The Samizdat Generation. Book Review: Rusina, Yu.A. (2019) Samizdat v SSSR: Teksty i Sud’by [Samizdat in the USSR: Texts and Destinies]. St. Petersburg: Aleteyya; Yekaterinburg: Ural Federal University

Abstract

Samizdat materials are a huge collection of documents of different genres that can be viewed in the context of the dissident phenomenon in the USSR. Only the latest decade saw the intensive growth of scientific interest to this phenomenon, and, therefore, these historical records require further interpretation and analysis; the latter became the main purposes of the monograph reviewed. The study combines both theoretical and historical aspects of studying Soviet samizdat. The term “samizdat” is understood in its wider sense, not only as fiction prohibited for publication, but also as a product of social, political, journalistic, human rights and other activities. At the same time, emphasis is placed on historical sources that allow documenting the human rights process. Samizdat is considered in three aspects: as a phenomenon of the 20th century supplementing official culture; as a kind of self-organization, self-reflection of society, a sign of intellectual reaction and an information channel; and as a historical source that makes it possible to study Soviet society and its reaction to state policy. This enables the author to present a representative and fairly complete picture of Russian samizdat. The notion “samizdat” is thoroughly analyzed, as well as the problem of the scientific classification of samizdat documents. The new classification system is demanded to be more detailed, presenting a complex structure, which takes into account various types and content of these historical sources. Working out a well-developed classification should ensure the use of available sources and their information potential. The book describes the sources of some varieties of samizdat documents: open letters, appeals and statements of protest, court proceedings, collections of documents. In a separate chapter, self-published magazines are analyzed as one of the most convincing manifestations of the various opposition movements organizational design. Particular attention is paid to the bulletin A Chronicle of Current Events, which has played an important role in reporting on human rights violations, disseminating the ideas of human rights defenders and maintaining links between human rights groups and organizations as a consolidating information center. The first issue of the Chronicle of 1968 is presented in the book as a holistic text, from the list of headings to the definition of the semantic strategy of the periodical, its tactics of layout and design, which allows us to correlate it with the legendary Herzen’s Kolokol [Bell] both in design and in its impact on public consciousness. The bulletin structure and its main sections were formed from the first issues: “Courts”, “Arrests”, “Extra-Judicial Prosecutions”, “Searches and Interrogations”, “In Prisons and Camps”, “In Psychiatric Hospitals”, “Persecution of Believers”, “Right to Leave”, “Jewish Movement”, “Through the Pages of the Soviet press”, “In Exile”, “Official Documents”, “Samizdat News”, etc. The analysis of other quite numerous samizdat magazines (Politicheskiy Dnevnik [Political Diary], Obshchestvennye Problemy [Social Problems], Veche, Vestnik Spaseniya [Herald of Salvation], Iskhod [Exodus], Vestnik Iskhoda [Herald of Exodus], Belaya Kniga Iskhoda [White Book of Exodus], etc.), including the “second culture” ones (37, Chasy [Clock], Obvodnoy Kanal [Bypass Channel], Metrodor, Summa [Sum], Nadezhda [Hope], etc.), allows the author to document the well-known statement of Igor Shafarevich that with all the various shades of independent thought in our country, the unifying principle was the feeling of lack of freedom. The author pays attention to historical discourse aimed at analyzing social and political processes via studying samizdat authors’ and developers’ biographies, as well as to the history of the texts. Biographies are given briefly, most often in the form of page footnotes, but their presence adds “humanity” to historical and documentary research (for example, biographies of V. Krasin, V. Chelidze, Yu. Shikhanovich, V. Rutminsky, Gr. Fedoseev, etc.). The book discusses the main varieties of social and political samizdat – “classic” and little-studied samizdat texts. Considerable attention is paid to “provincial” students’ literary and journalistic amateur periodicals of Sverdlovsk. The almanac Nashe Tvorchestvo [Our Creativity] (Ural State University, 1946–1949), Vskhody [Shoots], V Poiskakh [In Search] (Ural State University, 1956), the Ural Pedagogical Institute wall newspaper BOKS (Boevoy Organ Komsomol’skoy Satiry [Komsomol Satire Combat Organ], 1943–1960) are analyzed for the first time in the all-Union context. Student manuscript and typewritten magazines, a typical phenomenon for Soviet universities of that time, on the one hand, became the harbingers of political samizdat, on the other hand, a consequence of the creative and spiritual upsurge that caused the exposure of the personality cult. The book concludes with a brief bibliography on the Soviet samizdat history and an appendix including well-known examples of samizdat texts (“I Can’t Be Silent!” by P. Grigorenko, “The Final Word of the Accused Bukovsky”, “The White Book of Exodus” (1972)), as well as unique graphic jokes of BOKS.