Цензура в БССР: послевоенные годы, 1944–1956 гг by Л. Смиловицкий (review)

Soviet censorship is a wellestablished topic in Soviet studies. Its evolution and performance at different stages has received extensive treatment in several works based on rich archival material.¹ Much less is known about the regional variations and specificities of the censorship apparatus. The few available articles on the topic discuss Soviet political control over the public sphere in Latvia and Estonia.² This is why the book under review is a welcome contribution to the field that sheds new light on the functioning of the Soviet censorship under the particular circumstances of post–World War II Belarus.

The book consists of seven chapters. Starting with a detailed description of the organization of censorship in the Belarus SSR (chapter 1), it goes on to examine the staff of the local Glavlit (the central censorship office) in chapter 2. Chapter 3 explores a special category of “state and military secrets” as a pretext for censorship intervention in the most mundane spheres of life (including agriculture and health care) and the manipulation of public opinion and information. The system of comprehensive censorship of publishing is discussed in chapter 4, and the equally tight control over reading (including libraries and secondhand bookstores) in chapter 5. Of special concern in Belarus was the muting of all Jewish themes in the press and the restriction of access to foreign publications. More than one-third of the book is occupied by chapter 6, which is dedicated to censorship over different forms of cultural production: literature, theater, visual arts, galleries, and so on. The last chapter of the monograph (chapter 7) covers the transitional period after Stalin’s death. Changes in censorship were profound in Belarus, although ambivalent: some topics and books were released from the sway of censors, others remain under their control. New categories of banned information appeared – for example, everything that concerned Stalin’s fallen henchman, Lavrentiy Beria.

The author does not confine his account to the history of various forms of state control and manipulation of information, but extends it to reconstruct a broader historical and social context of the epoch. In the book, the historical realities of postwar Belarus are juxtaposed to distorted images disseminated by the official propaganda of the time. The ensuing contrast highlights the importance of the ever-expanding catalog of information forbidden for public access that was listed by Glavlit censors in a register nicknamed “Talmud.” Most references to the actual state of affairs had to be kept secret in order to sustain a surrogate image of reality. Language was part of the censorship process, purged of meanings and words that threatened to compromise the normative discourse of reality. Smilovitskii’s discussion of postwar “Newspeak” resonates with the existing body of research that treats censorship as an instrument establishing and guarding the Soviet discursive order.³ It is all the more disappointing therefore to see that only two pages of the book are devoted to this important topic.

The study is based on a rich assortment of primary sources from various archives in Belarus and the Russian Federation. The core is constituted by various documents of the Glavlitbel (the General Directorate for the Protection of Military and State Secrets in the Press of the BSSR): its annual reports, notes on special topics, and correspondence with the Party and state authorities. They are complemented by a broad range of documents produced by other institutions of political control, including different departments of the Central Committee of the Belarus Communist Party and the Belarus branch of the political police (various predecessors of the KGB). There are also materials of local creative unions, arts museums, the state publishing house, and other organizations that had to comply with censorship in their everyday activities. Documents from Russian archives reveal policy considerations and the guidelines for their implementation by the central Soviet authorities. Unfortunately, the author misses the opportunity to use this diversity of sources to study center−periphery relationships in the process of implementing censorship by clarifying the mechanism of decision making and identifying the priorities of different...