The section is devoted to the analysis of media and channels through which literary and cultural protest movements sprung, developed and spread, with particular attention, for the Franco-Italian area, to the phenomena of publishing (mimeographed magazines, underground publishing houses) and, for the Soviet area, to the forms of alternative self-publication and diffusion typical of Samizdat, of the “specular” Tamizdat, and of the so called “Magnitizdat”. The criteria adopted for the selection of the material and the filing methods are given below for each of the macro-areas identified.
WESTERN AREA
The section presents four categories, as follows: Journals, Publishing houses, Cultural centers, Events.
Journals: The category includes a sampling of magazines, selected according to their relevance in the cultural debate of the time. In particular, we chose to report the magazines linked to the Groups and Dissent Movements included in the first section, or that were of particular importance in the wide area of cultural contestation, depending on the editorial line and artistic and literary interests, with explicit attention to interdisciplinary and inter-artistic practices. These include, for example, the magazine “Quindici”, an expression of Group 63, and the magazine “Mondo beat”, a link between the Italian beat and provo movements.
Thus, the records include the following fields: Starting date, Ending date, Place, Editor, Publisher, Main collaborators, Description, Bibliography.
In the fields “Starting date” and “Ending date”, the chronological references within which the journal carried out its activity are indicated.
The “Place” field indicates the city (or cities) where the magazine was written.
In the “Editor” field, we specify the name of the editor (or editors) of the magazine.
In the “Editorial Committee” field we give the names of the editors where it has been possible to define a differentiation of roles, in the context of editorial work.
In the field “Principal collaborators”, we indicate the main names of those who, for various reasons, collaborated on realization of the magazine.
In the “Description” field, the history and the editorial line are presented; where appropriate, a more detailed description of the individual issues of the magazine is also included.
The “Bibliography” field shows the main bibliographic sources consulted for preparation of the form, as well as those considered useful for further study.
Publishing houses: The publishers have been selected starting from the contribution they gave in order to support the Groups or Movements and their commitment to counterculture activities. The sampling includes: small publishing houses, founded by the same members of the Movements/Groups or expression of their components, which contributed to forming the underground press scene – such as Stampa Alternativa -, and publishers, belonging to the official circuit, including some of the largest ones, which have promoted in various ways the counterculture activities related to the Movements (such as Feltrinelli). The latter are reported on the basis of specific series dedicated to the promotion of an alternative culture and practices of dissent.
The records indicate the fields Date, Place, Series of interest, Description, Bibliography.
The “Date” field shows the chronological details within which the publishing house is active.
The place of the publishing house is indicated in the “Place” field.
In the “Series of interest” field, only the titles of the series that received texts produced by the Groups and by the Movements, and aimed at sponsoring/promoting their activity, are reported, only where present.
In the “Description” field a brief history of the publishing house is drawn, highlighting which are the publishing companies considered to be of interest, the cultural policy that underlies the editorial choices and the nature of the publishing house’s link with the Movements or Groups.
The “Bibliography” field shows the main bibliographic sources consulted for preparation of the form, as well as those considered useful for further study.
Cultural centers: The places of production of the counterculture are defined as “cultural centers”. In these places important events and activities are carried out; they were managed directly by the Groups or Movements and played a significant role in the underground panorama. Among them we studied the Tèchne center, founded in Florence by some of the members of Group 70 and the cultural-publishing center of Mulino di Bazzano promoted by Adriano Spatola.
The following fields are represented in the records: Dates, Place, Promoters, Description, Bibliography.
The “Date” field indicates the chronological details of the activity of the center.
In the “Place” field, we specify the city and the exact location of the center.
In the “Promoters” field we provide the names of the founders and the main animators of the activities of the center.
In the “Description” field, the history of the center is briefly described, also tracing a profile of the main activities and cultural objectives.
The “Bibliography” field shows the main bibliographic sources consulted for preparation of the form, as well as those considered useful for further study.
Events: we report only those events that had greater resonance and were relevant for the cultural proposal implemented, chosen among all events that had an inter-artistic nature and that were realized at the initiative of Movements or some of their components.
These include the International Poets Festival organized in Castel Porziano in 1979 by Beat 72, or the music festivals organized by the magazine «Re nudo» in the 1970s.
The records contain the following fields: Dates, Place, Organizers, Participants, Description, Bibliography.
The “Date” field indicates the date (or dates) of the event.
In the “Place” field, we specify the city (or cities) and the exact location of the event.
In the “Organizers” field, the names of the creators and curators of the event are indicated.
The “Participants” field indicates the main authors/artists/intellectuals who took part in the event.
In the “Description” field, the genesis and the development of the event are reconstructed, with particular attention drawn to the motivations that underlie its realization.
The “Bibliography” field shows the main bibliographic sources consulted for preparation of the form, as well as those considered useful for further study. [Translated by Claudia Pieralli]
EASTERN AREA
This area presents four pillars articulated thus: Clandestine/Uncensored publishing, Authorized publishing, Meeting places and Chronology of events.
In the first pillar – Clandestine publishing – the main channels are mapped through which unauthorized literature and art forms opposed by the Soviet state were disseminated. This section is divided into three categories: Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Magnitizdat.
The Samizdat category is divided into two sub-categories: Periodicals and Works.
Within the first sub-category “Samizdat. Periodicals”, we considered the most significant literary and artistic journals circulated in the Soviet Union. The selection was made by the availability of the complete collection of each journal thanks to the consultation of the database “Samizdat collections” edited by Ann Komaromi (University of Toronto): https://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto.ca/.
At the moment, therefore, journals of which we dispose only of a partial collection have been excluded, as the partial collection does not allow an overall reconstruction of the history of the journal.
The “Samizdat. Periodicals” subcategory also includes collections and bulletins which document a series of initiatives promoted by groups and/or aggregation phenomena and the underground press. In order to differentiate the type of periodicals and facilitate navigation by the user, in square brackets has been assigned the type of periodical, i.e. [journal], [collection] and [bulletin].
Samizdat> Periodicals: as far as concerns journals, the fields of each record are:
Title, Date of beginning of activity, Date of end of activity, Place of edition, Editorial Committee, Total number of issues, Main collaborators, Description, Notes and Bibliography.
In the fields “Date of beginning of activity” and “Date of end of activity”, the chronological references within which the journal carried out its activity are indicated. In them we report the years (and possibly the months) as they appear on the original journals. If these differ from the actual publication ones, they have been placed in square brackets.
The “Place of publication” field indicates the city or cities in which the magazine was published. If the name of the place has changed, the Italian translation of the toponym is shown as it appears in the periodical (i.e. Leningrad will be written as Leningrad, rather than St. Petersburg).
The “Editorial Committee” field summarizes the data relating to the composition of the editorial committee and, where possible, information on changes of editor or on section managers. The field appears only in the records of those magazines that defined their own work group “redkollegija” (editorial committee). For the magazines which, instead, indicate “redaktory” (editors), the respective field was inserted.
In the field “Main collaborators”, the names of the most frequent authors are reported, sometimes even the people responsible for specific journal sections. If it was not possible to reconstruct the identity of the authors, the name and/or patronymic and/or the pseudonym with which they appear on the pages of the magazine was reported.
The “Description” field presents the history of the journal, editorial trends, content organization, genres (essay, poetry, prose, translation, interviews), the main editors, any copyright information, the authors who collaborated and the most significant contributions from a historical-cultural point of view.
In the “Notes” field, reference is made to the primary source on which the counting and possible technical observations on specific numbers (typescripts, manuscripts, information on the availability of some issues) was performed. For magazines published in a few numbers, information was provided on the total number of pages of the issues in the additional field “Total number of pages”.
The “Bibliography” field shows the main bibliographic sources consulted for preparation of the record, as well as useful for further information.
Collections and Samizdat bulletins: a limited number of historical, literary and artistic subjects have been studied. Collections and bulletins were chosen for their relevance and published in the late 1960s and early 1980s. Specifically, it is “Chronika tekuščich sobytij” (The Chronicle of current events), “Pamjat’” (Memory) and “Protalina”. Of these periodicals the complete counting was carried out based on the online archive of International Association Memorial http://old.memo.ru/history/diss/chr/.
The following fields are shown in the collection and bulletin records: Title, Publication date, Place of publication, Description, Promoters, Authors, Type of contributions, Notes and Bibliography.
In the field “Date of publication”, the year (or years) in which the collection or the newsletter was founded is reported.
In the “Place of publication” field, we indicate the cities where the collection or bulletins were published. If the name of the place has changed, the Italian translation of the toponym is shown as it appears in the periodical (e.g. Leningrad will be written as Leningrad, rather than St. Petersburg).
The “Description” field presents the history of the collections and bulletins (when and how they were circulated), the events and topics to which we pay particular attention, the authors who collaborated and the most significant contributions from a historical-cultural point of view. For the “Chronicle of Current Events”, more attention has been paid to events, procedural facts concerning personalities from the world of art, literature and culture.
The “Promoters” field indicates the names of the personalities thanks to whom the collections and newsletters were founded.
In the “Authors” field, the names of the major personalities who collaborated with the collections are reported (in the case of the bulletins, there is no reference to the authors).
In the field “Type of contributions”, we point out the contributions that are published in the collections (in the case of the bulletins, they have a completely minor role).
In the “Notes” field, information can be found related to archival sources useful for further research.
The “Bibliography” field shows the main bibliographic sources consulted for preparation of the record, as well as useful for further information.
In the subcategory Samizdat> Works the phenomenon was limited mainly to the literary genre of testimonial works on Soviet political repressions, a thematically homogeneous genre, which is particularly representative of the works circulated in samizdat. At the moment, we have excluded the literary works by authors of Russian modernism. These works, in some cases published in Tamizdat, have therefore been included in the special section “Tamizdat”.
The following fields are represented: Author, Years, Place of (first) edition, “Description”, “Editions in Russian language”, “Translations”, “Bibliography” and “Filmography”, when available.
In the “Tamizdat” category, there is a further subdivision contemplating, on one hand, the magazines (Periodicals), the works and the anthologies published beyond the national borders and on the other (Works and anthologies). These works and journals were selected according to their relevance, and also in consideration of the different cultural-political phases in the Soviet Union. For this reason, at the moment the most representative cases of the phenomenon have been recorded.
Tamizdat> Periodicals: the fields are the same as in the Samizdat journals. The number of periodicals provided are limited to the topic of this project.
Tamizdat> Works and anthologies: at the moment it hosts a limited number of non-periodic editions of Tamizdat, that is, one-time published anthologies/miscellaneous/collections (currently limited to the case of “Metropol’”, classified by us here as [anthology]) and literary works circulated first clandestinely in the USSR, sometimes delivered abroad, and subsequently printed outside the Soviet borders. The following fields are shown in the records of the literary works: Title, Year(s) of writing, Year of first publication, Publishing house or Journal, Place of publication, Description, Editions in Russian language, Translations, Bibliography and Notes.
The “Year(s) of writing” field indicates the year (or years) of writing the work.
The year in which the work was first published is indicated in the “Year of first publication” field. This field also refers to possible cuts to which the work has been submitted (if it was not published entirely), as well as to the language in which it was published for the first time.
The “Publishing House” or “Journal” field reports the publishing house or magazine where the work was published and, where possible, the series in which it was included (if present).
The “City of publication” field shows the city or cities where the work was published. If the name of the place has changed, the Italian translation of the toponym is reported as it appears on the title page (i.e. Leningrad will be written as Leningrad, rather than St. Petersburg).
In the “Description” field the editorial history of the work is reconstructed, referring to the various editions and personalities who contributed to the publication, indicating the possible circulation in Samizdat. The events that led to the first publication, as well as the first publications in Russian, are also briefly described.
In the “Editions in Russian language” field, the editions in which the work appeared in Russian are reported. The field also indicates whether the work was published in its entirety or not.
The “Translations” field shows all the translations into the major western languages in which the work appeared, indicating the place of publication, the publishing house and the translator in round brackets.
The “Bibliography” field shows the main bibliographic sources consulted for preparation of the record, as well as useful for further information.
In the “Notes” field, we report particular observations relating to specimens found in the work and/or archival sources.
Within the “Metropol’” record the fields are: Title, Publication date, Place of publication, Description, Promoters, Authors, Type of contribution, Notes and Bibliography. The content of the fields is the same as for the bulletins and the collections.
The last category is dedicated to the Magnitizdat, a term adopted ex-post to indicate the vast scope of clandestine dissemination of audio materials on magnetic media. It is divided into a number of records, which offer a general description of the phenomenon by type of support and content. In this section, a separate contribution consists of an interview with Pëtr Trubeckoj, currently the most important collector and archivist of “magnitizdat” in Russia.
The second pillar – Authorized Publishing – hosts those publications that took place in the official Soviet publishing circuit, but by content refers to a cultural system different from the official one. They are therefore cultural products of dissent, but which benefited from an “official” channel for their diffusion.
The fields of these records are Date (meaning the date of publication with it), Place of publication (for which the same indications apply as for the related field in the other sections), Editors, Preface, Number of pages, Print run, Description, Bibliography.
In the third pillar – Meeting places – a map of the meeting points in Moscow and Leningrad (private apartments, public places such as squares and streets) is provided. It shows the most significant places for the diffusion of an independent culture in the Soviet territory.
The following fields have been included in the private apartment records: Place, Legend (which shows the Russian lexemes used to indicate, and still today, indicate those specific places), Description (which gives a brief history of the initiatives that took place in the apartments and their promoters), Bibliography (showing bibliographical and in-depth reports).
Instead, the following fields have been included in the squares and streets records: Dates (indicating the dates on which events and initiatives were organized), Place, Participants, Publishing initiatives (linked to the foundation and dissemination of magazines and almanacs, if present), Description (with a reconstruction of the history of the place, the initiatives hosted and their promoters) and Bibliography.
In the fourth pillar – Chronology of events – the main initiatives of various types are recorded and promoted both by protagonists of the ‘second culture’ (vtoraja kul’tura), and by personalities of Soviet culture and science engaged in the process of democratization of the country. The events indexed in this section are limited to the cultural events examined and described in the specific sections of the site (Eastern Area). By clicking on the various links, the user will be directed to the relevant records. [Translated by Giuseppina Larocca]