Practices of Censorship of Statistical Works in Pre-reform Russia (late XVIII – first half of XIX centuries)

Abstract

The object of the study is the history of the relationship between state power and statistical science in the Russian Empire in the second half of the XVIII – first half of the XIX centuries. The author examines the practices of censorship supervision over the publication of research papers in the field of state studies – an early descriptive direction of statistical science. The article analyzes the main stages of the development of legislation in the field of the civil press and highlights the key claims that the censorship authorities had against the authors of statistical works. Special attention is paid to the study of the social and political context in which the evolution of censorship restrictions on the dissemination of statistical data took place. It is noted that the tacit ban on the publication of any statistical information, which existed in the middle of the XVIII century, was replaced by the liberalization of censorship legislation at the beginning of the Alexander reign. In the future, with the formation of statistics-state studies as a political science, the attention of the state to the content of these works became more and more intense. The growth of conservative tendencies in domestic politics led to the fact that the government increasingly suppressed the free interpretation of statistical materials. The formation of the institution of departmental censorship in the mid-1820s gave rise to the problem of the plurality of censorship authorities, which became a serious barrier to the development of state studies. It is concluded that a broad interpretation of the norms of censorship statutes made it possible for interested ministries to delay the publication of statistical works for a long time, or not to allow them to be printed at all under the pretext of inaccuracy or secrecy of data.