Voices of freedom: Samizdat

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to analyse the social phenomenon of samizdat as the domain of free thought in the Soviet experience. The data come from the archival source Arkhiv Samizdata. In the next section a quantitative analysis of samizdat is made on two fronts. First, a content analysis of Arkhiv Samizdata divides its 6,607 items into four categories: literary (1%), nationalist (17%), religious (20%), and political (63%). As these figures suggest, samizdat was a predominantly 'political' phenomenon in spite of its literary origins. Following the content analysis, the annual frequency of underground materials is mapped to trace the temporal fluctuations of samizdat from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Interestingly, some discrepancies were found between the 'objective' number of circulating samizdat materials and the 'subjective' mood of dissidents at different points of time. After this quantitative analysis the ideological evolution of samizdat is examined by means of a qualitative analysis. Initially a literary phenomenon, samizdat was soon politicised as a result of being persecuted by the regime. In this process three schools of thought-socialists, democrats and Slavophiles-appeared, each trying to analyse contemporary crises and provide possible alternatives to the failing system. In the conclusion the limits and contributions of these three paradigms-socialists, democrats and Slavophiles-are discussed as 'political' phenomena. © 2004 University of Glasgow.