Samizdat

Samizdat ([samizˈdat]; Russian самиздат, from сам sam 'self' and издательство isdatelstwo 'publishing house' [to издавать isdawat 'to put on', '(publish a book)'], literally: 'self-publishing, self-published', short: 'self-publishing'; scientifically transliterated samizdat) referred in the USSR and later also in large parts of the Eastern Bloc to the dissemination of alternative, non-system-compliant 'grey' literature through non-official channels, for example by copying by hand or typewriter or by photocopying and passing on the copies thus produced.

There was a significant amount of samizdat in the Soviet Union, Poland, the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Writers, poets, publicists, and singers could publish critical texts or texts that deviated from the norms of Socialist Realism only in exceptional cases in the state-controlled publishing system. Thus, along with private readings, samizdat was often the only way to make non-conformist texts accessible to a wider audience in their own country.

In the case of non-conformist singers such as Vladimir Vysozky, concert recordings were recorded and distributed by tape copy. This form of samizdat was known as magnitisdat. Another form of dissemination of sound recordings, practiced as early as the 1940s, was 'rock on the bone' (рок на костях rok na kostjach), in which an audio track was imprinted on an X-ray recording.

Tamisdat

Researchers distinguish between samizdat and tamizdat (also tamizdat, from the Russian там tam "there"). In this case, texts by authors living in communist countries were smuggled to the West, printed there in the respective national language by exile publishers, and smuggled back to the source countries as printed books. In contrast to so-called exile literature, this term encompasses publications by authors who had not fled abroad or been forcibly resettled, but who lived in their respective homelands but could not publish there without restrictions.