TAMIZDAT
Transnational Book Diplomacy beyond the Cultural Cold War: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the Tamizdat

Project Research Outreach Team Contacts

Project

The transnational production, circulation and reception of Soviet and East European literature in the West during the Cold War challenges the dominant two-bloc narrative and tells us a different story about the cross-border flow of knowledge and ideas.

Focusing on the intense cultural exchanges of the time across and beyond the ‘Nylon Curtain’ (Péteri 2004) – an ideological and geopolitical border extremely permeable to cultural objects – this research project aims to challenge:

  1. the traditional representation of Western and Eastern cultures as divided into two isolated blocs;
  2. the representation of tamizdat as a mere ideological weapon of the ‘Cultural Cold War’.

The term TAMIZDAT (‘published over there’) refers to Soviet and Eastern European texts, unpublished in the Eastern bloc and clandestinely smuggled and published in the West. As an alternative transnational publishing practice with a specific socio-cultural value, “tamizdat” highlights «cooperation across apparent ideological division and cross-border interaction instead of hostility» (Mikkonen, Scott-Smith et al. 2019). The «emphasis on smaller national and transnational actors instead of governments» (ibidem) demonstrates the crucial role of book diplomacy in preventing the cultural isolation of the two blocs.

Treating “tamizdat” as the result of socially and culturally regulated activities, it will be considered the agency of social (activists of social movements, dissidents, Soviet and East European émigrés, diplomats etc.) and cultural actors (writers, editors, translators, literary agents, critics, journalists, etc.) who contributed to its transnational production, circulation and reception, in order to outline a comparative socio-cultural history of the Cold War.

Research

TAMIZDAT project aims to assess the value and meaning of “tamizdat” and to insert its production, circulation and reception in a system of social relations in order to outline a comparative socio-cultural history of the Cold War focusing on the transnational and cross-border state and non-state book diplomacy between Western and Eastern blocs. To this aim, TAMIZDAT analyzes: the material and symbolic production in the West of uncensored Soviet and Eastern European texts; the translations into Russian and Eastern European languages of Western texts banned in the Eastern bloc; and their circulation and reception in the West and, clandestinely, also in the USSR and Eastern Europe (1957-1991). This research fills a gap in the socio-cultural history of “tamizdat” by:

  1. studying the cross-border circulation and publication of “tamizdat”;
  2. mapping the network of governmental and non-governmental individuals and organizations that enabled its circulation across and beyond the ‘Nylon Curtain’;
  3. establishing its value and meaning;
  4. highlighting how its reception contributed to the creation of a transnational and cross-border culture. 

For mapping the transnational routes and networks of “tamizdat” will be employed digital tools of analysis and visualization of data. 

This innovative and challenging cross-disciplinary project applies an alternative approach to the socio-cultural history of the Cold War and a rich methodological framework to the institutional, social, cultural and ideological dimensions of state and non-state book diplomacy across and beyond the Iron Curtain.

Outreach

Seminars, workshops and conferences

Papers

  • “Solzhenitsyn Galaxy. Transnational Networks and Maps of Tamizdat for a Topography of Cold War Culture” (ASEES Annual Convention, November 21-24, 2024, Boston)
  • “La socializzazione transnazionale del tamizdat, tra diplomazia del libro e Guerra Fredda culturale” (‘Letteratura, dissenso, emigrazione’, May 28-29, 2024, University of Florence)
  • “Transnational Networks of Polish Tamizdat” (‘Banned Books from the Cold War to the Present’, May 10-11, 2024, Hunter College, CUNY, New York)
  • “Solzhenitsyn Galaxy” (‘Global Horizons for Digital and Public Humanities’, April 22-26, 2024, CESTA Stanford)
  • “Soft Power with Hard Cover: Book Diplomacy in the Cultural Cold War” (Annual Stanford-Berkeley Conference on Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, March 8, 2024, CREEES Stanford)
  • “Beyond the Curtain: Transnationalizing Polish Culture during the Cold War (1946-1991)” (AATSEEL Annual Conference, February 17-19, 2024, Las Vegas)
  • “The Translator’s Agency in the Production and Circulation of Tamizdat: Mariia Olsuf’eva’s case” (ASEES Annual Convention, November 30-December 3, 2023, Philadelphia)
  • “Transnational Book Diplomacy beyond the Cultural Cold War: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the Tamizdat” (ASEES Annual Convention, November 30-December 3, 2023, Philadelphia)

Publications

Team

Ilaria Sicari
Ilaria Sicari

Principal Investigator
MSCA research fellow

Duccio Basosi
Duccio Basosi

Project supervisor
Associate Professor