Rosyjska praktyka kontroli piśmiennictwa - uzasadnienia negatywnych decyzji cenzorskich w 2. połowie XIX wieku. Próba typologii

Abstract

This article aims at creating a typology of justifications for negative censors' decisions issued by the Warsaw Censorship Committee regarding the imported publications in Polish in the second half of the 19th century. The analysed collection consisted of over 1500 assessments. They concerned both individual works and sets of publications; they differed in terms of their volume; subjective assessments were a rarity. In their judgements, censors pointed to formaI reasons, specific articles of the censorship act and numerous circulars. The most interesting justifications were those including concrete arguments (it was indicated which pages raised special doubts; adequate fragments were quoted or summarized). Censors used a wide range of stigmatizing expressions. They tried to expose hidden intentions of authors, justify unacceptability of particular facts or phenomena being described (and harmfulness of the ways they could be interpreted), indicate potentially negative influence of dissemination of a given publication in the "local country" (i.e. in the local context). It is possible to notice two tendencies dominant in those justifications: defensive (to protect interests of the authorities and values important to the Russians) and offensive (to undermine values, aspirations and plans important to the Poles). The Manichaean vision of reality prevailed.