When Ivan Goncharov was finishing Oblomov in the late 1850s, he was officially employed at the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee. Goncharov’s career as a censor lasted for almost 10 years and earned him high ranks in the bureaucratic system of the Russian Empire and solid wages, but had a negative effect on his literary reputation. Several of Goncharov’s contemporaries considered it immoral or inappropriate for a writer to become a censor. Still, Goncharov accepted his dubious position, and not only…
Find out more »