105 THE BOOK PUBLISHING SYSTEM IN ESTONIA ...

ISSN 0204–2061. KNYGOTYRA. 2006. 47

THE BOOK PUBLISHING SYSTEM IN ESTONIA DURING THE SOVIET RULE IN 1944–1991 AILE MÖLDRE Tallinn University, Department of Information Studies 25 Narva Road, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia E-mail: [email protected]

Books are one of the most important tools of spiritual communication and the institutions, which produce and disseminate them – publishing houses, printing offices and book-shops – occupy a central place in the intellectual and cultural system of the society. The publishing of books is directly influenced by the political, social and economical conditions of the society. Access to information, which is disseminated through printed matter, is an important factor in the development of every society. The volume and contents of information available to the public depend on the general atmosphere of the society, its democratic or totalitarian nature. In the past several decades the book publisher has been metaphorically identified as a literary gatekeeper, having control over what appears in print [1]. Whereas in a democratic society the control is fairly diffuse, permitting a wide range of material to be published, then in a totalitarian regime such as the Soviet Union, the publisher was constrained to perform the role of controller and censor, selecting and distorting the manuscripts in accordance with the demands of the communist party. The present article aims at examining the changes in the direction of the publishing activities, the formation of the network of the state book publishing houses as well as the political and economic conditions of their activities in Estonia during the second Soviet occupation in 1944–1991. Among the sources, used for writing the present work are the books, issued in the Soviet period, scholarly publications by Estonian and foreign authors, research works by students, collections of statistics and documents, the Estonian periodicals of the Soviet period as well as the archival material. Numerous documents on the topic of the study were found in the collections of the Estonian State Archive and its branch, the Archive of the Communist Party of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR). The Estonian State Archive (Eesti Riigiarhiiv) incorporates the collections of all the administrative

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bodies which have directed the publishing activities in Estonia starting with the State Publishing Centre of the ESSR up to the State Publishing Committee of the ESSR as well as the documents from the publishing houses. The types of documents used for this research involve correspondence, the ordinances by the managers of the bodies, reports, minutes of various meetings, documentation on the write-off of manuscripts, circular letters etc. From the collections of the Archive of the Communist Party of the ESSR (Parteiarhiiv) mainly the minutes of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the ESSR and the documents of the departments of propaganda and science and culture have been used. Thus the article uses the method of documentary analysis. The documents of the Soviet period presuppose critical attitude of the researcher as they are not totally trustworthy. The reports and surveys as well as articles and news have been written according to the requirements of the communist party, giving a distorted picture of the situation, reflecting life as the party wanted to see it.

The Publishing System during the Stalinist Era (1944–1955) At the end of the World War Two, the Soviet Union occupied Estonia again. The first postwar decade was characterised by the severe atmosphere of Stalinism. Estonia became firmly united to the Soviet Empire and the local differences were nearly wiped out during these years. The decade marks the start of the assimilation of the Estonian culture, when the specific national features and historic traditions were systematically driven out. The all-union models were used in organising the educational system, academic and cultural activities as well as all other fields of life. The Estonian culture, which had had close ties with the rest of the world during the independence was now isolated from the cultural life of the foreign countries, it was only possible to have contacts with the Soviet republics, above all with Russia. Among the leading political campaigns of the decade was the fight against the so-called “bourgeois nationalists” – educated people who attempted to protect the Estonian cultural traditions and preserve certain national features in the future development of Estonia. In this process a special role belongs to the Eighth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the ESSR in March 1950, which dealt with the issues of national policy and establishment of the collective farms. One of the results of the plenum was the shift of power within the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the ESSR from the Estonian communists, who had participated in the enforcement of the Soviet regime in 1940 to the communists of Estonian origin, who had arrived from

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Russia. The plenum lead to extensive repression, the staff of cultural institutions, schools, universities, ministries, etc. was purged from “bourgeois nationalists”. For example, one third of the personnel of the Academy of Sciences of the ESSR were discharged as well as 125 teachers working in the institutions of higher education [4, 261]. Numerous schools, theatres and museums were closed down. The first post-war decade was also the gloomiest period for the Estonian book, marked by extensive banning and destroying of the Estonian publications, issued in the Republic of Estonia in 1918–1940 and during the German occupation in 1941–1944. Publishing was directed by the State Publishing Centre of the ESSR during these years. The centre had been established in Estonia in the first year of the Soviet rule, in autumn 1940. This institution was organised according to the pattern of the All-Union Association of the State Publishing Houses. The association consisted of publishing houses, which were specialised by types of literature and directed from one centre. The State Publishing Centre of the ESSR was reopened in Tallinn in autumn 1944 [5, 17]. As already in 1940–1941 it included five publishing houses, specialising in a certain type of literature or printed matter – political, pedagogical, scholarly literature, fiction and periodicals. All of them had monopoly in their category, thus there was no competition between different enterprises and it was easy to monitor and control their activities. In the course of the all-union reform of publishing in 1949 the centre along with the publishing houses was liquidated. The new directive bodies were established in the form of the all-union and republican Central Board of Printing Industry, Publishing and Book Trade by the Council of Ministers. With the reform the communist party aimed at a more efficient control over publishing activities – there were many ministries and institutions, that were active in publishing, but not subordinated to the All-Union Association of the State Publishing Houses after the war [28, 203]. In 1952 there was another reform of management – the branch was subordinated to the Ministry of Culture and a special central board was organised for the direct management of all three fields of the book branch. Due to the small size of Estonia only two boards were formed here – the Central Board of Publishing and Printing Industry and the Central Board of Book Trade [5, 22– 23]. This was the only reform during the Soviet rule, which lead to a certain decentralisation in directing the three fields of the book branch. As a result of the reform of 1949 all book-publishing activities were concentrated in one publishing house in Estonia. The Estonian State Publishing House was established in 1949 by merging the four state book publishing houses. As the reform in general, this particular step was also aimed at a more effective ideological control of publishing – it was

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easier to monitor one institution than many. The Estonian State Publishing House was the only publisher in Estonia in 1949–1964, issuing all types of books and categories of literature. The ultimate concentration hindered natural development of publishing and made it impossible to cover all types and topics in necessary extent. During the whole Soviet period the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR had a central role in directing and controlling the publishing activities all over the Soviet Union. The book branch had to work according to their regulations and ordinances. The Central Committees of the communist parties of the soviet republics elaborated their own rulings on the basis of these all-union regulations. The Estonian publishing houses were directly subordinated to the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the ESSR, but the corresponding department on the all-union level also controlled their work. The department appointed the directors and other leading officials of the publishing houses, studied and confirmed their reports and plans etc. The communist party was present in every publishing house, where the so-called primary party organisations were formed. The actions of the directive bodies of the book branch on the all-union and local level were based on the regulations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR. Due to this system Estonia had no independent publishing policy, but was totally dependent on the all-union instructions. Many people who had been active in publishing already in the Republic of Estonia before 1940 continued to work in the publishing houses in the first post-war years. These editors and other workers were, however, pushed aside in the end of the 1940s. Thus the connection with the pre-war publishing practices, which had been preserved through their work, broke off. This took place at the same time when the campaign of disclosing the “bourgeois nationalists” was raging in the society. The publishing houses compiled reports on their personnel, presenting data on the activities of people before and during the war, on their social origin and political beliefs. The first victims of the purges in the publishing houses were the directors who had been working in publishing before 1940 and during the German occupation (August Pill, Artur Koskel), but also people, who had made their career in publishing during the Soviet time – for example, Mihkel Jürna was removed from the post of the director of the State Publishing Centre of the ESSR in 1947 [10; 20]. He was accused of financial faults, but actually he had lost the trust of the communist leaders. Regular political meetings and instructive gatherings were held in the publishing houses. The speakers stressed that the editors were unable to understand the principle difference of the soviet publishing house from a bourgeois’ firm, which lies in the different attitude towards the authors. In accordance with the official publishing policy the Soviet

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editor had to direct the author and control his work on the manuscript whereas the editors, who had begun work before 1940 treated the authors with undue respect and were not willing to make alterations in their texts [21]. The Soviet editor was expected to transform into a censor, who searched for ideological errors and changed the manuscripts. The editor was also the first person, who had to take responsibility for the ideological suitability of the texts he or she had edited. The situation in the publishing houses reflected the political campaigns, which were going on in the society. These were, for instance, propaganda of T. Lyssenko’s ideas in biology, the fight against “bourgeois pseudo-science” and the Western impact in science, the theory about the escalation of class struggle during the process of building socialism, etc. Such campaigns were accompanied with critical remarks from the communist party in the address of the publishing houses, who were accused of issuing ideologically unsuitable, politically false publications. The severest critique was addressed at the publishing house of scholarly literature Teaduslik Kirjandus [23]. The publishing houses had to admit their errors and redo their plans, removing banned ideas and authors. 118 authors were banned by 1952 [25, 207], including writers, politicians, scholars etc. who had been declared to be “bourgeois nationalists” or who had emigrated to the West. As the number of banned authors grew from year to year, the publishing houses soon faced the lack of manuscripts. The influence of the Stalinist cultural policy manifests itself in the production of fiction and literature for children. The titles by Estonian authors formed 41 per cent of the general title output of fiction and 33 per cent from the books for children whereas the share of translations from Russian was correspondingly 42 per cent and 44 per cent. The annual title production of the decade was modest – 902 titles in average. The best result was achieved in 1949 when 1130 titles were published. But even that figure was about 500 titles smaller than the title production in the 1930s. The average print run, on the contrary, was quite big – 6600 copies, exceeding the pre-war level many times (the average print run in 1918–1940 had been approximately 1500–2000 copies) [27, 21]. This clearly demonstrates the essence of the Soviet publishing policy, which gave preference to the large print runs. Only about 500 titles from the annual title output were addressed to the general public and for selling in the book-shops in Estonia in the first years of the 1950s. The majority of these titles were textbooks, practical brochures on technical and agricultural matters as well as political books. A multistage and complex system for censoring the manuscripts was introduced in 1948, which had to guarantee that only politically suitable texts would be published. Two “politically educated” persons read every original work at first. In addition to that, publishing

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councils were formed in every publishing house for discussing the manuscripts. In order to get the manuscript published, it was also necessary to organise discussions in the societies of creative workers or scientific institutions. All the people, who had participated in these discussions, were made responsible for the political quality of the manuscript [22]. It was hoped that in fear of a possible punishment everybody would try to find and remove all the disputable parts before the censors read the manuscript. The communist party officials also read many manuscripts. So the text was read several times and “screened” thoroughly. The Soviet publishing system achieved probably the most extensive control over the content of the book production, which has ever existed.

The Development of Publishing in 1956–1986 It is widespread in the political history of Estonia to divide this period into two subperiods – 1956–1968 and 1968–1986 [for example, 24, 384]. The years 1956–1968 represent the so-called Khrushchev’s thaw, which began after the 20th congress of the Communist Party of the USSR in 1956, bringing along a certain liberalisation of the society, lasting in Estonia provisionally until 1968. The 1970s and the 1980s are known as the period of stagnation, characterised by the decline in economy and stronger ideological pressure on social and cultural life. Still, the period 1956–1986 could also be treated as one because many of its features were characteristic of all these years. For example, it was impossible to point out the principal incorrectness of the Soviet regime; the principles of the Soviet economy stayed the same and the Estonian economy was always dependant from the all-union decisions; the system of political repression and control was never removed etc. At the same time, the cultural life experienced its revival during the period of thaw. It became possible to restore the connections with the world and with the traditions of the Estonian culture to some extent. The emerging of new talents and rehabilitation of the old masters enlivened the cultural process. In book production the thaw marked an increase in the output of titles, widening of the thematic range of the publications and publishing of the books by some Estonian and foreign authors, who had been banned earlier. The spirit of thaw was preserved in the creative works and in the minds of people also during the years of stagnation. The achievements of the thaw-period helped the Estonians to survive the following decades. In the book branch the 1960s were marked by the following all-union reform – the management of the field was directed from the Ministry of Culture to the State Publishing Committee of the USSR, established in 1963. Corresponding committees were established

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also in the Soviet republics. The aim of organising the committee, practically a ministry of publishing, was to achieve total control over all forms of book production, over the state publishing houses as well as over the publishing activities of organisations and institutions. An analysis had demonstrated that only 14 all-union publishing houses out of 71 and 115 republican and district publishing houses out of 259 were subordinated to the Ministry of Culture of the USSR in 1959 [3, 75]. This was considered to be a sign of parochialism. The new all-union ruling body was given extensive power in regulating publishing activities all over the Soviet Union. Its actions came close to achieving the total control and concentration of publishing, which the Soviet power had always striven for. The committee controlled the plans of all publishing units, the work of printing offices, supervised the book production in the whole state, determining its content and volume, dictated the technical and pricing policy in printing, the principles of work in book trade organisations, the work quota for printers and editors, elaborated the types of contracts for authors and translators etc. The committee divided the paper and other materials allocated to the book branch by the allunion planning committee and determined the amount of galley proofs, which the publishing house could order from the printing offices [33, 473–479]. The republican committees dealt with the allocations on the local level. Since 1976 the all-union committee began to dictate the proportions between the production of various types – textbooks, methodical publications, fiction, children’s literature, books on technical matters and political publications by the amount of copies [32, 5–6]. The latter, for example, formed up to 12 per cent of the whole volume of production in copies; fiction and books for children up to 40 per cent, technical publications up to 11 per cent etc. [17, 68]. The all-union committee gave permission to publish series of books and editions in several volumes. As a rule the all-union instructions did not take into account the local needs and special conditions. For example, due to the small number of inhabitants in Estonia the all-union norms for printing offices were too high for the Estonian enterprises. In order to meet their plans the printing offices were forced to prefer large editions (up from 30 000 copies), that was much more than the Estonian bookmarket could consume. Due to the norms the printing offices were unwilling to work with the titles with small print runs. The attempts of the Estonian officials to achieve the changes in the norms were unsuccessful [13]. Since the end of the 1970s the Estonian publishing houses were obliged to issue publications for the all-union market in huge editions in the Russian language. 18 titles in Russian were issued in 1982–1986 in 1.9 million copies [15]. These publications were profitable for the printers and publishers, but they used the paper and printing capacities,

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which could have been used for issuing books in Estonian. As there was a general shortage of paper etc., then such practice had a negative effect on the development of the Estonian book production. There were two book-publishing houses in Estonia in the beginning of the 1960s – the Estonian State Publishing House, which issued the majority of books and a small publishing house “Kunst” (Art), established in 1959. The network of state publishing houses was widely considered to be insufficient for issuing books in the necessary speed and amount by the Estonian intellectuals. The applications to open new publishing houses had to be directed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the ESSR, who in its turn had to ask permission from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR. The latter, in principal, avoided the establishment of new publishing houses. But the attempts to establish new enterprises were often rejected already in Estonia. In the reorganisation of the network of publishing houses the all-union reform of 1963 was oriented on forming of a small number of specialised firms, bearing short and characteristic names. In 1964 the Estonian State Publishing House was renamed to “Eesti Raamat” (The Estonian Book). Due to the reform, which favoured specialisation, the Estonian publishing officials were able to convince the local communist party officials to apply for consent of Moscow to open a new publishing house. The response was favourable and in 1965 “Eesti Raamat” was divided into two enterprises: “Eesti Raamat”, specialised in fiction, books for children, political literature and books on humanities and “Valgus” (Light) issuing textbooks, books on natural and technical sciences as well as reference books. The formation of two publishing houses was a positive event in the Estonian publishing, although both enterprises still had too broad scope. A book-publishing group was established in the publishing house of periodical publications “Perioodika” in 1973. This group issued books for tourists and the translations of Estonian literature into foreign languages, which was sold abroad. In addition to these open activities the group also published so-called counter-propaganda – publications of communist propaganda, which were disseminated among Estonians, living in the West [36]. During the first years of its existence the group produced overviews about the content of the Estonian newspapers, published in the West. These overviews were issued in Russian in 50 copies and distributed among the leading officials of the communist party [2]. Even after the division of the publishing house “Eesti Raamat” into two units the network of publishing houses was less developed in Estonia than in many other Soviet republics. For example, in Latvia all book publishers had been united into the Latvian State Publishing House (later “Liesma”) in 1946, but a special publishing house of scholarly

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literature, the Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR (later “Zinatne”) was established in 1951. The publishing house “Zvaigzne“, issuing textbooks was opened in 1965 and a publishing house of political literature “Avots” in 1980. The Editorial Board of the Latvian Soviet Encyclopaedia also existed as a separate publishing house [29]. Special publishing houses for political literature and for scholarly publications also existed in Lithuania [30, 377]. Estonia was the only Soviet republic without a special publishing house for scholarly publications. The chances of scientists to publish their work were limited, that lead even to the decay of research areas. It has been said, for example, that Paul Ariste’ s school of research on the Finno-Ugric languages perished gradually because of the lack of possibilities to publish [26, 22]. Therefor the academic circles repeatedly pointed out the need to establish a special publishing house for scholarly literature [for example, 16], but the leaders of the local communist party considered it unnecessary. The small number of publishing houses meant that the authors were strongly dependent from the publishers. For example, if a manuscript of an author of fiction was rejected by the publishing house “Eesti Raamat”, he or she could attempt to publish it in the serial publication “Loomingu Raamatukogu” (“The Library of Looming”) and if this also failed, then the possibilities were practically exhausted. The limited publishing opportunities had a negative effect on their creative activity. The communist party directives for organising the work of publishing houses stressed that everything should be done according to the plans. There were three types of plans – thematic, financial and plan by volume of production, based on the production in the standard size of printing paper and printed sheet copies, which were interrelated with the supplies of paper and the printing capacities. After the reform of 1963 new rules for planning the activities of publishing houses were elaborated. The thematic plans obtained the leading role among the plans, especially after 1976 when the all-union committee started to give detailed instructions on the proportions of different types of literature in the plans. The work on the thematic plan started a year and a half before the beginning of the planned year. Among the thematic plans there were a preliminary plan, annual plan, five-year plan and special plans. The number of special plans could be quite large, for example the publishing house “Eesti Raamat” has compiled even 50 plans a year – a special one for every speech by L. Brezhnev, for every political campaign etc. [17, 66]. The plan was evaluated and discussed in the State Publishing Committee of the ESSR, in the Department of Propaganda and Agitation and in the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the ESSR. During the annual discussions of the plans in the Bureau usually no big changes were introduced to the plans, but there were always

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numerous comments and recommendations for further planning. It was typical that the leading communists required more books on political campaigns, collective farms, patriotic education of youth etc. and condemned publications on local nature and history, fiction by young authors etc. Publishing of monographs was considered unnecessary at the time of book hunger [31]. This demonstrates the lack of consideration for educating people and extending their horizon, cultivating love for the homeland, for fostering fiction and scientific progress. In the end the plans were studied in the State Publishing Committee of the USSR and by the representatives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR. A special discussion of the plans was organised in the Central Board of the Republican and Regional Publishing Houses of the State Publishing Committee of the USSR in January–February of the year before the planned year. The representatives of the Division of Publishing Houses of the Department of Propaganda of the all-union communist party were also present there. According to the memoirs of the Estonian publishers these events could be rather faultfinding and full of accusations for publishing unsuitable books [12, 56]. The system of all-union co-ordination of the plans was introduced in 1975. The publishing houses had to send information on the titles they wished to publish to the republican State Publishing Committee and after receiving a positive answer from there, they had to send the information card to the all-union State Publishing Committee in Moscow. A special Head Office of Thematic Planning and Co-ordination was found in the committee, whose task was to look through all the planned titles from all the publishing houses of the Soviet Union with the help of a computer system. But the amount of the information cards, which arrived at the office, was huge and the system did not start to work. The publishing houses received no feedback and it was agreed that if there was no answer from the all-union committee in two months, the publishing house had a right to include the title into its thematic plans [17, 66]. In spite the fact that the all-union coordination actually never began to function, the requirement to send the information cards to Moscow was not revoked. On the contrary, a regulation was adopted in 1978, that coordination should include not only the titles for the planned year but also the following years. Detailed instructions were elaborated in 1979 for co-ordinating political, scholarly publications and fiction. The latter included rules for issuing reprints etc. [34, 164–165]. The whole system was another step towards further centralisation of publishing in the whole USSR, an attempt to mould the publishing activities of the huge state into a single process, controlled from one centre. The formal procedure of co-ordination caused publishers additional work and increased bureaucracy.

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The oppressing conditions, introduced by the all-union committee were criticised even by high officials of the Estonian publishing committee. For example, the chairman of the Estonian committee Lembit Kaik said during the meeting of the board of the Writers’ Union of the ESSR in 1981, that the directions from Moscow, multiple thematic plans and the determination of the proportions of the book production caused great harm to local publishing. He called the writers to speak about these problems at the republican and allunion writers’ forums [35]. However, these protests produced no results. The end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s were marked by a rapid increase in the number of titles (1023 in 1956 and 1922 in 1963) [27, 21], later the title production stabilised due to the policy of the State Publishing Committee of the USSR and fluctuated around 2000 titles. The average print run demonstrated a diametrically opposite trend – if the average print run of books in 1956–1963 remained around 5700 copies, then since the middle of the 1970s it exceeded 8000 copies. The publishers had to combine really skilfully to issue the necessary number of titles, accepted by the republican and all-union publishing committees, which would also fit with the amount of paper at their disposal. In addition to that, the production had to be considered from the aspect of print runs and printing capacity. The most popular titles had to be printed in sufficient number of copies to meet the financial targets. Despite subsidies to political publications and textbooks, publishing was supposed to act profitably. In pursuit for greater profitability the leaders of publishing were ready to consider the buyers’ interests. The structure of the book production was adjusted to the demand in some extent, within the limits of ideological requirements and economical possibilities. One of the indicators of that policy was the increase in the print runs of fiction and books for children in the middle of the 1970s. For example, the average print run of fiction (including fiction for children) in 1974 was 26 172 copies, in 1976 – already 35 219 copies. Later the average print run of fiction decreased again and was around 27 000 copies. At the same time the number of titles and print runs of political literature as a less popular category among buyers was reduced. For example, the production of political books decreased from 369 titles in 1974 to 220 titles in 1979 [6, 27; 7, 31; 8, 46].

Changes in Publishing during the Political Break-through in 1987–1991 The April Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR took the course on liberalisation and renewal of economy in 1985. It also created the preconditions for reforms in Estonia. A new period in the political history of Estonia

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started in 1987 when the first public demonstration was organised by the dissidents, demanding that the text of the Molotov–Ribbendrop pact would be made public and cancelled. The period included the desovietisation of the society and ended with the restoration of independence. The reorganisations concerned also the book branch. The general tendency in its development in these years was democratisation, demonopolisation and decentralisation. The break-through in the field of publishing was the establishment of the first cooperative publishing house Kupar in 1987 by seven well-known Estonian writers. It was the first enterprise of its kind in the whole Soviet Union. Due to the resistance of the State Publishing Committee of Estonia the firm was not granted a license of independent publishing at first and started its action in partnership with the state publishing house “Eesti Raamat”. Its first publication was issued in 1988 [14, 5]. In the same year the activities of publishing co-operatives were prohibited in the Soviet Union [19], but as Estonia had declared the superiority of its laws over the all-union legislation in November 1988, this decree was not valid here. Since 1989 numerous new publishing firms were established and many institutions, societies, unions included publishing among their activities. Every person and institution obtained the right to issue publications freely. According to the data from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Estonia the number of such organisations had reached 750 in 1991, but only a half of them really issued at least one book or brochure. A considerable increase in the number of publishing houses and firms, who issued books besides other activities, demonstrated the huge need in publications. The two large state publishing houses “Eesti Raamat” and “Valgus” were divided into many smaller enterprises. For example, four publishing houses were formed on the basis of “Eesti Raamat”. The most important step in reorganising the direction of publishing activities was the liquidation of the State Publishing Committee of the ESSR in 1988. The publishing houses became independent and organised their work themselves, without direction from higher bodies. A department of printed matter was established in the Ministry of Culture to consult the book branch. Censorship was liquidated in 1990 and the ideological pressure vanished. Thus the publishers were free to choose the content of their products. The economic conditions of their work also changed – in 1988 the state publishing houses became self-financing. The privatisation of the state publishing system took place in two stages: at first the state publishing houses were liquidated and the property was leased to the firms. After that, when the legal framework had been elaborated, the publishers were able to buy the property [18, 25–26].

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The former system of allocating paper and printing capacities collapsed. The Ministry of Culture allocated a certain amount of paper to state publishers with fixed prices, the rest of the necessary paper they had to buy on the free market, where the prices were very high. The state subsidised the publishing of textbooks. At first the publishers were compelled to sell textbooks, reference books and books for children with fixed prices [11], but since 1991 the whole branch moved entirely to market economy and all the former forms of subsidies and allocations were abolished. Although the number of publishing enterprises increased considerably, the annual title production of these years demonstrated a trend of decline. If over 2000 titles were issued in 1987–1989, then in 1990 the number decreased to 1628 titles. 1654 titles were issued in 1991. The decrease was caused by the new economic conditions, described above, but was also due to the fact, that the production of 1990–1991 did not contain the former compulsory political and other publications. The average print-run was still large, in 1990 it was 11 600 copies and in 1991 – 14 094 copies [9, 169]. As the book prices were still relatively low and the book production contained topics and authors, banned during the earlier decades, people bought books extensively.

Conclusions To sum up, the following characteristic features of the publishing activities of that period could be pointed out: • The Estonian publishing was part of the Soviet publishing system in 1944–1986 and it was organised by the same principles as in the rest of the Soviet Union, the independence in publishing policy could be detected since 1987. • The book publishing in the Soviet Union, including the Soviet Estonia, was an element of the political education of the masses. The publishing houses as institutions of ideology were governed by the communist party. The communist party determined both the structure and contents of publishing. In the organisation of the network of publishing houses it was characteristic of the period to establish only a limited number of publishing houses, whose work it was easier to control. • For the realisation of the policy of the communist party in the book branch a special administrative body was established, which had different names in different years, but it always controlled publishing, printing as well as book trade, thus the control over these three branches was concentrated in the hands of one directive organ. The centralisation and control were realised in the widest range after the

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establishment of the all-union and republican State Publishing Committees in 1963. All the rules, worked out in the all-union committee were obligatory for the Estonian publishing houses. • The dominance of the ideological function of books presupposed that the Soviet readers could obtain only books that were thought suitable for them by the communist party. This was guaranteed by a number of controlling bodies (the publishing house itself, the State Publishing Committee, the departments of the communist party) including a special body of censorship, established in 1940 and liquidated in 1990. • In addition to the ideological aspects the book production in the Soviet Union was influenced by the lack of paper and the fact that every publishing house could only use a certain amount of paper for its production. So the publishers had to act within these limitations, which hindered them to react freely to the needs of the public. The limited number of printing plants also inhibited the publishing activities. • An essential feature of the Soviet book publishing was the complex system of planning and of co-ordinating the plans, which became especially multi-stage and rigid since 1975. It was impossible to publish any title, which was not included in the plan and approved by various bodies. The planning process was characterised by strong ideological control, rigidity, and slowness, it caused a lot of unnecessary work. Submitted in February 2006

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9. Eesti statistika aastaraamat 1992. Tallinn: Eesti Statistikaamet, 1992. 186 lk. 10. EK(b)P KK. Propaganda ja agitatsiooni osakond. Majanduslikust olukorrast Riiklikus Kirjastuskeskuses 9. X– 6. XI 1947. Parteiarhiiv, f 1, n 10, s 7, l 7. 11. GRÜNBERG, Georg. “Eesti Raamat” 1990. Reede, 1990, 26. jaan. 12. HOLM, Kaie. Autoriõiguste kaitsest Eestis: Diplomitöö. Tallinn: Tallinna Pedagoogikaülikool, 1994. [Unpublished Diploma work] 13. JÕGI, Mall. Kirjastamisprobleemid ja üldine kultuurisituatsioon. Sirp ja Vasar, 1987, 18. dets., 25. dets. 14. KIIK, Heino. Aasta 1988. Tallinn: Õllu, 1990. 93 lk. 15. Kirjastus “Valgus”. Eesti NSV Riikliku Kirjastuste, Polügraafia ja Raamatukaubanduse komitee käskkirjad, istungite protokollid ja otsused 16. I-4. XII 1987. Eesti Riigiarhiiv, f R-2284, n 1, s 251, l 59. 16. Kirjastuste ja Polügraafiatööstuse Peavalitsuse kirjavahetus NSVL Kultuuriministeeriumiga, ENSV Kultuuriministeeriumiga jt asutustega trükiste ettevalmistamise, kirjastamise jt küsimustes 20. V 1957–16. XII 1958. Eesti Riigiarhiiv, f R-1965, n 1, s 162, l 98. 17. KÄÄN, Ilona. Kirjastus “Eesti Raamat” 1964–2002: Diplomitöö. Tallinn: Tallinna Pedagoogikaülikool, 2003. [Unpublished Diploma work.] 18. METSAR, Silvi. Kirjastustegevus 1990ndate aastate Eestis: Arvandmed ja arengusuunad: Magistritöö. Tallinn: Tallinna Pedagoogikaülikool, 2000. [Unpublished Master’s thesis.] 19. MURDVEE, Mart. Kuidas kasutada trükivabadust. Edasi, 1989, 17. jaan. 20. Riikliku Kirjastuskeskuse 1947. aasta aruanded kaadrialase ja ideoloogilise töö kohta, vastutavate ja nomenklatuursete töötajate 1947. ja 1948. aasta nimekirjad. Eesti Riigiarhiiv, f R-969, n 2, s 119, l 12–13. 21. Riikliku Kirjastuskeskuse ettekanded ja õiendid 1947. aasta kirjastustegevuse kohta. Eesti Riigiarhiiv, f R-969, n 2, s 100, l 26a. 22. Riikliku Kirjastuskeskuse juhataja korraldused 5. I - 13. V 1948. Eesti Riigiarhiiv, f R-969, n 2, s 124, l 22. 23. Rikastada Eesti NSV raamatuturgu väärtusliku kirjandusega. Rahva Hääl, 1948, 31. oktoober. 24. VAHTRE, Lauri. Nõukogude aja periodiseerimisest. In Muinasaja loojangust omariikluse läveni. Tartu, 2001, lk. 373–386. 25. VESKIMÄGI, Kaljo-Olev. Nõukogude unelaadne elu. Tallinn: K.-O. Veskimägi, 1996. 351 lk. ISBN 9985-60-207-2. 26. VÄÄRI, Eduard. Akad. P. Ariste fennougristikakoolkond. In Humanitaarteaduste koolkondade ja teooriate areng Tartu ülikoolis. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool, 1987, 16–23. (Tartu ülikooli ajaloo küsimusi 19.) 27. 25 aastat Nõukogude Eesti trükisõna 1940–1965. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1971. 179 lk. 28. ÁÀÐÅÍÁÀÓÌ È. Å. Èñòîðèÿ êíèãè. Ìîñêâà: Êíèãà, 1984. 248 c. 29. ÈÍÊÈÑ Ðàèìîíäñ. Êíèãîèçäàòåëüêîå äåëî â Ëàòâèéñêîé ÑÑÐ. Ìîñêâà: Êíèãà, 1983. (Èçäàòåëüñêîå äåëî. Îáçîðíàÿ èíôîðìàöèÿ. Âûï.3) 30. Ëèòâà. In Êíèãà: ýíöèêëîïåäèÿ. Ìîñêâà: Áîëüøàÿ Ðîññèéñêàÿ ýíöèêëîïåäèÿ, 1999, c. 374–378. 31. Ìàòåðèàëû ê ïðîòîêîëó áþðî ÖÊ ÊÏÝ ¹ 61 îò 19 ñåíòÿáðÿ 1977 ã. Parteiarhiiv, f 1, n 4, s 5057, l 13–14. 32. ÍÅÁÅÍÇß À. À. Î ñîñòîÿíèé è çàäà÷àõ ïî äàëüíåéøåìó ñîâåðøåíñòâîâàíèþ ñâîäíîãî òåìàòè÷åñêîãî ïëàíèðîâàíèÿ. Èçäàòåëüñêîå äåëî. Ðåôåðàòèâíàÿ èíôîðìàöèÿ, 1976, 12, 3–17.

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33. Î ïàðòèéíîé è ñîâåòñêîé ïå÷àòè, ðàäèîâåùàíèu è òåëåâèäåíèè: ñáîðíèê äîêóìåíòîâ è ìàòåðèàëîâ. Ìîñêâà: Ìûñëü, 1972. 634 c. 34. Îñíîâíûå íîðìàòèâíûå ìàòåðèàëû ïî èçäàòåëüñêîé äåÿòåëüíîñòè. Ìèíñê: Âûøåéøàÿ øêîëà, 1987. 333 c. 35. Ïåðåïèñêà ÖÊ ÊÏÝ ñ Ãîñïëàíîì ÑÑÑÐ (…) î ñòðîéòåëüñòâå â Òàëëèíå êíèæíîé òèïîãðàôèè îò 25 äåêàáðÿ 1980 ã. ïî 23 ÿíâàðÿ 1982 ã. Parteiarhiiv, f 1, n 31, s 12, l 13–14. 36. Ïðîòîêîë áþðî ÖÊ ÊÏÝ ¹ 59 îò 3 îêòÿáðÿ 1972 ã. Parteiarhiiv, f 1, n 4, s 4227, l 5.

THE BOOK PUBLISHING SYSTEM IN ESTONIA DURING THE SOVIET RULE IN 1944–1991

AILE MÖLDRE Abstract The article treats the changes in the direction of the publishing activities, the formation of the network of the state book publishing houses as well as the political and economic conditions of their activities in Estonia during the second Soviet occupation in 1944–1991. These years have been divided in three periods according to political history: the Stalinist era in 1944–1956; the thaw and stagnation in 1956–1986 and the political break-through leading to the restoration of independence in 1987–1991. Special attention is paid to the leading role of the Communist Party of the USSR and the Communist Party of the ESSR in publishing activities. For example, only the all-union communist party had a right to decide over the establishment of new publishing houses, the leading officials of the local and all-union communist party studied and confirmed the reports and plans of the publishers etc. For the implementation of the regulations of the communist party a special administrative body was established, operating under different names in different years. For example, during the all-union reform of 1949 it was called the Central Board of Printing Industry, Publishing and Book Trade by the Council of Ministers, after the reform of 1963 – the State Publishing Committee. The latter had especially wide authority and gave detailed instructions on organising the work in the publishing houses. The directions included rigid requirements about the planning process and co-ordination of the plans on local and all-union level. The co-ordination of plans became especially complex since 1975 when the publishing houses had to get consent from the Head Office of Thematic Planning and Co-ordination of the all-union State Publishing Committee for every manuscript they wished to include in their plans. Although this system was unable to function, it was not revoked. All this demonstrates the dependence of the Estonian publishing from the all-union directions and lack of its own publishing policy. The network of state book publishing houses experienced some changes during the all-union reforms in the book branch in 1949 and 1963. Only few publishing houses were active in Estonia during the whole period, only one publisher existed in Estonia in 1949–1957, in 1986 four state publishing houses issued books, one of them being a periodical publisher with a department for books in foreign languages. The small number of publishers had negative impact on the diversity of book production and for authors, whose possibilities to publish their works were limited. For

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example, there was no special publishing house for scholarly literature, which inhibited the development of many research areas. Major reforms of the system started in 1987, influenced by the changes in the political conditions. During the following years publishing became a right of every organisation and person who was interested in issuing publications. The number of publishers grew rapidly. The economic principles of publishing were also gradually adjusted to market economy.

KNYGØ LEIDYBOS SISTEMA ESTIJOS SOVIETMEÈIU (1944–1991)

AILE MÖLDRE Santrauka Straipsnyje analizuojami leidybinës veiklos krypèiø, valstybiniø leidyklø tinklo formavimosi pokyèiai bei jø veiklos politinës ir ekonominës sàlygos Estijoje sovietø okupacijos laikotarpiu – 1944–1991 metais. Ðis laikotarpis gali bûti padalytas á tris periodus, atitnkanèius politinës istorijos periodizacijà: Stalino erà – 1944–1956 metai; atðilimà ir stagnacijà – 1956–1986 metai; politinio proverþio laikotarpá, pasibaigusá nepriklausomybës atkûrimu, – 1987–1991 metai. Ypatingas dëmesys kreipiamas á tai, kad leidybinei veiklai vadovavo SSRS komunistø partija ir Estijos SSR komunistø partija. Pavyzdþiui, tik sàjunginë komunistø partija turëjo teisæ spræsti, ar steigti naujas leidyklas, o vietinës ir sàjunginës komunistø partijø vadovai tikrindavo ir tvirtindavo leidyklø planus. Komunistø partijos nurodymus turëjo diegti specialus administracinis organas, skirtingai vadintas ávairiais metais. Pavyzdþiui, vykstant sàjunginei reformai 1949 m. jis vadintas Centrine spaudos, leidybos ir knygø prekybos valdyba, o po 1963 m. reformos – Valstybiniu leidybos komitetu. Pastarasis turëjo ypaè plaèius ágaliojimus ir teikë iðsamias leidyklø darbo organizavimo instrukcijas. Nurodymai apëmë ir labai grieþtus planavimo bei planø koordinavimo vietos ir sàjunginiame lygmenyse reikalavimus. Nuo 1975 m. planø koordinacija tapo ypaè sudëtinga, nes leidyklos turëjo gauti sàjunginio Valstybinio leidybos komiteto Teminio planavimo ir koordinavimo vyriausiosios valdybos sutikimà átraukti á planus kiekvienà rankraðtá. Nors tokia sistema buvo nefunkcionali, ji nebuvo atðaukta. Visa tai rodo, kad Estijos leidyba buvo priklausoma nuo sàjunginiø nurodymø, o ðalis netuëjo savarankiðkos leidybos politikos. Valstybiniø leidyklø tinklas keitësi vykstant sàjunginëms knygininkystës sektoriaus reformoms – 1946 ir 1963 metais. Tik kelios Estijos leidyklos aktyviai veikë per visà periodà, vos viena leidykla egzistavo 1949–1957 metais, o 1986 m. knygas leido tik keturios valstybinës leidyklos, ið kuriø viena buvo periodiniø leidiniø leidykla, turinti knygø uþsienio kalbomis padaliná. Nedidelis leidyklø skaièius neigiamai veikë knygø produkcijos ávairovæ ir autorius, kuriø galimybës leisti kûrinius buvo menkos. Sakysim, nebuvo në vienos mokslo literatûros leidyklos, o tai stabdë daugelio srièiø mokslinius tyrimus. Esminës sistemos reformos buvo pradëtos 1987 m. pasikeitus politinëms sàlygoms. Per tà laikotarpá leidyba tapo kiekvienos organizacijos ir asmens, norinèio dalyvauti leidyboje, teise. Leidëjø skaièius greitai iðaugo. Ekonominiai leidybos principai palengva buvo pritaikyti rinkos ekonomikai.

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