Incursiune în cenzura sovietică (Glavlit), 1922-1991
An Incursion into the Soviet Censorship (Glavlit), 1922-1991

Summary/Abstract: Glavlit, „General Department for Press and Literature” was established in 1922 and has been called from 1933 „Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press” of the Council of Ministers in Soviet Union. Unlike the censorship from other times and other countries, Glavlit combined the control and punishment in a single institution, that was aimed at creating or training the „new man” and developing self-censorship among artists. The censorship was not exercised only by Glavlit. There were “editorial censorships”, effectuated by employees of magazines, publishing houses, radios and televisions etc.; the “repressive censorship” executed by the political department (political control) of the security organizations; ideological censorship, effectuated by party leadership, which had the first and last word in why and how it should appear or be banned (The party gave indications to Glavlit); the “inside censorship” which caused authors to guess the ideological, aesthetic, political regulations of his work over numerous stages of the control. But the main institution of censorship exercised the largest operations of censorship and control. An army of censors was actually in charge of the whole process of banning, discovering the authors, information, „anti-Soviet” and harmful works. This paper aims to present the most important stages and attributions of Glavlit.

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