Word: samizdat
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...current Russian practice of samizdat (self-publishing) is well-known in the West. By samizdat, Russians endlessly retype and clandestinely circulate the work of such banned Russian writers as Alexander Solzhenitsyn. With the increasing availability of tape recorders, another practice, called magnitizdat (publishing by tape recorder), is becoming even more popular than samizdat. Through magnitizdat, artists record songs that are not acceptable for official release. The tapes are then passed from hand to hand with lightning rapidity as each person makes copies for his friends...
...Unlike samizdat, which is forbidden, magnitizdat has not been declared illegal. "So far as we know, no one has yet been arrested for composing, performing, taping or playing the tapes in Russia," says Misha Allen, an emigre from Russia living in Toronto who has collected more than 700 modern Soviet songs. "Probably the state regards the songs as a safety valve for the rebellious. Besides, many are patriotic." Still, as Allen points out, the Soviet authorities are not exactly delighted about the trend. Recently, tapes acquired in Russia by a few Western tourists have been seized by Soviet customs...
...when he detected an incorrect date for his birthday, he said jokingly: "You see, you have the wrong man." Amalric learned that half of the agents were from the Siberian border city of Sverdlovsk, where a copy of his book, which was circulating in typed form via the Samizdat underground press, had been confiscated by the authorities...
...adds, "provided the focus for the post-Stalin revival of a critically thinking intelligentsia in Russia." The immediate effect of Novy Mir's disappearance as an outlet for independent writers will probably be an increase in the amount of good writing circulating from hand to hand by samizdat, the underground press...
...only publication in Russia to re port on such historical documents as Alexander Solzhenitsyn's letters to the Writers Union about the banning of his works. The Chronicle regularly offers listings of the latest officially forbidden books by both Western and Russian authors circulating in samizdat editions in the Soviet Union...