Samizdat

Samizdat was the clandestine copying and circulation of censored writing in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc states. It let authors and readers circulate texts outside state-controlled publishing.

Typewriter: A machine that produces printed characters by striking inked type against paper. Carbon copies made typewriters an efficient tool for reproducing prohibited texts.
Great Purge: A campaign of political repression and executions in the Soviet Union, especially from 1936 to 1938. Its terror intensified the risks of preserving and sharing forbidden writing.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: A Russian novelist and historian whose works exposed Soviet repression and the Gulag. His writings circulated through samizdat before and alongside publication abroad.
The Gulag Archipelago: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's documentary literary work on the Soviet forced-labor camp system. Its manuscript was secretly copied and circulated before its 1973 publication abroad.
Human rights movement in the Soviet Union: Organized and individual efforts to defend civil and political rights in the Soviet Union. Samizdat carried declarations and evidence that sustained domestic rights activism.
Carbon paper: A coated sheet that transfers ink to another sheet when pressure is applied. It let one typing session produce multiple copies for circulation.
Gulag: The Soviet system of forced-labor camps and prisons, especially prominent under Stalin. Prisoners and former prisoners carried prohibited testimony and literature into circulation.
Andrei Sakharov: A Soviet physicist and human-rights activist who criticized political repression and nuclear arms policies. His essays and appeals were reproduced and distributed through unofficial networks.
Doctor Zhivago: Boris Pasternak's novel, first published in Italy in 1957 after Soviet publishers rejected it. Its route abroad illustrates the distinction between samizdat circulation and foreign publication.
Glasnost: A Soviet policy of greater openness in public discussion and access to information, especially under Mikhail Gorbachev. Greater openness reduced the need for some underground publications and exposed their subjects publicly.

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