Economy and Censorship Policy in Russia: Dialogues with the Authorities on Freedom of the Press in the First Quarter of the 19th Century

This article presents the results of the study of the mutual influence of political and economic arguments used by representatives of government institutions, the censorship department, authors and publishers of newspapers and magazines in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The author refers to archival documents of the Russian State Historical Archive, namely, official correspondence of the Minister of Public Education with the trustees of educational districts; petitions for permission to publish new magazines/newspapers or expand the topics of existing ones; circulars of the Minister of Internal Affairs and resolutions of the Committee of Ministers, rescripts and edicts issued by Emperor Alexander I concerning censorship. A comparative analysis of the content of the participants’ statements recorded in the sources of the multilateral “dialogue” demonstrates that officials of various levels, censors, and publishers agreed that the publication of political materials was one of the essential factors determining the demand for periodicals. In such circumstances, the state took several measures aimed at reducing competition by restricting private publishers from publishing manifestos, decrees, and other government news, as well as reprinting news reports from foreign newspapers before official government publications. However, in contrast to the strictly prohibitive nature of the censorship policy of the previous reign, publishers had the opportunity to appeal the censors’ decisions using purely financial arguments, which were often perceived by the authorities as justified. The understanding of the need to be oriented to the needs of the readers was accompanied by proposals to increase the efficiency of information delivery by simplifying the censorship procedure, as well as by statements about the expediency of expanding the subject matter of materials published in newspapers and magazines. The final part of the article concludes that financial and economic arguments became, along with the continuing importance of arguments of political expediency, an integral part of censorship policy, while the correspondence between ministers, censors, authors and publishers that emerged in the process of considering specific cases of banning publications contributed to the development of feedback mechanisms between society and the state.