Samizdat conference focuses on "underground culture" in Soviet bloc (06/04/06)

Samizdat conference focuses on "underground culture" in Soviet bloc

PHILADELPHIA - "Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries," a two-day conference organized by the University of Pennsylvania, was held in Philadelphia on April 6-7. Various aspects of the phenomenon and history of "samizdat," the international term coined in the mid-1960s for uncensored underground literature in Soviet bloc countries, were presented and discussed by scholars and researchers.

During the first afternoon, a samizdat workshop was dedicated to defining, describing, archiving and publishing samizdat. Olga Zaslavskaia, Samizdat Archives curator of the Open Society Archives in Budapest, described her institution's holdings, which include the entire archives of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, considered the largest archives of its kind. She also spoke about the newly formed International Samizdat Research Association.

Wolfgang Eichwede, professor and director of the Research Center for East European Studies, University of Bremen, explained how his center was started in 1977 under the leadership of Willie Brandt and described the center's holdings of samizdat documents. Prof. Eichwede pointed out that civil society would be impossible today in Eastern and Central Europe without the samizdat of the dissidents who called for a peaceful revolution and an end to totalitarianism.

Prof. Ann Komaromi, professor in comparative literature, University of Toronto, spoke about the study of original texts, the paper, layout and history of the documents, and how the study of how they came to be where they are is as important as the study of the texts themselves.

Vera Skop, board member of Smoloskyp publishers in Kyiv, gave an overview of the Ukrainian dissident movement and the role Smoloskyp played in smuggling and publishing Ukrainian samvydav (the Ukrainian term for samizdat) and defending the rights of imprisoned dissidents. She also described Smoloskyp's current work with young Ukrainians and the Museum-Archives of Ukrainian Samvydav in Kyiv.

Among points raised during the discussion afterwards was the importance of sociological and historical research while authors of samizdat were still alive. The session ended with a reading of Vaclav Havel's one-act play "Protest," written in 1978.

The following day Prof. Komaromi spoke on "The Material Existence of Samizdat: Methodological Implications." Martin Machovec of the Comenius College and Charles University, Prague, gave a paper on "The Types and Functions of Samizdat Publications in Czechoslovakia in 1948-1989."

Prof. Eichwede in "Archipelago Samizdat. The Impact of Samizdat Culture on the Contemporary History of Central and Eastern Europe" explained that samizdat was not possible under complete totalitarianism but came about only when society was under pressure to modernize and the state's ability to rule and govern was diminished. Through the dissidents and their samizdat the world of Eastern Europe was changed.

Jan Kubik, professor of political science, Rutgers University, and the Polish Academy of Sciences, discussed the Polish experience in "Avant-Garde Theater Contra State Socialism: What Was Global Before the Era of Globalization (in Tadeusz Kantor's Theater)?"

Carol Rocamora, professor of theater, New York University, spoke on " 'Far from the Theatre': The Playwright Vaclav Havel in the 1970s." J. Martin Daughtry of UCLA spoke on the very popular form of disseminating recordings of unofficial and semi-official poems put to music in " 'Est Magnitofon Sistemy "Yauza!" I Etogo Dostatochno!' Magnitizdat as Musical Practice."

Prof. Albena Vassileva, professor in English and comparative literature, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, gave a history of the short dissident movement in Bulgaria in "Discursive Resistance in Bulgarian Late Communist Culture."

The last presenter, Prof. Alexander Gribanov of Suffolk University, former editor of the Russian samizdat Chronicle of Current Events, described two KGB documents that acknowledged the samizdat movement in the Soviet Union and provided instructions on how to deal with it in his paper "Samizdat in KGB Analysis of 1970-1971: Reading and Comparison of Two Documents."

All participants agreed that the conference and the valuable discourse that it produced was only the first step in understanding a very unique period of history and that more international research is very much needed.

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