Brezhnev-era chief of all Soviet publishing and censorship
Rebuking publishers who dared print positive reviews of Bulgakov's work, he declared: 'I don't understand why we should publish a writer who never accepted Soviet power.'
As chairman of Goskomizdat for twelve years under Brezhnev, he controlled the entire Soviet publishing apparatus, all books, newspapers, and magazines, making him the de facto chief of censorship. A journalist by training, he rose from regional newspaper editor to deputy editor of Pravda before taking the helm of the State Committee for Publishing in 1970. Under his watch, the USSR led the world in per-capita book production and undertook ambitious projects like the 200-volume Library of World Literature, yet he remained an ideological hardliner who publicly attacked publishers for issuing positive reviews of Bulgakov, a writer who 'never accepted Soviet power.' After Andropov came to power, he was promoted to head of the CC Propaganda Department, but Gorbachev sidelined him to the ambassadorship in Hungary.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1940–1941Literary contributor, district newspaper Novaya Zhizn, Voronezh Oblast
- 1942–1946Radio specialist, Western and 2nd Belorussian Fronts; entered Berlin
- 1948–1960Editor of district and regional newspapers, culminating as editor of Voronezh Oblast party organ Kommuna
- 1960–1963Instructor and sector head for press, radio, and TV, CC Propaganda Department for the RSFSR
- 1963–1965Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers State Committee for Publishing
- 1965–1970Deputy editor, then first deputy editor, Pravda
- 1970–1982Chairman, USSR State Committee for Publishing, Printing and the Book Trade (Goskomizdat)
- 1982–1985Head, CC Propaganda Department
- 1985–1990Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Hungary
Related historical events
Return to publishing as a public organizer, 1990-2004
After leaving the ambassadorship in Hungary in 1990, Stukalin did not withdraw entirely from public life; the axis of his later activity was a return to the publishing world. He founded the Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin Foundation under the Association of Soviet Book Publishers and organized and led a Council of Veterans of Book Publishing that ran its own press. Sytin was a leading private publisher of the imperial era, and the foundation bearing his name presented itself as continuing that enlightenment publishing tradition.
In this period Stukalin argued for the publication and distribution of socially significant literature amid a publishing sector being reorganized by marketization. He made the defense of enlightenment traditions against a flood of commercial publications a task of his organizational work, and he was also involved in material and moral support for veterans of the industry. In parallel he took part in military-patriotic activity, joining a committee commemorating Marshal Georgy Zhukov and helping found a foundation for outstanding military commanders and naval leaders; he worked directly on books and albums devoted to Zhukov, Konstantin Rokossovsky and Aleksandr Vasilevsky, and gave lectures and press articles.
His writing continued as well: he published the memoir 'Years, Roads, Faces' (2002) and a collection of essays, 'Dawns Morning and Evening' (2003). He donated a collection of 379 miniature books assembled over more than twenty-five years to the Ostrogozhsk historical and art museum, and a Voronezh library was named after him. He died in 2004 and was buried in Moscow's Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery.