Spetskhran
특별보관고
The restricted-access department within Soviet libraries and archives that sequestered publications deemed ideologically 'harmful' from general readership. Its holdings included early Soviet works mentioning 'banned' names such as Trotsky and Bukharin, émigré authors' writings, and anti-Soviet foreign publications. Access required special permission issued by party organs or the KGB. The gradual release of materials began in 1987 under glasnost, and the spetskhran was abolished in 1990 with the dissolution of Soviet censorship.
Related people
Sources
- Russian Wikipedia: Спецхран — full history of creation (1921), structure, categories, and liquidation (1987–1990). Confirms 1987 total of ~500,000 items, Lenin Library holdings of ~27,000 Soviet + 250,000 foreign books.
- Nadezhda Ryzhak, Russian State Library — "Censorship in the USSR and the Russian State Library": detailed account of the 1922 Glavlit circulars establishing the spetskhran, including the top-secret Inotdel list of forbidden foreign literature categories.
- M.V. Zelenov, OpenText — "Спецхран и историческая наука в Советской России в 1920–1930-е годы": academic analysis of spetskhran as an instrument of party-state information control, tracing its origins and ideological function.
- Vadim Medvedev card, CommuLingo: as ideology secretary (1988), he obtained Solzhenitsyn's complete works via the KGB, opened the spetskhran, and returned all previously published Solzhenitsyn titles to open shelves. Source material for this run.