A popular web site used by historians to explore the often-murky Soviet past has been blocked for publishing Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” in what appears to be a case of selective justice.

The site, Hronos.info, was shut down last week by its Moscow-based Internet provider after a warning from St. Petersburg’s “K” police squad, which deals in cyber crime, the site’s founder, Vyacheslav Rumyantsev, said Friday.

Rumyantsev, a Moscow State University history graduate who opened the site in 2000, said he first posted extracts from Hitler’s book 2 1/2 years ago.

Hronos.info, which posts articles and scanned historical documents, is widely recognized as one of the biggest and most popular historical sites in Russia. Rumyantsev called it “the central historical resource on the Russian-language Internet.”

“Mein Kampf” is banned in Russia under the law on countering extremist activities, which lists in its text “the works of the leaders of the German Nazi Party.”

Rumyantsev said, however, that he wasn’t aware of this. “I don’t know about any list of books. I haven’t seen this book there,” he said.

In fact, “Mein Kampf” is not on a list of banned extremist materials published by the Justice Ministry because it falls directly under the law. The list on the Justice Ministry web site includes 389 materials, including articles, films, pamphlets and magazines.

The list is based on books that have been ruled extremist by courts. It is controversial among Russia’s Muslim community because it includes seminal texts by Muslim thinkers, and human rights campaigners complain that it is almost impossible to remove a book once it appears on the list.

One of the books listed is “Hitler’s Table Talk” by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper.

Rumyantsev insisted that the publication of “Mein Kampf” was for academic research.

“The site posts historical sources so that people can read them and get to know the past,” he said, adding that he had posted only an “outline” of the first part of the book.

A spokesman for St. Petersburg police, Vyacheslav Stepchenko, said Friday that the site was closed down after the police sent a letter to provider Agava. He said that the law calls for the distributor of information to be warned first, and a criminal case will be opened only if the warning is ignored.

The law applies to the provider, not to the author of a web site, he said. “According to Russian law, responsibility for distribution lies with the owner of the resource, the owner of the hosting.”

The police department sends about 20 warning letters every month, he said.

Agava officials were not immediately available for comment.

Rumyantsev said he had obtained a copy of the police fax from the provider and passed it to a well-known nationalist politician, former State Duma Deputy Andrei Savelyev, to post on his LiveJournal blog. Savelyev, a former Rodina deputy, heads a nationalist organization called Great Russia that hasn’t won registration as a political party.

The scanned document, dated June 19, cites a link to “Mein Kampf” and says this breaks Article 280 of the Criminal Code by making a public call to extremist activities.

It says the provider must block the site according to the law on communications, and that if it fails to do so, it could lose its license and the head of the provider would be considered as an accessory to a crime.

World War II history is particularly controversial at the moment, after President Dmitry Medvedev in May called for the creation of a commission to prevent historical falsifications that damage Russia’s interests.

Nevertheless, the closure of one web site bears the hallmarks of selective justice. If you type “Mein Kampf” in Russian into search engine Yandex.ru, the system automatically suggests “download” as the most popular result. Dozens of web sites offer downloads of “Mein Kampf.” One called XXII-vek.info offers the option of ordering a paper version described as “samizdat.” Another web site, Knigadarom, lists the book and says that 1,984 people have downloaded it.

Historian Yaroslav Leontyev, a staff member at the human rights group Memorial, said he hadn’t heard of the closure of the web site, but that he felt that “Mein Kampf” should not be available to readers.  “I don’t think distribution of this book should take place,” he said.

But another historian, Boris Sokolov, said such censorship was pointless.

“I think it’s just another stupid idea because ‘Mein Kampf’ can be seen as a historic document,” Sokolov said. “Only historians read it. It’s quite a complex book; your average fascist won’t be able to read it. I don’t think it’s right to have censorship on the Internet.”

He also noted that the book was available on many web sites. “They won’t be able to ban them all, especially because some of them aren’t in Russia,” he said.

Rumyantsev said the book got around 200 hits per week, compared to 10,000 daily for the site as a whole. “People definitely didn’t log on for ‘Mein Kampf,’” he said.

Two mirror sites, Hrono.ru and Hronos.km.ru are still working because they have a different provider, Rumyantsev said. He has removed “Mein Kampf” from both.  

“I removed it from there because it’s more precious and important to me that people read the other materials,” he said.