Difference between revisions of "Samizdat (USSR)"

The status of samizdat texts was reinforced by the practice of ''tamizdat'', which was the smuggling of texts to the West for publication. Once published, the texts would often be smuggled back into Soviet Union and circulated in ''samizdat'', as was the case with Solzhenitsyn’s ''The Gulag Archipelago'' (Lovell 2000; 112). Indeed, the development of samizdat was in many ways supported by audiences abroad and Western publishing opportunities (<ref>Komaromi 2015: 133<ref>Komaromi, Ann. 2015. '' Uncensored: Samizdat Novels and the Quest for Autonomy in Soviet Dissidence''. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. </ref>). Some groups, such as human rights defenders and Jewish ''refuseniks'', relied on ''tamizdat'' to help garner international support for their cause and bring political pressure to bear on Soviet leaders. Another practice closely connected to ''samizdat'' was ''magnitizdat'' (see this volume), which involved the production and circulation of audiotapes. The tapes were often amateur recordings of live performances of cult musicians such as Alexander Galich, Bulat Okudzhava,’ and Vladimir Vysotskii (Steiner 2008: 622<ref>Steiner, Peter. 2008. ‘Introduction: On ''Samizdat, Tamizdat, Magnitizdat'', and Other Strange Words That Are Difficult to Pronounce,’ Poetics Today, 29(4): 613-628. </ref>).