Censorship and fear: historical research in the Soviet Union

Abstract

All nation states, especially emergent ones, to various degrees strive to maintain a hegemonic narrative about the past that vindicates the status quo. From time to time, such narratives come under challenge from 'revisionist' historians. Liberal, secure polities can tolerate revisionist dissent. But insecure political systems can resort to censorship and even repression of historians. Nowhere was this more true than in the former Soviet Union