Russia’s book police: anti-gay law opens ugly new chapter

A new “council of experts” set up in Russia is leveraging a decade-old law against gay “propaganda” to censure books. The move marks a new stage in the Kremlin’s control of information by targeting a broad array of literature, a cultural domain that has long enjoyed a special latitude in the country.

What do the novels, “A Home at the End of the World” by US writer Michael Cunningham, “Giovanni’s Room” by the late James Baldwin and “Heritage” by Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin have in common? These three works have not been sold in Russia since April 22 following a recommendation from a new institution that is emerging as a censorship body, according to Russian business daily Vedomosti.

The books were the first targets of a new council set up by the Russian Book Union, a nominally independent body representing publishing professionals. The council decided the works contravened article 6.21 of Russia’s code of administrative offences, which prohibits “propaganda” advocating “non-traditional sexual relationships” but is often used to target anyone “sharing positive and even neutral information” about LGBT people, according to Human Rights Watch.

A list of endangered books

The new council is “part of a broader information-warfare crackdown related to the anti-gay-propaganda law", said Jeff Hawn, a Russia specialist at the London School of Economics.

Russia first passed a law against “gay propaganda” in 2013, expanding it in 2022 to outlaw depictions of same-sex relationships from advertisements, films, video games and books. Going even further, Russia's Supreme Court banned international LGBT activism as an “extremist movement” last November.

Under the expanded law, Russia’s media regulator was given the right to ban any website engaged in “the promotion of homosexuality and other non-traditional sexual preferences”. The Duma was careful not to define the contours of what was meant by “promotion”, leaving the door open to wide interpretation.

The Russian publishing world has long been concerned about the risk of censorship arising from these laws. In early 2022, an independent Russian journalist published a list of 250 books at risk of being withdrawn from sale. At the time, authorities described the list as unnecessarily alarmist; however, the three novels withdrawn by major Russian publishers were on it.

Despite the expansion of the anti-gay legislation, works on the list continued to be sold and, on the whole, literature did not seem to suffer the same censorship as other media such as television or the internet.

“Literature has always enjoyed a special status (in Russia) because censorship of books was a very important part of the Soviet regime,” said Hawn. “And freedom for writers after the fall of the Soviet Union was enshrined.”

But the authors critical of President Vladimir Putin and his full-scale invasion of Ukraine – such as Boris Akunin, a writer of historical thrillers branded a “terrorist” by the Kremlin – seem to have disappeared from bookshops since 2022, according to Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet. Meduza itself has been based in Riga since the start of the Ukraine war and subsequent media crackdown.

The Kremlin's relative leniency towards literature stems first from the fact that mass media is more influential on public opinion, according to Stephen Hutchings, a specialist in Russian and Soviet cultural history at the University of Manchester.

“What people see in the news [and the] press is much more significant, in that regard, than what is portrayed in fictional writing,” said Hutchings. “So it’s more pressing to control these platforms.”

Allowing the world of literature relative freedom enabled the authorities to distance themselves from the known excesses of the Soviet era, Hawn said.

‘The role of resistance’

The attachment Russians have to the independence of their writers dates from Tsarist times, when there was also censorship, noted Hutchings. “Writers have always played the role of resistance” and been seen as the “political conscience” of Russia, he said.

Alexander Pushkin – a “poet obsessed with the idea of revolution”, according to the late Russian linguist Efim Etkind –was forced into exile by Emperor Alexander I in 1820.

The esteem Russians have for writers also explains why Putin’s government has long hesitated to attack literature too openly; the Kremlin did not even set up the new council. Even so, “the people on board should tell you a lot about the independence of it”, said Hutchings. Indeed, members of the Orthodox Church and the army – two institutions subservient to the government – sit on its panel.

But the new “book police” may have been established a bit too long after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Since the start of the war you have two types of authors,” explains Hutchings. “Those who choose to stay and have to exert some self-censorship and those, like Boris Akunin or Mikhail Shishkin, who criticise from foreign countries.”

The new council may instead serve to codify “what is deemed acceptable or not within the book publishing world in Russia”, Hutchings says.

Until now, publishers and writers have been left to their own devices, which leads to a kind of partial censorship, with books or writers disappearing from certain online platforms while still being available elsewhere.

“The signaling purpose of this new body is important because it indicates what the red lines are,” said Hutchings. “The Kremlin knows very well that in this hyperconnected world, you cannot fully suppress access to these writings.”

(This article is a translation of the original in French.)