History of Censorship

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David in 1787.

The origin of the term censor can be traced to the office of censor established in Rome in 443 BC. In Rome, as in the ancient Greek communities, the ideal of good governance included shaping the character of the people. Hence censorship was regarded as an honorable task.

Perhaps the most famous case of censorship in ancient times is that of Socrates, sentenced to drink poison in 399 BC for his corruption of youth and his acknowledgment of unorthodox divinities. It is fair to assume that Socrates was not the first person to be severely punished for violating the moral and political code of his time. This ancient view of censorship, as a benevolent task in the best interest of the public, is still upheld in many countries, for example, China. This notion was advocated by the rulers of the Soviet Union (USSR), who were responsible for the longest lasting and most extensive censorship era of the 20th Century.

Subsequently, censorship and repression of freethinking became an integral part of the policy of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. In 213 BC. e. Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all books except medical, agricultural, and scientific books to protect the empire from the perceived dangers of poetry, history, and philosophy.

Later, under Pope Paul IV in 1557, the Index of Forbidden Books (lat. Index Librorum prohibitorum) was issued for the Inquisition Tribunals. 

The Index librorum prohibitorum ("List of Forbidden Books")

This list was canceled only in 1966. And in 1571, Pope Pius V established the Lat. "Congrecatio Indicis", according to which no Catholic, under pain of ex-communication, could read or keep books that were not included in the list specified by the pope. In the fires of religious censorship, not only banned books but also their authors were often burned. The invention of the printing press in Europe in the mid-15th century only increased the need for censorship. Although printing greatly aided the Catholic Church and its mission, it also aided the Protestant Reformation and "heretics", such as Martin Luther. Thus the printed book also became a religious battleground.

The period of the Church Reformation was also distinguished by its intolerance of dissent. The European society of that time was infected with aggressive xenophobia, and the authorities supported church censorship through administrative, judicial, and forceful measures.

In Europe printing naturally also spurned the development of newsletters and newspapers. The Relation of Strasbourg published in 1609, was regarded as the first regularly printed newsletter. Soon the establishment of newspapers in other European countries followed, catering to a growing public demand for news and information. The first newspaper appeared in 1610 in Switzerland, in the Habsburg territories in Europe in 1620, in England in 1621, in France in 1631, in Denmark in 1634 and Italy in 1636, in Sweden in 1645, and in Poland in 1661. In some regions of India, however, newsletters had been circulated since the 16th century.

In the 18th century, the press in most of Europe was frequently subject to strict censorship. The 19th century saw the emergence of an independent press, as censors gradually had to cede to demands for a free press. Yet this was also an age of strict press censorship in countries such as Japan. The first daily newspaper, the Yokohama Mainichi, appeared in 1870 a time when arrests of journalists and suppression of newspapers were all too common.

Also, colonial governments, such as Russia and Britain, exercised tight control over political publications in their domains

After a time the USSR imposed its strict censorship system on all occupied countries and satellite-states, many of whom had been subject to the censorship of imperial Russia. When the USSR occupied independent Lithuania in 1940 a "bibliocide" began, lasting in effect until 1989. This period of Soviet dominance was only interrupted in 1941-1944 by the German occupation. The Nazi regime was infamous for its book pyres and deadly censorship in Germany and the German-occupied countries. Nevertheless, the systematic use of the destruction of libraries in the USSR is part of the longest and most extensive censorship in the 20th century.

The Poster of Main Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of the USSR

Numerous book pyres were enthusiastically lit by the Hitler Jugend, the young members of the fanatical Nazi movement, growing stronger and gaining ever more power in Austria and Germany during the 1930s. In order to cleanse the minds of people and society any book written by a Jewish author, communist or humanist, was fed into the flames.