Censorship in the Russian publishing industry after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine has taken on a systemic and unprecedented character, transforming not only the market but also the very nature of text as a cultural product. Whereas previously state interference in Russia was limited to selective bans or pressure on individual authors, it has now become a large-scale infrastructure of control covering the entire publishing cycle — from manuscript to bookstore shelf.
A key feature of this new reality is the emergence of the so-called “blackout” — the physical blacking out of text fragments. Today, it has become a visual symbol of censorship that is no longer hidden, but openly demonstrated. As a result, readers receive not a complete work, but a fragmented one.
The reason is the sharp tightening of legislative restrictions. In Russia, any mention of the war, criticism of Russian aggression, LGBTQ+ topics, emigration, decolonial discourse, and descriptions related to drugs or suicide are now banned or subject to strict moderation. As a result, thousands of books are being reviewed, labeled, or removed from sale. Censorship is applied regardless of when the work was written — even classics of world literature are being “cleansed” through new translations or reprints.
Some Russian publishing houses have even turned to artificial intelligence to detect “undesirable” content. Algorithms analyze texts for potential risks, often mistakenly identifying ordinary words or contexts as violations. This leads to absurd situations in which ordinary scenes or even individual words can fall under bans. At the same time, the final decision remains with editors and lawyers, who are forced to work under high risks ranging from fines to criminal prosecution.
Historically, “blackout” as a poetic technique was used in art as a form of protest or reinterpretation of text. However, in modern Russia it has acquired the opposite meaning: instead of exposing hidden meanings, it serves as a tool for concealing them. At the same time, the Kremlin failed to take into account that in the digital age readers can easily find the original text. Instead, another effect is created — the normalization of absence. Blacked-out lines become familiar and are perceived as part of the “rules of the game.”
As a result, Kremlin censorship is turning books from a source of knowledge into an instrument of ideological conditioning, where even the absence of text carries political meaning.
