Samizdat and Tamizdat

Back to modules »

The practice of unofficial publication and distribution of countercultural materials during the Cold War was widespread in the Eastern bloc, but varied widely from country to country, and from period to period. The goal of this module is to allow students to explore different aspects of samizdat (underground) and tamizdat (émigré) publishing which allowed people living in Eastern Europe access to censored or inaccessible texts. Readings will introduce students to the major political and cultural milestones that caused activists to start to publish unofficially, and the complex social networks that formed in order to sustain this effort. The smuggling of unofficial texts across the Iron Curtain, as well as between satellite countries, also played a vital role in this communication system. Source materials from the COURAGE Registry will provide vivid examples of the variety of format, media, topic, and intended audience of underground publishing, and assignments will encourage students to explore these materials in more depth.

Handbook

Unlicensed and Unbound: Researching Textual Traffic (Samizdat/Tamizdat) and Information Flow across Borders

Video

Readings

Compulsory

Kind-Kovács, F., & Labov, J. (Eds.). (2013). Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism. Berghahn Books.
Feldbrugge, F. J. M. (1975). Samizdat and Political Dissent in the Soviet Union. A. W. Sijthoff,.
Oushakine, S. A. (2001). The Terrifying Mimicry of Samizdat. Public Culture, 13(2), 191–214.
Autio-Sarasmo, Sari, & Humphreys, Brendan (Eds.). (2010). Winter Kept Us Warm: Cold War Interactions Reconsidered. Aleksanteri Institute.
Brier, R. (Ed.). (2013). Entangled Protest: Transnational Approaches to the History of Dissent in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Fibre.
Bolton, J. (2012). Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, the Plastic People of Theuniverse, and Czech Culture Under Communism. Harvard University Press.
Komaromi, A. (2004). The Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat. Slavic Review, 63(03), 597–618. https://doi.org/10.2307/1520346
Kind-Kovács, F. (2014). Written Here, Published There: How Underground Literature Crossed the Iron Curtain. Central European University Press.
Skilling, H. G. (1989). Samizdat and an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe. Springer.
Komaromi, A. (2008). Samizdat as Extra-Gutenberg Phenomenon. Poetics Today, 29(4), 629–667. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-080
Pollack, D., & Wielgohs, J. (Eds.). (2004). Dissent and Opposition in Communist Eastern Europe: Origins of Civil Society and Democratic Transition. Ashgate.
Skilling, H. G. (1981). A Czech Awakening: Unofficial Publishing and Other Independent Cultural Activities. Index on Censorship, 10(5), 24–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/03064228108533258

Recommended

Kenney, P. (2002). A Carnival of Revolution Central Europe 1989. Princeton University Press,.
Benda, V., Šimečka, M., Jirous, I. M., Dienstbier, J., Havel, V., Hejdánek, L., Šimsa, J., & Wilson, P. (1988). Parallel Polis, or an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe: An Inquiry. Social Research, 55(1–2), 211–246.
Dissent in Ukraine: An Underground Journal from Soviet Ukraine. (1977). Smoloskyp Publishers.
Michnik, A. (1985). Letters from Prison and Other Essays. University of California Press.
Hoptman, L. J., & Pospiszyl, T. (Eds.). (2002). Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art Since the 1950s. Museum of Modern Art.
Furst, J., & McLellan, J. (Eds.). (2017). Dropping Out of Socialism: The Creation of Alternative Spheres in the Soviet Bloc. Lexington Books.
Tighe, C. (1994). Polish Writers and the Transition from Socialist “Unreality” to Capitalist “Reality”: 1980-92. Journal of European Studies, 24(95), 205–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/004724419402409501
Péteri, G. (2006). Nylon Curtain: Transnational and Transsystemic Tendencies in the Cultural Life of State-Socialist Russia and East-Central Europe. Program on East European Cultures and Societies.
Kryński, M. J. (1978). Poland 1977: The Emergence of Uncensored Literature. The Polish Review, 23(2), 64–75.
Pavlyshyn, M. (2010). Martyrology and Literary Scholarship: The Case of Vasyl Stus. The Slavic and East European Journal, 54(4), 585–606.
Pospielovsky, D. (1978). From Gosizdat to Samizdat and Tamizdat. Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne Des Slavistes, 20(1), 44–62. JSTOR.
Doucette, S. (2017). Books Are Weapons. University of Pittsburgh Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21c4szx
Šmejkalová-Strickland, J. (1994). Censoring Canons: Transitions and Prospects of Literary Institutions in Czechoslovakia. In R. Burt (Ed.), The Administration of Aesthetics (NED-New edition, Vol. 7, pp. 195–215). University of Minnesota Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttsvwx.12
Brown, T. S. (2009). “1968” East and West: Divided Germany as a Case Study in Transnational History. The American Historical Review, 114(1), 69–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30223644
Stöcker, L. F. (2017). Bridging the Baltic Sea: networks of resistance and opposition during the Cold War era. Lexington Books.
Freedman, S. G. (1986, January 18). The Writer as an Exile; a Voice Far from Home. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/18/arts/the-writer-as-an-exile-a-voice-far-from-home.html
Eglāja-Kristsone, E., & Kalnačs, B. (Eds.). (2008). Back to Baltic Memory: Lost and Found in Literature, 1940-1968. Literatūras, folkloras un mākslas institūts.
Geipel, I. (2009). Zensiert, verschwiegen, vergessen: Autorinnen in Ostdeutschland 1945 - 1989 (1st ed.). Patmos Verlag.
Donev, V. (2012). Bulgarian Labour Camp Literature: Genre and Memory. In E. Helerea, G. Mailat, & F. Olteanu (Eds.), Remembrance in Time (pp. 43–51). Transilvania University Press of Brașov.
Dumitrescu, I. (2016). Poems in Prison: The Survival Strategies of Romanian Political Prisoners. In I. Dumitrescu (Ed.), Rumba Under Fire: The Arts of Survival from West Point to Delhi (pp. 15–30). Punctum Books.
Tökés, R. L. (Ed.). (1979). Opposition in Eastern Europe. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Goetz-Stankiewicz, M. (Ed.). (1992). Good-Bye, Samizdat: Twenty Years of Czechoslovak Underground Writing. Northwestern University Press.
Bugajski, J., & Pollack, M. (1989). East European Fault Lines: Dissent, Opposition, and Social Activism. Westview Press.
Mastny, V. (Ed.). (1972). East European Dissent. Facts on File.
Kuzio, T. (Ed.). (1989). Dissent in Ukraine Under Gorbachev: A Collection of Samizdat Documents. Ukrainian Press Agency.

Related Collections from COURAGE Registry (selection)

Encyclopedia

From COURAGE Registry (selection)

External Links

Samizdat [Wikipedia]

Further Sources

Assignments

In-class or short-term assignments

1) Look through the featured items from the COURAGE Registry, and identify which ones are published underground within the Eastern bloc (samizdat), which ones were published in the West and smuggled across (tamizdat).

2) Which of these source materials were translated, from which language to which, and why?

3) Construct a timeline of the major events in samizdat publishing, and see where the featured items fit in. Are there any from much earlier or much later than expected?

4) Plot the featured items on a map of Eastern Europe, and make a note of where the text originated (perhaps in another language or format), and where it was read. What is the farthest that a single text has traveled?

Offsite, longer-term assignments

Visit a local archive that contains material about your neighborhood/town/city/county. What information can you find about local, self-published materials? Were there any small-circulation magazines, newspapers, or ‘zines that were locally produced? Who was their audience and what kind of subculture or association did they address? When did they cease publication and why?

Discussion

You must be logged in to read and post comments!