Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond

Friederike Kind-Kovács is Assistant Professor in the Department of Southeast and East European History at Regensburg University.

“The volume displays in exemplary fashion the entire spectrum of this dissident world; it would be great to see such well structured edited volumes like this one more often.” • Archiv für Sozialgeschichte“[The editors] present a wide-ranging array of case studies of unofficial and oppositional media across the socialist bloc, which enrich the growing literature on samizdat while providing one of the first detailed accounts of tamizdat. Many chapters reconstruct the complex networks via which these media circulated to East European domestic audiences and, more important, to the transnational community that could offer theoretical and practical support for dissent outside the host countries. They evoke an almost infinite variety in the type and scale of such media circulation.” • Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History “These case studies will be invaluable to researchers seeking innovative approaches to the study of dissent, or those teaching courses on the subject who want to add something new and thought provoking to their syllabi.” • Russian Journal of Communication"The volume is enlightening and innovative in many respects and deserves attention beyond the circles of regional specialists. Challenging received notions about the self-enclosed nature of communication and culture in Communistruled Central and Eastern Europe, contributions to the volume highlight the importance of transnational information flows within the region and across the Cold War divide." • European Journal of Communication“Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond offers a long-awaited rethinking of dissent at the grassroots level. Looking primarily but not exclusively to the Eastern Bloc, this volume skillfully stretches our understanding of samizdat to incorporate visual art, music, video, and the web. The editors bring together seemingly disparate samizdat ‘texts’ by placing them within the larger context of transnationalism, gender, and mass media. In so doing, they remind us that dissent is, first and foremost, a creative human endeavor, one that not only has a history but also a future.” • Paulina Bren, Vassar College“The information and insights contained in this volume fill the gap in our knowledge about the vitality, diversity, and ongoing relevance of samizdat/tamizdat and alternative media not only in the post-Communist states represented here, but in emerging democracies in other regions of the world, e.g. the Middle East and Asia.” • Michael Long, Baylor University

• List of IllustrationsForewordAcknowledgementsIntroductionSection I: Producing and Circulating Samizdat/Tamizdat Before 1989Chapter 1. Ardis Facsimile and Reprint Editions: Giving Back Russian LiteratureAnn KomaromiChapter 2. The Baltic Connection: Transnational Networks of Resistance after 1976Fredrik Lars StöckerChapter 3. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty as the ‘Echo Chamber’ of TamizdatFriederike Kind-KovácsChapter 4. Contact Beyond Borders and Historical Problems: Kultura, Russian Emigration and the Polish OppositionKarolina Ziolo-PuzukSection II: Diffusing Non-Conformist Ideas Through Samizdat/Tamizdat Before 1989Chapter 5. “Free Conversations in an Occupied Country:” Cultural Transfer, Social Networking and Political Dissent in Romanian TamizdatCristina PetrescuChapter 6. The Danger of Over-Interpreting Dissident Writing in the West: Communist Terror in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1968Muriel BlaiveChapter 7. Renaissance or Reconstruction? Intellectual Transfer of Civil Society Discourses Between Eastern and Western EuropeAgnes ArndtSection III: Transforming Modes and Practices of Alternative CultureChapter 8. The Bards of Magnitizdat: An Aesthetic Political History of Russian Underground RecordingsBrian A. HorneChapter 9. Writing about apparently non-existent art: the tamizdat journal A-Ja and Russian unofficial arts in the 1970s-1980sValentina ParisiChapter 10. “Video Knows No Borders”: Samizdat Television and the Unofficial Public Sphere in “Normalized” CzechoslovakiaAlice LovejoySection IV: Moving From Samizdat/Tamizdat To Alternative Media TodayChapter 11. Postprintium? Digital literary samizdat on the Russian InternetHenrike SchmidtChapter 12. Independent Media, Transnational Borders, and Networks of Resistance: Collaborative Art Radio between Belgrade (Radio B92) and Vienna (ORF)Daniel GilfillanChapter 13. “From Wallpapers to Blogs”: Samizdat and Internet in ChinaMartin HalaChapter 14. Reflections on the Revolutions in Europe: Lessons for the Middle East and the Arab SpringBarbara J. FalkAfterwordJacques RupnikSelected BibliographyNotes on Contributors