The Case of the Four Gulags: Tamizdat as Publishing Practice

• In Event: Tamizdat as Cold War Literary Phenomenon

Abstract

Though “tamizdat” is frequently used as an umbrella term to refer to a variety of relationships and objects, its essence is rooted in books. The fundamental expression of tamizdat is those volumes issued in the West due to an inability to find publication venues behind the Iron Curtain. Working from this mentality, my presentation will explore tamizdat as a type of publishing practice. Orienting itself towards publication histories, and drawing upon archival evidence left by publishers, it will analyze four separate editions of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago – two issued by YMCA and two by the Flegon Press. In doing so, it will highlight the movement’s broad idiosyncrasies and will demonstrate how tamizdat’s peculiarities were mediated by the importance it placed on books.

Author

• Alexander Jacobson, Princeton U