Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ A new Russian anti-drug law is leading to drug warnings being added to classic works of Russian literature by Gogol, Pushkin, Bulgakov and other classic authors, due to mentions of drug use. It's a sign of how censorship is reaching increasingly deeply into Russian life. ⬇️

2/ Verstka reports that Russian online bookshops are adding warnings to both the text and audiobook versions of classic works such as Gogol's stories "The Nose" and "Viy," children's stories by Tolstoy, and works by Bulgakov such as "The Master and Margarita".

3/ It comes after the introduction into effect on 1 March 2026 of a new law banning "drug propaganda" in literature, film, media, and the Internet.

4/ "Propaganda" is defined as "the dissemination of information about the methods of production, storage, shipment, distribution, and locations of drug purchase, as well as the appeal and justification of drug use as a generally accepted norm of behavior."

5/ Violations can lead to fines ranging from 2,000 to 1.5 million rubles ($26-$20,000). Repeated violations can lead to criminal liability. To comply with censorship, publishers block out offending words or replace them with symbols.

6/ Books deemed to be "drug propaganda" must be marked 18+ and may incur higher VAT (22%). They require special labeling (a warning triangle/exclamation mark plus the text: "Illegal consumption of narcotic drugs... causes harm to health, their illegal trafficking is prohibited.")

7/ In this particular case, the labelling is likely the result of automated censorship software flagging isolated mentions of drugs (such as using morphine to treat a wounded soldier). It highlights how the government is indiscriminately decreasing freedom of speech in Russia.

8/ While books published prior to 1990 are supposed to be exempt – thus classic literature should not be affected – the AI-driven censorship system developed by the government is clearly generating many false positives.

9/ In a similar example, the writer Denis Dragunskiy has been censored because automatic systems think his name includes the word "drug", rather similar to how US-made Internet censorship software used to censor the British placename Scunthorpe for containing a rude word.

10/ Many Russian and Western authors have been subjected to "drug propaganda" censorship, including Viktor Pelevin, Sergei Lukyanenko, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, John Steinbeck ("East of Eden"), Erich Maria Remarque ("Three Comrades"), Truman Capote, and others. /end

Source:
🔹 verstka.media/v-rossii-nacha…
🔹 ntv.ru/novosti/297819…
🔹 meduza.io/en/news/2026/0…
🔹 meduza.io/news/2025/09/0…