The Dissident Library: Tamizdat: Contraband Russian Literature of the Cold War Era

This seminar will continue the conversation about tamizdat started in 2021, where we discussed a special issue of Wiener Slawistischer Almanachon the topic edited by Yasha Klots . This time we will talk about his recently published book Tamizdat: Contraband Russian Literature of the Cold War Era(Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2023), which explores the first publications, circulation and reception abroad of works by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Anna Akhmatova, Lydia Chukovskaya, Varlam Shalamov, and Abram Tertz (aka. Andrei Sinyavsky). The book treats clandestine Russian literature not only as part of the literary process within the USSR, but also—and primarily—as an alternative canon taking shape elsewhere. What artistic and ideological preferences did the editors of tamizdat publishing houses and periodicals have? What was the reaction of tamizdat critics and the general readers? What role did tamizdat play in the biographies of the authors? In discussing these issues, we will look at tamizdat as a literary practice and a
political institution of the Cold War era.

Yasha Klots: Tamizdat: Contraband Russian Literature of the Cold War Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2023.

This seminar will cover the following four chapters of the monography: "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich at Home and Abroad", "Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem and the Thaw: A View from Abroad", "Lydia Chukovskaia’s Sofia Petrovna and Going Under: Fictionalizing Stalin’s Purges", "Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales: The Gulag in Search of a Genre".

Languages of the discussion: Russian with simultaneous translation into English.

*For technical reasons, there is no video recording of this seminar. We apologise for the lack of a video recording. To get a visual impression of the seminar, see this seminar in Russian: https://youtu.be/G2qHDa92d4I*

Видео The Dissident Library: Tamizdat: Contraband Russian Literature of the Cold War Era канала ZfL Berlin