Russian Literary Censorship in the 19th Century

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

While there has recently been a dramatic increase in scholarly work on Soviet censorship, including several papers at the last ASEEES conference, Russian literary censorship in the 19th century remains distressingly understudied. Thanks in no small part to our discussant, Charles Ruud’s book _Fighting Words_, the policies and institutional structures of 19th-century censorship are well-known. But the question of how Russian domestic literary censorship worked in practice in the period and the question how it affected the development of literary form remain largely unaddressed. This panel will help fill in that gap with papers on the ways in which authors confronted their censors, the ways in which authors sought to appease their censors, and on the fraught publication history of the censors’ own literary engagements with their profession and its institutions.

Sub Unit

• Literature: Russian and Eurasian

Chair

• Chester S. L. Dunning, Texas A&M U

Papers

• Battling the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee: Viazemskii's and Olin's 1823 Disputes - Joseph Peschio, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

• The Afterlife of Aleksandr Krasovskii's Journal - Alexander Marlen Groce, Harvard U, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

• Chekhovian Ambivalence and Censorship - Nina Lee Bond, Franklin & Marshall College

Discussant

• Charles A. Ruud, Western U