Tamizdat as Cold War Literary Phenomenon

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

From the 1960s onward, much of the clandestine literature consumed within Eastern Europe was not presented through samizdat, but rather within tamizdat. This phenomenon, encompassing volumes published in the west and secreted beyond the Iron Curtain, was simultaneously a boon for citizens desperate to read non-official works and a weapon used by intelligence services to “reinforce links with the West” and “destroy isolation and apathy.” Beyond this political element, however, numerous individual actors also engaged in tamizdat for a variety of reasons, helping to enrich the literary and cultural life of Eastern Europe. These non-state actors, including Ardis, YMCA, and others, played an important role in introducing first editions of important works to the region, including texts such as Lolita, The Gulag Archipelago, and Requiem. This panel aims to offer a holistic overview of this under-studied and variegated phenomenon. Through papers focusing on authors, publishers, and tamizdat as a whole, it hopes to provide a multivalent perspective on this practice, arguing for its importance within the literary history of the twentieth century.

Sub Unit

• Literature: Russian and Eurasian

Chair

• Denis Kozlov, Dalhousie U (Canada)

Papers

• Time-Delay Tamizdat - Ann Komaromi, U of Toronto (Canada)

• Fantastic Realism Goes West: The Tamizdat Project of Abram Terts and Nikolai Arzhak - Yasha Klots, CUNY Hunter College

• Digitized Tamizdat: East-West Networks of Texts, People, and Ideas during the Cold War - Jessie Labov, Central European U (Hungary)

• The Case of the Four Gulags: Tamizdat as Publishing Practice - Alexander Jacobson, Princeton U

Discussant

• Olga Matich, UC Berkeley

Session Manager

• Dylan Mohr, U of Minnesota