„Iveria" in the Materials of the Caucasus Censorship Committee

Abstract

The newspaper Iveria, a Georgian political and literary periodical, was founded by Ilia Chavchavadze in 1877. From 1879 to 1885, it was published as a journal, and in 1886, it was transformed into a daily newspaper. Several important records related to these events are preserved in the Caucasus Censorship Committee.

During the period when Iveria was published as a journal, the issue of closing the newspaper Droeba arose. In 1879, a case was initiated due to an article published in issue #191 of Droeba, which had not been approved by censorship (480-1-370). The owner of the printing house where the newspaper was printed, Melikov, was held responsible. The materials in 480-1-371 describe the investigation's findings, while the documents in 480-1-372 reveal the decision made by Georgian society to save the newspaper. According to these records, the Governor-General’s Main Administration granted permission for the editors of Droeba and the journal Iveria (S. Meskhi and I. Chavchavadze) to publish the newspaper and journal under joint editorial management starting from January 1, 1880. Meskhi and Chavchavadze agreed to the proposed program for the newspaper (which is attached to the case files). The documents also specify the joint and separate subscription prices for both periodicals, including Iveria’s program.

From the presented materials, it is evident that the Governor-General’s Main Administration, along with the Caucasus Censorship Committee, primarily targeted the owner of the printing house, holding him responsible as an additional censor. (According to censorship regulations, a printing house was required to verify the approval of every article; otherwise, it faced closure.) The materials also include Melikov’s defense, in which he claims that he had received verbal permission for the prohibited article directly from His Majesty during a personal meeting. The documents do not reflect any penalties imposed on the editor (who defended himself), but it is likely (and in accordance with regulations) that the consequences would be either the newspaper’s closure or the replacement of its editor. This explains why the two editorial teams merged—S. Meskhi assumed responsibility alongside Iveria’s editor, Ilia Chavchavadze, thereby saving the newspaper from closure or the appointment of an outsider as editor.

Despite this precedent, in 1886, Ilia Chavchavadze failed to comply with the censorship committee’s regulations and published an announcement regarding the release of the Iveria newspaper at Kheladze’s printing house without first submitting the program to the Caucasus Censorship Committee. Case 480-1-675, which documents the inspection of Kheladze’s printing house by the inspector Engalnchev and the resulting protocol, includes the announcement itself. The announcement contains detailed information about the newspaper’s publication, periodicity, size, price, distribution points, subscription details, program, and the sections or rubrics it would include. Due to this announcement, a case was initiated not against Ilia Chavchavadze, but against Kheladze. The prosecutor of the Tiflis District Court filed charges specifically against him.

The materials from the Caucasus Censorship Committee are particularly interesting for their records of prohibited content, which reveal the criteria used by the censors to evaluate articles. The censorship prohibited content that reflected national sentiment, suicide, events occurring in gymnasiums and educational institutions, the empire’s military operations, internal unrest within the empire, illegal actions by the police, appointments of officials, news about workers' movements in foreign countries, and so on. The empire sought to keep readers in complete isolation, preventing the development of any sense of protest.