LAIKU ATŠALKAS: ŽURNĀLISTIKA, KINO, POLITIKA - Academia

LAIKU ATŠALKAS: ŽURNĀLISTIKA, KINO, POLITIKAJānis KreicbergsDoctoral student, University of Latvia, Department of Communications Studies; director, libraryof the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of LatviaTHE SOVIET LIBRARY AS A WAY OF INFLUENCING YOUNGPEOPLE IN IDEOLOGICAL TERMSKeywords: Soviet library, young people, management of reading, atheism, propaganda, ideology, totalitariansystemThis paper offers a look at Soviet libraries as one of the instruments which the totalitarianregime used to influence people in ideological terms. The main purpose of the Soviet systemwas to force people to accept ideas and to manage and control them. Particular attention wasfocused on children and young people, both because that was the segment of society which waseasiest to manipulate, and also because these were people who were most subject to the risk ofnew ideologies and free thinking. Libraries, along with educational institutions, were of keyimportance, therefore, in the ideological training of young Soviets. Although that is in violationof the essential need for libraries to be independent and not to interfere in the reading choices oflibrary users, the fact is that the Soviet regime transformed libraries into institutions for politicalagitation – institutions at which people’s reading was both supervised and managed.230