Publishers fear that LGBT propaganda bill will affect classics of literature

On Friday, October 14, the Russian Book Union (RKS) sent a letter to Alexander Khinshtein, Chairman of the Committee on Information Policy of the State Duma, regarding a bill banning propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations. Kommersant has a copy of the letter, the RCC confirmed its authenticity. The letter asks the publishers to clarify whether certain plots in classical Russian literature included in the school curriculum will be banned if the bill is passed.

We are talking about a document submitted on July 18 by a group of deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, “A Just Russia – For Truth” and “Motherland”. The Russian Book Union “receives a lot of inquiries from publishers” about the initiative, the letter says, and the union has collected submissions on the relevance of the book assortment to the project. “Please, if possible, explain whether the plots presented in the following works, including classical and included in the list of the school curriculum, are propaganda of the denial of family values,” the letter says.

The publishers provide excerpts from works that can be interpreted as prohibited in accordance with the text of the project. So, the publishers point out that the scene that can be attributed to the seduction of minors is described in the novel “Demons” by Fyodor Dostoevsky and cited an excerpt about how the hero of the novel, Nikolai Stavrogin, corrupted the girl Matryosha. Ekaterina’s monologue from Alexander Ostrovsky’s play The Thunderstorm, delivered before she threw herself into the Wave and died, could be interpreted as suicide propaganda or incitement to suicide, the letter says. The publishers continue that excerpts from the story “Morphine” by Mikhail Bulgakov, based on the writer’s memories of the period of addiction to morphine, can be attributed to drug propaganda.

Scenes of sexual violence are described in Ivan Bunin’s stories “Tanya” and “Galya Ganskaya”, in Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Flows the Don”, in Thomas Hardy’s novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”, the RKS letter says. For example, one of Fyodor Sologub’s poems “On the Council” can be attributed to the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov can be attributed to the propaganda of pedophilia, the novel by Leo Tolstoy “Anna Karenina” and the poem by Alexander Pushkin “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai”, polygamy – the story of Alexander Kuprin “Shulamith”, noted in the RKS.

“Due to the broad scope of the bill, publishers are unable to independently evaluate and exclude book titles that potentially violate it. At the same time, it is important to understand that the creative industries are firmly intertwined with each other – literature is inseparable from both cinema and theater, and the following examples of works have film adaptations and theatrical performances, ”the RCC added.

Alexander Khinshtein told Kommersant that he had not yet seen the letter. “In my opinion, classical plots do not fall under the proposed restrictions, since we are talking about the prohibition of propaganda, that is, the dissemination of information aimed at the formation of non-traditional sexual attitudes, the attractiveness of non-traditional sexual relations, a distorted idea of ​​the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relations. In other words, “Lolita” definitely cannot be propaganda,” he comments.

Read more about the bill – in the material “Kommersant” “Questions of Geology”.

Valeria Lebedeva