Contraband Russian Literature and the Cold War (1956-1991)

FAIN: FT-270343-20

Yakov Klots
CUNY Research Foundation, Hunter College (New York, NY 10065-5024)

Research and writing of a book chapter on Soviet authors Andre Sinyavsky (1925-1997) and Yuli Daniel (1925-1988) and their reception within and outside of the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

As a literary practice and political institution, Russian literature published extraterritorially was as integral to the late Soviet era as official state publishing and underground circulation of manuscripts inside the country. The project is devoted to first publications and reception of twentieth-century Russian literary classics banned, censored or never submitted for publication at home but smuggled through various channels abroad and printed elsewhere, with or without their authors’ knowledge or consent. It is a pioneering study of how clandestine texts, which have since shaped the Russian literary canon, first emerged from the drawer, transgressed geographical and political borders, went into print, and were read by interpretive communities on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Associated Products

Tamizdat Project (Web Resource)
Title: Tamizdat Project
Author: Yasha Klots
Abstract: Tamizdat Project is a virtual environment that traces the history of circulation, first publications and reception of contraband Russian literature outside the USSR by making a rich variety of relevant sources available to the international academic community and students worldwide. It explores, in a research-oriented environment, the historical and socio-cultural climate in which masterpieces of Russian literature first appeared abroad before they could see the light of day at home.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: http://tamizdatproject.org/en
Primary URL Description: Tamizdat Project: Contraband Russian Literature across Borders: An Online Archive of Documents (1956-1991)

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