NATASHA KISELEVA2026年9月2日 Martha VerschaffelA novelist I know recently wanted to do something that is now forbidden in Russia: publish a story about two women in love.我认识的一位小说家最近想做一件在俄罗斯已被禁止的事：发表一个关于两名女子相恋的故事。To do so, she had to hide her characters’ genders by writing in the present tense (present-tense verbs carry no gender in Russian) and by choosing names that both men and women use, Sasha, say, or Zhenya. Yet only a few years ago, none of these linguistic gymnastics were necessary. From the late 1980s through the first two decades of President Vladimir Putin’s rule, literature enjoyed near total freedom in Russia.为了做到这一点，她不得不采取一些语言上的迂回手段——用现在时写作（俄语现在时动词不区分性别），并选用萨沙或热尼亚这类男女通用的名字来隐藏角色的性别。然而就在几年前，这些语言上的闪躲腾挪还完全没有必要。从1980年代后期到弗拉基米尔·普京总统执政的前二十年，俄罗斯的文学创作享有几乎完全的自由。That may surprise those familiar with the Kremlin’s systematic takeover of journalism, television, movies and more. But consider that before 2024, Ficbook, the internet’s largest Russian-language fan fiction archive, contained an easily accessible trove of gay fantasies depicting Mr. Putin getting intimate with other world leaders, including President Joe Biden and President Emmanuel Macron of France. My first book, “We Will Meet Again,” featured an array of anti-Kremlin and queer characters and was published in 2020 without a single cut.那些熟悉克里姆林宫如何一步步接管新闻、电视、电影等领域的人可能会对此感到意外。但想想看，直到2024年之前，互联网上最大的俄语同人小说平台Ficbook上，还有一批唾手可得的同性恋幻想故事，其中描绘了普京与美国总统拜登、法国总统马克龙等其他国家领导人的亲密情节。我本人于2020年出版的第一本书《我们会再再次相遇》中有一系列反克里姆林宫和酷儿角色，当时未遭任何删改。But after Mr. Putin declared all-out war on Ukraine in 2022, he unleashed a devastating crackdown on free speech at home. That was initially confined to criticism of the war. Over time it spread, attacking a range of cultural expression. Now, for the first time since the Soviet era, the Kremlin is placing literature squarely in its cross hairs.然而，2022年对乌克兰发动全面战争后，普京便在国内掀起了对言论自由的严厉打压。起初，打压的对象仅限于批评战争的声音。但随着时间推移，打击面不断扩大，开始针对各种文化表达形式。如今，自苏联时代以来，克里姆林宫首次将文学直接置于其准星之下。On Sept. 1, new professional standards go into effect in Russia, dictating what it means to be a writer. A writer, the standards say, is anyone who “realizes the artistic concepts in a literary work,” and those who “revise (process, dramatize) literature,” including proofreaders. If such a person wants to receive certain grants, be eligible for state-funded literary awards or receive a government pension, he or she must now possess state-sanctioned knowledge of Russian history and culture and receive a degree from a university.9月1日，俄罗斯将实施新的职业标准，对“作家”的身份作出明确定义。标准规定，凡是“在文学作品中实现艺术构思”的人，以及“对文学作品进行修改（加工、剧本化处理）”的人——包括校对员——均可称为作家。但这类人士若要申请某些资助、获得国家资助的文学奖项或领取政府养老金，就必须具备国家认可的俄罗斯历史与文化知识，并持有大学学位。This is not merely bureaucratic theater. The consequences will be far-reaching. After all, many of Russia’s literary giants — Joseph Brodsky, Anna Akhmatova and Ivan Bunin among them — never obtained a college degree. Lawmakers have made no secret of the reason these standards exist. Literature is “a matter of state importance,” they wrote, central to the country’s identity. The Kremlin must control it.这并非单纯的官僚作秀，其影响将十分深远。毕竟，俄罗斯许多文学巨匠——如约瑟夫·布罗茨基、安娜·阿赫玛托娃和伊凡·蒲宁——都没有大学文凭。立法者对于制定这些标准的用意也并不遮掩。他们写道，文学是“具有国家重要意义的事业”，是国家认同的核心，因此克里姆林宫必须掌控它。Shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s Parliament outlawed all forms of “L.G.B.T. propaganda,” and the authorities set up an “expert center” to determine whether books were in compliance. The center created lists of objectionable literature that included Russian classics by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as well as works by Western authors like Susan Sontag and Stephen King. Last year, police used the law as a pretext to raid publishing houses in connection with a teen romance novel with L.G.B.T.Q. themes. Then prosecutors charged three employees with “extremism” for their role in distributing that book and others like it.在全面入侵乌克兰后不久，俄罗斯议会便取缔了一切形式的“LGBT宣传”，并设立了一个“专家中心”来审查书籍是否合规。该中心开列了一份禁书清单，其中既包括陀思妥耶夫斯基等俄罗斯经典作家，也涵盖了苏珊·桑塔格和斯蒂芬·金等西方作者。去年，警方依据该法突击搜查了与一本涉LGBTQ主题的青少年爱情小说相关的出版社，随后以“极端主义”罪名起诉了三名参与分发该书及类似书籍的员工。The employees’ predicament became known as the Publisher’s Case, seemingly the first criminal case brought over the content of books since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The case ended this month after the employees spent a year under house arrest, pleaded guilty, surrendered tens of thousands of dollars in fines and received suspended prison sentences of up to four years.这三名员工的遭遇被称为“出版社案”，这似乎是苏联解体以来第一起因书籍内容而引发的刑事案件。本月，该案宣告终结：三名员工被软禁一年后认罪，缴纳了数万美元罚款，并被判处最高四年监禁的缓刑。Strikingly, the books at the heart of the case broke no laws at the time of their publication. Mr. Putin signed the “L.G.B.T. propaganda” law at least a year after they were published. That is precisely the point: The Kremlin is creating an environment of uncertainty and fear, based on arbitrary punishment. The aim, in the publishing industry and beyond, is to promote self-censorship and eliminate dissenting speech.值得注意的是，此案所涉书籍在出版时并未违反任何法律，普京签署“LGBT宣传”法是在它们问世至少一年之后。而这恰恰是问题的关键：克里姆林宫正通过任意惩罚，营造一种充满不确定性和恐惧的环境，其目的就是在出版界乃至更广的范围内，推动自我审查，铲除异见之声。Reporting this piece felt like a foray into investigative journalism. To communicate with writers still inside Russia, I exchanged voice messages that disappeared in an hour. One writer would speak to me only through an intermediary. A dozen others did not answer at all. No one explicitly refused to speak with me — a refusal would have had to be put into words — and the silence tells its own story.在撰写本文的过程中，我感觉自己像是在做调查报道。为了与仍留在俄罗斯的作家联系，我发送了阅后即焚的语音消息（一小时后自动消失）。有一位作家只肯通过中间人与我交谈，还有十多人则干脆不予回应。没有人明确拒绝采访——因为拒绝本身需要说出口——而沉默本身已经说明了一切。From relative safety abroad, Russian exiles can test the boundaries of free speech in their home country. When they speak openly and often about literary censorship, the government brands them “foreign agents.” (Russia’s Ministry of Justice did this to me 10 days ago.) At one point, the best-selling Russian author Alan Charoit, a transgender man who now lives in France, planned to send copies of his fantasy novels to friends to distribute at home. But after the Publisher’s Case he abandoned the idea, because he “refused to take part in the system,” he told me.在相对安全的海外，俄罗斯流亡者可以试探本国言论自由的边界。一旦他们公开、频繁地谈论文学审查，政府就会给他们贴上“外国代理人”的标签（俄罗斯司法部十天前就对我这么做了）。俄罗斯畅销书作家艾伦·查罗伊特是一位跨性别男性，现居法国。他曾计划将自己的奇幻小说寄给国内的朋友分发，但在“出版社案”后放弃了这一念头。他告诉我，因为他“拒绝参与这个体制”。In 2022, the line between acceptable and unacceptable speech was clear. That year, three poets who performed antiwar verses at a monument to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky were brutalized and imprisoned. When the writers Boris Akunin and Dmitry Glukhovsky became outspoken critics of the war from abroad, they received lengthy prison sentences in absentia. Today, you no longer need to speak publicly against war to fall afoul of the Kremlin. You no longer need to be a prominent person. You need only to be involved with a text — as a writer, an editor, a publisher, a distributor, a vendor — that the authorities take issue with, now or in the future.2022年时，什么话能说、什么话不能说，界线还很清晰。那一年，三名诗人在诗人马雅可夫斯基纪念碑前朗诵反战诗歌，遭到殴打并被投入监狱。作家鲍里斯·阿库宁和德米特里·格鲁霍夫斯基在海外公开批评战争后，被缺席判处长期监禁。而如今，你甚至不需要公开发表反战言论，就可能触怒克里姆林宫；你甚至不需要是什么名人——只要你和某份文本有关联（无论是作为作者、编辑、出版商、发行商还是销售商），而当局现在或将来对该文本不满，你就有可能成为目标。Nobody knows where the lines are anymore. The rules must be interpreted not only for what they prohibit today but also for what they make possible tomorrow. When a law that expanded what constitutes “drug propaganda” took effect earlier this year, publishers started using artificial intelligence to review manuscripts and the books in their archives for compliance. The systems flagged classics by Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Bulgakov and Leo Tolstoy, which suddenly appeared on Russian e-book platforms with drug-related warnings.如今没有人知道界线在哪里。这些规则不仅要看它们今天禁止什么，还要看它们为明天的打压留下了怎样的空间。今年早些时候，一项扩大“毒品宣传”认定范围的法律生效后，出版商开始用人工智能来审查手稿和库存书籍。系统给普希金、布尔加科夫和托尔斯泰的经典作品都做了标记，这些名著随后在俄文电子书平台上纷纷出现了毒品相关警示。On Sept. 1, the danger is not that writers in Russia who fail to meet the state standards will suddenly be forbidden from writing books. The danger is that publishers will think twice before working with them. Unsanctioned writers books’ simply won’t be released, and a generation of new voices may disappear before they are ever heard.在9月1日这一天，真正的危险并不是那些不符合国家标准的俄罗斯作家会被突然禁止写书，而是出版商在与他们合作之前会三思而行。那些未经认可的作家的书，根本不会问世——一代新的声音，可能在被人听见之前就已经消失了。The novelist in Moscow used an old Soviet expression to explain that now writers must produce two books at once. There’s the one that can be published and the one “v stol” — “for the drawer.”那位身在莫斯科的小说家用一个苏联时期的老话解释了当下的处境：现在作家必须同时写两本书，一本可以出版，另一本“в стол”——“放进抽屉里”。Natasha Kiseleva是《我们会再次相遇》("We Will Meet Again”)和即将出版的《指控案件》(“Accusative Case”)的作者。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。