Spetskhran
Encyclopedia
Spetskhran were limited access collections and archival reserves in libraries
and archive
s of the Soviet Union
, as part of the system of censorship in the Soviet Union
.
Access to materials from Special Storage was conditional on special permission: a person had to ether have the corresponding level of security access or to have a written permission from the First Department
from person's job.
Special Storage was for two major types of publications: those deemed "ideologically dangerous" and classified information whose disclosure could threaten the economy and defense of the state. Examples:
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
and archive
Archive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
s of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, as part of the system of censorship in the Soviet Union
Censorship in the Soviet Union
Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.Censorship was performed in two main directions:*State secrets were handled by Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press was in charge of censoring all publications and broadcasting for state...
.
Access to materials from Special Storage was conditional on special permission: a person had to ether have the corresponding level of security access or to have a written permission from the First Department
First Department
The First Department was in charge of secrecy and political security of the workplace of every enterprise or institution of the Soviet Union that dealt with any kind of technical or scientific information or had printing capabilities .Every branch of the Central Statistical Administration and its...
from person's job.
Special Storage was for two major types of publications: those deemed "ideologically dangerous" and classified information whose disclosure could threaten the economy and defense of the state. Examples:
- Early Soviet publications associated with the "banned" names (Leon TrotskyLeon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, Nikolai BukharinNikolai BukharinNikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
, etc.) - Early Russian non-communist publications
- Russian emigre publications
- Foreign language publications deemed threatening to the Soviet State.
- Foreign scientific and technical publications were normally available to general readership, with "threatening" pages cut out, and full versions available from spetskhran.
- Various classified publications, such as Soviet classified dissertations ("Диссертация для служебного пользования"), classified technical references, etc.