On Censorship (Let’s Blame It on the Russians!)

From the start printing was an enterprise monopolised by Church and state in Russia. It had its origin in the administrative measures instituted by Ivan the Terrible after the conquest of Kazan in the middle of the century, being intended as a response to the growth of the artisan and merchant classes and to the urgent need for government censorship of liturgical books. It was an instrument of the policy of centralisation and coercion.