The Scotsman's headline says it all:
Russian literary giant Pushkin labeled as a peddler of porn
It seems the Russian police have cracked down on "obscene" literature. The early poetry of Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov have been seized and prosecutors are 'studying the volumes' in order to decide what is pornography, and thusly bannable or erotica and therefore salable.
Vladimir Cherkashov, a regional leader of the small Russian United Industrialists party, and a poet himself, read the works in question and was horrified, thinking the poetry would corrupt children.
"I saw myself how teenagers opened books and giggled. In every line of these poems there are only words that begin with the letters zh, b and kh," he added, referring to the first letters of a number of Russian swearwords.
The Scotsman's article points out the irony of this litigious event "considering the unhinged reputation of post-communist Russia, where some news bulletins have featured nude presenters in an effort to attract viewers."
1 comment:
This was an interesting combo of stories. One about forced immorality and then one about censorship.
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