Banned Books Museum — Attraction in Tallinn

Incredible. A random find and at first I wasn’t sure if I should enter. As there was written free entry behind the door, I decided to enter and it was fascinating. I don’t know when I visited a museum so small and kept thinking about it for so long afterwards. The Possibility to read in a lot of banned books, noticing that banning books still happens and books are still burned every week are mesmerising. I also really enjoyed talking to the guy sitting there, about getting the books, politics and much more. I just had a great time there. There are the books you know of, like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Animal Farm and 1984 from George Orwell or Mein Kampf from Hitler. But you also find for example Kids books you wouldn’t expect. All books have an explanation where and why they are or were...

The highlight of my Tallinn visit, hands down. Simply a unique place, in the literal sense that there's nowhere like it anywhere what in the world.

Joseph, the museum director, is passionate and knowledgeable, and the driving force behind the research. At the moment, he's doing a painstaking study looking for banned books from every country in the world (apparently it's hard to find sources in Kiribati). So if you're reading this and have information about banned books from a country it might be useful to drop by and let him know about it.

Any visit will get you thinking about the purposes and limitations of censorship. The sole Canadian entry in the museum shows how difficult this area can be.

This is a truly thought-provoking place, and should be an essential visit on any...

A powerful, necessary space. This Banned Books Museum is a quiet act of resistance: against authoritarianism, against erasure, against fear. Every book here was censored by someone who felt threatened by truth: political regimes silencing dissent, religious powers banning secular thought, governments punishing any challenge to the status quo. And this isn’t just history.. it’s happening now, in subtle and violent ways. In a world sliding into extremism, where critical voices are branded as dangerous, this type of museum should exist all over Europe, and the world!

Visit this museum and let it sharpen your resolve! Because freedom of speech means nothing if we only defend the voices we...