Hunter College Professor Creates Library of Soviet-Era Banned Books in New York

Yakov Klots, a professor of Russian literature at Hunter College in Manhattan, has established a specialized library dedicated to books that were prohibited in the Soviet Union. The collection, housed in two rooms on the 13th floor of the public college, includes rare editions such as Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" and Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago." Klots, born in Perm in the early 1980s, was inspired to create the archive following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlin's subsequent crackdown on free expression, which he saw as echoing Soviet-era censorship. The library focuses on both "samizdat" (underground, hand-produced works) and "tamizdat" (materials printed abroad and smuggled into the USSR). Notably, Klots highlights the CIA's role during the Cold War in printing and distributing banned literature, such as editions produced in Rome, without imposing ideological constraints—unlike Eastern Bloc authorities. The collection also features works by authors like George Orwell, Vladimir Sorokin, and Anna Akhmatova. Klots emphasizes that the library is not a relic of Cold War ideology but a testament to intellectual freedom, drawing parallels between the current exodus of writers from Russia and the flight of authors from Nazi Germany.