CAUCASIAN CENSORSHIP COMMETTEE IN 1980s-1890s (KEY TRENDS)

Abstract

Purpose of the article is to study the key trends characteristic to the Caucasian Censorship Committee in 80s-90s of the 19^th century. In our earlier works we have admitted that in the 70s of the mentioned century, in Caucasus, particularly in Georgia, the national policies implemented by the Russian Empire, compared with some other countries included into the Empire was relatively loyal and the strictest measures were oriented mostly against the introduction and dissemination of the revolutionary ideas in the country and from the second half of 80s and 90s, this politics changed and Russian state showed particular care to prevent transformation of the national aspirations into the forms dangerous to it; frequently, national and social issues in Georgian literature are combined, social issues appeared in the art of Georgian writers and national liberty was directly related to the social theories. While in the art of many writers the national and social issues are close to one another, in Georgian literature there can be also noticed that there is some confrontation between the figures that are purely national and those, for whom the revolutionary ideas are closer than the national ones and for the Empire both these directions were unacceptable and in our opinion, this was the key reason of strict measures.

This article is based on less studied archive documents of the Caucasian Censorship Committee preserved at Georgian National Archive. Archive data of the 19^th century, materials banned by the censors clearly show that the policies of 70s of the said century   dramatically differs from the policies characteristic fort 80s-90s.  

At the archive, there is preserved the letter belonging to famous Georgian poet, Akaki Tsereteli; here were also found numerous documents that, regarding the worldview and style, can, very likely, belong to great Georgian national figure, prose writer and poet Ilia Chavchavadze; that are the materials that were intended for publication with newspaper “Iveria”, banned by the Censorship Committee. In the work we offered that maybe, these works were not written by Chavchavadze, but as he was the editor in chief of “Iveria”, it is  clearly assumable that the editor has worked on the mentioned articles and, perhaps, in agreement with the authors, he has edited them; though, there is the article in the archive as well that is written from the first person and contains biographical facts related to Ilia Chavchavadze and hence, there is the need to carefully study these articles, to clarify, whether some of them are authored by Ilia Chavchavadze.