Samizdat - Terminology and Related Concepts

Terminology and Related Concepts

Etymologically, the word samizdat is made out of sam (Russian: сам, “self, by oneself”) and izdat (Russian: издат, abbr. издательство, izdatel’stvo, “publishing house”), thus “self-published.” The Ukrainian term is samvýdav (самвидав), from sam, “self”, and vydannya, “publication.”

The term was coined as a pun by Russian poet Nikolai Glazkov in the 1940s, who typed copies of his poems indicating Samsebyaizdat (Самсебяиздат, “Myself by Myself Publishers”) on the front page.

Magnitizdat is the passing on of taped sound recordings (magnit- referring to magnetic tape), often of underground music groups, bards, or lectures.

Roentgenizdat were underground samizdat recordings on x-ray film: phonograph records made of a thin, flexible sheet with a spiral stylus groove, designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable. The name roentgenizdat comes from the combination of roentgen ray (another word for X-ray) and izdat.

Tamizdat refers to literature published abroad (там, tam, “there”), often from smuggled manuscripts.

In the history of the Polish underground press, the usual term in the later years of Communism was drugi obieg or “second circulation” (of publications), with the implied first circulation being legal and censored publications. The term bibuła (“blotting paper”) is older, having been used even during the partitions of Poland.