Dramaturgical Censorship in the Caucasus (1879-1905)

Abstract

After the annexation of the Caucasus by Russia at the beginning of the 19^th century, it is natural that a colonial policy was implemented in all areas in all the nations under the rule of the Russian Empire (in particular, the Caucasus County), one of the main pillars of which was the Caucasus Censorship Committee created in 1848. The Committee represented the punitive body of Tsarism, worked aside of Police and Gendarmerie and actively cooperated with them. From December 20, 1879, Dramaturgical Censorship was added to the activities of the Caucasus Censorship Committee by the Decree of the Viceroy of the Caucasus. The Committee reviewed literary works, allowed or forbade their staging in the Caucasus County, controlled its performance on stage, the complete compliance of the texts spoken by the actors with the text allowed by the Censors, the accents of the actors' lines and their mimes during all performances and all the posters. Dramaturgical Censorship extended not only to theater plays and their texts or performances, but also to public events that could be organized in homes or in streets. After the permission from the Caucasian Censorship Committee, it was necessary for a Police representative to attend all performances and events; for special seats to be allocated for them.

In the National Archives of Georgia, are fully preserved the materials depicting the activities of the Caucasus Censorship Committee (in Russian language; handwritten). It has not yet become the subject of scientific study from this angle:

In the 19^th century, Georgian literature, press, and theater played the role of expressing national liberation tasks in Georgia. The fear of political persecution and terror constantly followed Georgian writers, critics and public figures. The official "psychic-political" censorship killed every free thought "from the rots" and, as Georgian writers wrote, the Shadow of the Censor constantly stayed at the writer's working desk. At the discretion of a censor, the Committee considered any kind of artistic, critical-publicistic or scientific texts by Georgian writers, critics, playwrights and public figures. It depended only on the will of a censor to remake them for publicising or to ban them outright. Eventually, not only creative freedom was restricted, but also national and public opinion was put under heavy pressure.

Georgian literature, criticism, journalism was gradually changing to defensive mode and did not obey the ideological-political path existing in the Empire. LIterary, critical-publicistic, scientific texts were veiled, encrypted, disguised in symbolic-allegorical forms; this is well seen in the texts by Georgian classical and non-classical writers. This also applies to dramaturgy. Censors receive orders from Higher Authorities (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Main Department of the Crown Prince of the Caucasus) to identify the symbolic-allegorical meaning of texts and the Censorship Committee, in turn, instructs the Police to attend all performances and observe whether there is an ironic attitude in speeches of actors or not. The Caucasian Censorship Committee is determined in every way to ban such a play in which it sees the manifestation of free thought, even if this play is staged in the theaters of the capital cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg – due to the need for different approaches to capitals and provices. In the provinces, the material that has already appeared in the capital must receive approval again, such texts must be re-submitted to the Caucasus Censorship Committee for review, in 2 copies.

Materials fully banned by censors and still unknown to the public - fiction texts, plays, critical-publicist letters, which have not seen the light of day are preserved in the National Archive. The repressive censorship suspended well-known Georgian periodicals for long (Tsiskari, Iveria, Droeba, Imedi) or fully banned some of them (Khumara), did not allow plays to be staged or requested them to be remade.

For Georgian humanitarian scientists it is essential to know what the original fiction texts were like and how they were subsequently perceived by readers or viewers in a mangled way. It is extremely important to get to know the provisions of the Caucasus Censorship Committee itself, as well as typical resolutions - circulars, censors' reports, in order to define the criteria that censors acted according to, when determining the fate of literary, critical-publicistic and dramaturgical texts.

Goal of the article is to determine the the then main principles and tendencies of the mechanisms of influence and manipulation on public opinion; to draw appropriate conclusions.