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Censorship in the Russian Empire (Censorship)

Concept · http://data.judaicalink.org/data/ep/2090087

State censorship of Jewish publications in the Russian Empire began 25 years after Jews became Russian subjects in 1772. From then until 1796, books in Jewish languages were published in Russia (and were imported from abroad) without restriction. Catherine the Great’s 1763 decree on censorship of imported works did not apply to such materials. Officials in charge of maintaining public order—who according to the 1783 Decree on Independent Printing Houses were responsible for monitoring the content of domestic publications—were unable to scrutinize books in Hebrew and Yiddish due to their ignorance of those languages. Moses Hezekil and Ezekiel David Levi were the first state censors of Jewish works; they were assigned to the censorship committee of the customs house in Riga and were appointed on 30 December 1797. Nevertheless, the monitoring of Jewish works, both imported and domestic, remained sporadic and ineffective.

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