Resource: Scanned Issues of Samizdat Journals of the Late Soviet Period (University of Toronto Library)

We would like to draw your attention to some resources available for students, teachers and researchers in the Project for the Study of Dissidence and Samizdat (PSDS) (https://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto.ca) at the University of Toronto Library. Under the button “Journals,” you will find scanned issues of over 20 samizdat journals. This is a unique resource on uncensored art and literature of the late Soviet period. The set includes the landmark edition of Soviet conceptualism, the MANI folios, from the Forschungsstelle Osteuropa at Bremen University, as well as a full set of issues of the important Leningrad journal Chasy (The Clock, 1-80), furnished by the Andrei Belyi Centre in St. Petersburg. Users will also find nearly full sets of the outstanding journals Thirty–Seven and Transponans.

Under the button “Stories and Timelines,” users will find illustrated Timelines of the Rights Movement and Jewish Activism in the USSR with photos from collections around the world. The Stories available so far provide windows into some of the events and people associated with nonconformist art. See, for example, the “Story” on Nikonova and Sigei created by an undergraduate researcher. We hope to develop more of these in the future.

Other resources on the site include “Interviews” with activists.