Bureau of Censorship

The Censor has the duty to consider all manner of books and literary works intended for public consumption.2.

To this end, no book or literary work shall be printed in the Russian Empire except after the review by the Censor.The central committee of censorship was the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee, which reported directly to the trustees of the St. Petersburg school district.

Censorship committees were also established in Moscow, Vilnius, and Tartu, and later in other districts.

The Ministry of Education's Bureau of Censorship, in addition to censoring certain material, reported the authors to the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery – "Section Three", the secret police, who monitored potential subversives.

(Section Three also had the power to censor authors and writings even if they had been approved by the Bureau of Censorship.