Tamizdat Playing an Increasingly Important Role in Russian Culture, Sorin Brut Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 6 – In the waning decades of the Soviet Union, people there and around the world knew about the important role of samizdat, that is self-published and hence underground books and journals. Fewer were familiar with tamizdat, the Russian term referring to items published abroad because they could not be published inside the USSR.

            Tamizdat was always more important than many observers inside Russia and beyond have assumed, but today, cultural specialist Sorin Brut argues, it has experienced “a clear rebirth” and is leading to a division of Russian literate into that published “inside” and that published “outside” (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/01/06/razorvannaia-stranitsa).

            Books and journals published in the Russian community abroad have been coming out for a long time, but until the launch of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, they rarely attracted as much attention as they are today. Now, Brut says, “it is simply difficult to ignore them” or the role they play inside Russia.

            A major player in tamizdat is the Freedom Letters Publishing House. Set up in April 2023, it has already issued 54 electronic and almost as many hard copy books. Among its authors are Ilya Yashin, Dmitry Bykov, Svetlana Petriychuk, Yury Dubov, Vera Pavlova, and Natan Sharansky (freedomletters.org/ and novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/12/29/knigi-bez-tsenzury).

            This publisher issues books in Russian, Ukrainian and English, sells them abroad for both euros and rubles, and makes them available inside Russia via various means. And according to Brut, it fills an increasing gap in Russian literature given the repressions that Vladimir Putin has visited upon Russian publishing at home.