5 banned books: How the Soviet censorship fought seditious literature

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

In the USSR, censorship was harsh and sometimes incomprehensible. The state determined lists of undesirable literature, the familiarization with which was forbidden to an ordinary Soviet person. To control any information received, a large number of state organizations were created, which were controlled by the party. And the censorship decisions did not always look logical.

"Cancer Ward" and "GULAG Archipelago"

Alexander Solzhenitsyn often touched upon acute social and political topics in his works. For several decades, he actively fought against the communist regime, for which all his work as a whole was under special control. Manuscripts were allowed to print only on condition of their serious revision and complete absence of criticism of Soviet reality.

However, this was not always a guarantee that the books would go into circulation. The most famous novel of the publicist, The Gulag Archipelago, remained banned in the USSR for a long time. A similar fate befell the partially autobiographical work Cancer Ward, which was kept illegal until 1990.

Doctor Zhivago: I haven’t read it, but I condemn it

Boris Pasternak has been writing Doctor Zhivago for ten years. This novel became the pinnacle of Pasternak's work as a prose writer. He touches upon many topics forbidden in the USSR: issues of Jewry and Christianity, difficulties in the life of the intelligentsia, views on issues of life and death. The story is told on behalf of the protagonist - Dr. Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, in the most dramatic period of his life from the beginning of the revolution to the Great Patriotic War.

Immediately after finishing work on the novel, Pasternak offered the manuscript to two popular magazines in the country and an almanac. However, it was immediately banned from publication, recognizing it as anti-Soviet and violating the principles of socialist realism. The official reason was the use of unacceptable literary techniques, overly optimistic descriptions of the intelligentsia and aristocracy, as well as poems of suspicious and dubious quality. During a meeting of the Writers' Union on the Pasternak case, the writer Anatoly Safronov spoke about the novel as follows: “I have not read it, but I condemn it!”

Bypassing the censorship, the poet offered to publish the novel to an Italian publishing house. The attempt was successful, and in 1957 it was published for the first time in Milan. A year later it was published in Russian - without official approval and according to the manuscript uncorrected by the author. There is overwhelming evidence that the CIA contributed to this. It also organized a free distribution of the book published in a pocket format to all Soviet tourists who attended the Brussels Youth Festival in 1958.

Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for his achievements in literature. However, he did not manage to see the medal and diploma until his death - Khrushchev was indignant at the news and forced the writer to refuse the award. It was handed over to the poet's son only in 1989, when the writer had been dead for 31 years.

"Lolita": the scandalous love story of an adult man for a girl

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is one of the most scandalous novels of the 20th century. Originally written in English, it was subsequently translated into Russian by the author.

The colorful and detailed love story of an adult man for an underage girl was banned not only in the USSR, but also in many other countries. Expressed eroticism and details hinting at the pedophilic inclinations of the protagonist, became the reason for complete rejection in France, South Africa, Great Britain, Argentina, Australia, Sweden, New Zealand.

The book was not allowed to be printed, was removed from sales and ready-made runs were burned, but all the prohibitions were nothing to her. Anyone could buy a dissident creation on the black market. Before the novel began to be published legally in 1989, illegal sellers asked fabulous sums for it. The price was about 80 rubles, and this with an average monthly salary at that time of 100 rubles.

Forbidden Metamorphoses of The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita is a cult work by Mikhail Bulgakov, which was never completed. The work became available to the broad masses only in 1966, when the magazine "Moscow" partially published it on its pages. A little later, the Soviet literary critic Abram Vulis used excerpts from the novel in his afterword. This was the starting point for the distribution of The Master and Margarita. About the writer, who at that time was not alive for 26 years, they started talking in the capital.

The first editions of the novel, in which, according to the literary critic Pavel Popov, the real and the fantastic are intertwined in an unexpected way, were significantly reduced. Strict censorship decided to protect Soviet citizens from Woland's reflections on the metamorphoses of Moscow residents, cut out a story about disappearances in a bad apartment and even put the correct “beloved” instead of “lover” in Margarita's lips.

Subsequently, the work was edited at least eight more times. Each time it was completed anew and given the necessary meaning to individual scenes. But even in this form, the first full version was allowed to be printed only in 1973.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" - the cult book of the party elite

Ernest Hemingway's bestselling book follows an American soldier who sacrifices himself during the Spanish Civil War. The tragedy and sacrifice characteristic of the writer, political topicality and description of true love were fundamentally different from the ideological sound of the USSR. This led to the quite expected decision: while the inhabitants of other countries got acquainted with the novel back in 1940, the Soviet reader did not know anything about it until 1962.

Experimental translations and publications of the work, which were commissioned by Stalin himself, were criticized. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was called deceitful and distorting the present events. There is a version that when the book was brought for reading to Joseph Stalin, he spoke about it briefly: “Interesting. But you can't print. " The word of the leader was iron, so she fell into oblivion until 1962. After criticism, it was recommended for internal use, and it was released in a limited edition of 300 copies. The publication was classified and was sent exclusively to the party elite according to a pre-compiled list of addresses and corresponding notes.

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