A “destructive” literature section will appear in the Lenin Library

Forwarded From Plot (Anton Khitrov)

A “destructive” literature section will appear in the Lenin Library

Deputy Culture Minister Zhanna Alekseeva said that the Russian State Library (formerly named after Lenin) is creating a closed repository for “destructive” books. Even the word “special collection,” memorable from the Soviet era, was used (a section of banned literature that only selected people can obtain).

Alekseeva also said that Russian libraries no longer replenish their collections with works by “foreign agents” and, in general, if they buy books with federal money, they do so only according to recommended lists.

Journalist Sergei Buntman writes on his Telegram channel that 53 years ago he worked at the Lenin Library as a junior librarian and periodically found himself “at the gates of the Special Collection” — but access there was closed to him: “they did not let us go beyond bound volumes of banned Chinese newspapers and kicked us out.” “The next generation carried the banned books back out,” Buntman recalls. “And now it will be the same: no political crap is eternal.”

Let’s hope so! See you next week.