The Culture of Samizdat

By analysing the periodicals produced in late Soviet Leningrad, The Culture of Samizdat makes use of oral and written testimonies to examine the role of Samizdat activists in late Soviet Russia. Crucially, as well as providing new insight into Samizdat texts, the book employs an interdisciplinary theoretical approach which draws on both the sociology of reading and book history. In doing so, von Zitzewitz uncovers the importance of 'middlemen' - including editors, readers and typists - in the Samizdat subculture--