Eva examines a ‘Samizdat’ printing press.
A I reported in Chronologies of Tyranny, War and Genocide, Eva and I visited Budapest, Hungary in April, 2004. We had a soulful visit to the Millenáris Park Exhibition Hall, which was then housing a traveling exhibit of Samizdat printing equipment and paraphernalia, art, and sculpture.
The Russian word Samizdat means ‘publishing by yourself’: “You write by yourself, edit by yourself, you censor by yourself, you distribute by yourself and you do time for it by yourself as well”– (Vladimir Bukovsky). Everything the authorities in the Soviet dictatorships prohibited or that censorship did not permit found its ways into intellectual underground: out of posters and leaflets and typed or printed books, out of stamps and photographs and provocative works of arts there arose a cosmos apart, unique and colourful. Samizdat existed in all countries of the Soviet sphere of power. It gained its widest circulation in the former USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and the GDR. With its 400 exhibits, the Samizdat exhibition attempts to rescue this fascinating and colourful world from oblivion. [Source]
It was chilling and thrilling to see about the brave writers, artists and publishers who refused to be intimidated by the Soviet authorities. Many writers and publishers were jailed and sent to mental hospitals; some were killed. I rushed to the book store to ask for a copy of this chronology in English, but only Hungarian and German was available. So I went back to the wall and took sixteen photographs of the entire display. Later, at home, I transcribed the text into Excel, then into an MS Word document which you can download from here: History of the Samizdat Movement A few more images from the exhibit can be seen here.
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Thanks for the reblog.
My pleasure. I’ve been looking over your website. It’s very interesting. I have a small WordPress magazine I’m developing for some other amateur writers and myself. I came across a young art student’s blog and I liked her work, so she let me place it on the front page. Then I began looking for a Samizdot image. Then I found your excellent site. I’m not getting much traffic right now, but if it’s okay with you, I can link to your site.
I’ve already subscribed to yours and have put your site address on my blog roll. I’m happy to have mine on yours, a high quality publication. Perhaps we could communicate by email to explore more of what you have in mind, and perhaps collaborate in some manner? rpavellas(at)gmail(dot)com.