which the government of the Soviet Union saw an unacceptable and harmful allegorical comparison of the leaders of the proletariat with animals, the entire work of Orwell fell under the ban. The works of this author began to be published in the country only in the post-perestroika period.

Mikhail Zoshchenko

In the story "Before the Sunrise", materials for which Mikhail Zoshchenko had been collecting for many years, the leaders of the propaganda department saw a politically harmful and anti-artistic work. After the publication of the first chapters in the October magazine in 1943, an order was issued to ban the story. Only 44 years later, the work will be published in the USSR, in the USA it was published in 1973.

In Soviet times, almost all spheres of culture were censored. Sculptural compositions in Moscow were no exception. Even the most famous monuments confused officials with their appearance. The sculptors were forced to remake them in accordance with the ideas of officials about Soviet realism. Surprisingly, one of the symbols of Moscow has undergone a transformation already in the 21st century.