Postal Censorship of the Russian Empire on the Eve of World War I

Abstract

The purpose of the research paper is to highlight the activities of public and latent postal censorship institutions of the Russian Empire in the late 19th-early 20th century, based on materials of the Southern Ukraine gubernias. Censorship in the Russian Empire existed at different times, and the more important postal correspondence became, the more the state took it under its ideological and political control. During the 18th and 19th centuries, a relatively clear organization of censorship bodies was formed in the Russian Empire in the form of a postal censorship institution, represented by the Department of Censorship of Foreign Newspapers and Magazines and the Postal Correspondence Perlustration Service. The latter was a separate institution that had no direct relation to postal operations, but it was an important and reliable source of information for the Russian government. Postal censorship, as a special institution, initially concerned only foreign newspapers and magazines; later, parcels and postcards became subject to censorship. Along with the Department of Censorship of Foreign Newspapers and Magazines, the Postal Correspondence Perlustration Service became widespread and an inexhaustible source of information for the law enforcement agencies of Tsarist Russia. Postal censorship and the perlustration service for postal correspondence in Southern Ukraine were inextricably linked with the censorship policy of the Tsarist government and existed from 1798 to 1917. On April 27, 1917, censorship was abolished by a decree of the Provisional Government.