Russian e-book and audiobook platforms have started attaching drug-harm warning labels to works by literary classics including Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, and Mikhail Bulgakov, the independent Russian news outlet Verstka reported.
Labels have appeared on Gogol’s stories Nos (“The Nose”) and Viy, with both text and audio versions flagged on the digital library platforms Litres and KION Stroki, as well as on individual product listings on the Russian e-commerce platform Ozon.
Readers of a Pushkin poetry collection spanning 1814 to 1836 are being warned about drug use. Litres has also labeled a collection of children’s stories by Leo Tolstoy and a collection of works by Ivan Turgenev that includes the novel Ottsy i deti (“Fathers and Sons”) and the novella Asya.
In the library catalog on the Moscow city government’s website, labels were added to a Bulgakov collection containing Morfiy (“Morphine”), Zapiski yunogo vracha (“A Young Doctor’s Notebook”), and Zapiski na manchetakh (“Notes on Cuffs”). Litres has also labeled a separate Bulgakov collection that includes the novels Belaya gvardiya (“The White Guard”) and Master i Margarita (“The Master and Margarita”).
Why these specific works were labeled remains unclear. None of the titles appears on the list that the Russian Book Union previously recommended for labeling under the new law banning the “propaganda” of drugs.
Pavel Krasheninnikov, chair of the State Duma committee on state governance, had previously promised that works by Tolstoy and Bulgakov would not be subject to labeling under the law.
Verstka suggested the labels may stem from isolated mentions of drug substances in the texts, or from errors in automated classification.
Amendments to Russia’s law banning the “propaganda” of drugs took effect on March 1, 2026. The amendments prohibit mentions of drugs in media, books, music, and film without a special label, which must accompany all works published in Russia after August 1, 1990.
Biographical books about the lives and work of poet Vladimir Vysotsky and writer Mikhail Bulgakov, as well as books by Viktor Pelevin, Sergei Lukyanenko, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, and Haruki Murakami, had previously been added to the list of books subject to labeling under the new law.
Russian authorities developed a special AI-based program for publishers to censor books.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.
