The Dissident Library: Tamizdat: Contraband Russian Literature of the Cold War Era

The next seminar of The Dissident Library will continue the conversation about tamizdat started in 2021, where we discussed a special issue of Wiener Slawistischer Almanach on the topic edited by Yasha Klots. This time we will talk about his recently published book Tamizdat: Contraband Russian Literature of the Cold War Era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2023), which explores the first publications, circulation and reception abroad of works by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Anna Akhmatova, Lydia Chukovskaya, Varlam Shalamov, and Abram Tertz (aka. Andrei Sinyavsky). The book treats clandestine Russian literature not only as part of the literary process within the USSR, but also—and primarily—as an alternative canon taking shape elsewhere. What artistic and ideological preferences did the editors of tamizdat publishing houses and periodicals have? What was the reaction of tamizdat critics and the general readers? What role did tamizdat play in the biographies of the authors? In discussing these issues, we will look at tamizdat as a literary practice and a political institution of the Cold War era.

• Yasha Klots: Tamizdat: Contraband Russian Literature of the Cold War Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2023

Languages of the discussion: Russian with simultaneous translation into English.

To join the seminar please register here.

The event is part of The Dissident Library, a series of online seminars discussing scientific publications on the Soviet dissident movement directed and organized by Olga Rosenblum.