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samizdat
Sign in to saveAlso known as samzdat, samvydav
Samizdat (, , ), also Samvydav () was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual reproduction was widespread, because printed texts could be traced back to the source. This was a grassroots practice used to evade official Soviet censorship.
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- underground press
- Image
- Marie Rút Křížková – Zaživa.jpg
Show 6 more facts
- topic's main category
- Category:Samizdat publications
- Commons category
- Samizdat
- native label
- самви́дав
- different from
- self-publishing
- described at URL
- sachsen.digital/sammlungen/politischer-samisdat-der-ddr
Sources (2)
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Encyclopedic overview
19 sectionsContents
- Name origin and variations
- Techniques
- Physical form
- Readership
- History
- Samizdat books and editions
- Samizdat periodicals
- Genres
- Literary
- Political
- Religious
- National
- Contraband audio
- Further influence
- Notable samizdat periodicals
- See also
- Citations
- General sources
- External links
Samizdat (, , ), also Samvydav () was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual reproduction was widespread, because printed texts could be traced back to the source. This was a grassroots practice used to evade official Soviet censorship.
==Name origin and variations== Etymologically, the word samizdat derives from sam ( 'self, by oneself') and izdat (, an abbreviation of , 'publishing house'), and thus means 'self-published'. Ukrainian has a similar term: samvydav (, ), from sam 'self' and vydavnytstvo 'publishing house'.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “samizdat” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.