As noted before, mass media were not regulated by laws as in all civilized countries, but by censorship in all the post soviet territory. Sometimes when asked “why the lawlessness didn’t result in chaos in press”, they remember the situation in public and politics in 1988-1990 and forget about the previous times at the same time. The matter is that the Soviet press was directed by certain ideology within the period of the complete authoritarianism. Even a sparkle of freedom was hardly observed in the press of those days. The subjects to be covered by press had been stated by the ruling Party.
Only after “perestroyka” (“the reconstruction”) carried out by Gorbachyev and glasnost (publicity) in the USSR, some agitation was observed in the Soviet press media and the leaders realized that they couldn’t stand the pressure from people to speak free and to hear free speech. That is why several independent newspapers not keeping the positions of certain ideology were decided to be established in 1988-1989. Thus, the first “birds” of independent press appeared: “Azerbaijan” newspaper in September 1989 and “Azadlig” newspaper of the Azerbaijan National Front Party in December the same year started publishing.
In 1990 the USSR adopted the law on the “Press media”, but nevertheless it was still censored. In order to keep the its powerful positions, the censorship was the most important for their existence factor for the leaders of those times. But, according to M. Rasulzade, for people who tried the freedoms there were no limits. In the middle 1991 the republics entering the USSR declared their independencies one after another and the USSR stopped its 70 years’ existence. These independent states still censored their mass media but not very strongly. The process of censorship cancel started in Azerbaijan partially in April 15, 1992 when the president of the country and the acting as a chairman of Milli Majlis Yagub Mamadov signed the appropriate decree.
Just a year later Abulfaz Elchibek extended the censorship, especially in army, which was in relation with the occupied Kelbadjar region. At last on August 6, 1998, at the eve of the presidential election, Heydar Aliyev signed the decree on the censorship cancel. The researches carried out on the period after the censorship was cancelled are the subjects for other discussions and articles. We just followed the chronology of “censorship century” in the present article. We aimed just to remind all about the hard and long way the present days’ press passed till it became independent.
