New biography on author Mikhail Bulgakov labeled under 'drug propaganda' law in Russia

Prefer on Google by Kate Tsurkan KYIV, UKRAINE - APRIL 11, 2024 - The stains of red paint cover the memorial plaque to Mikhail Bulgakov situated on Andriivskyi Descent, Kyiv. (Photo credit should read Eugen Kotenko / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images) A new biography on the legendary 20th-century author Mikhail Bulgakov has been labeled following new censorship laws against "drug propaganda," Russian state media reported on April 21, citing an industry list. Bulgakov's novels "The Master and Margarita," "The White Guard," and  "Heart of a Dog" are widely considered classics of Russian-language literature. While practicing medicine, Bulgakov struggled with a morphine addiction, a personal ordeal that would later inspire his short story "Morphine." Although Bulgakov was born in Ukraine, he had a complicated relationship with Ukrainian identity and wrote primarily in Russian. He is one of the many Ukrainian-born authors that Russia has tried to claim as its own. The Bulgakov biography is being labeled as "drug propaganda" following the law "On Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances," which came into force on March 1 in Russia and establishes "criminal and administrative liability" for the distribution of literary works that mention drugs without a proper label. According to Russian state media, books with mentions of drugs deemed "integral, genre-justified part of the artistic concept," have to be labeled but are not necessarily banned outright. Russia’s book market finds itself under mounting strain as the government steadily expands its censorship regime. However, the list cited by Russian state media was published by the Russian Book Union and is compiled in cooperation with publishers, which essentially means that there is a system of industry-led self-censorship. New restrictions, often "justified" in the name of safeguarding family values or policing dissent, have swept across the publishing industry on a larger scale since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022. Books risk censorship or outright bans not only for their content but also if they involve individuals or organizations in their production who are labeled as “foreign agents” by the Kremlin. In early April, Irina Cheremisinova, the director of the Municipal Association of Libraries in Russia's Yekaterinburg, complained at a city council meeting that libraries could be forced to remove around 30% of their collections because they had been acquired with funds from  George Soros' Open Society Foundations.  This included works by classic Russian authors like Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy.