Editing Samizdat (section)

=== Samizdat books and editions ===

The first full-length book to be distributed as samizdat was [[Boris Pasternak]]'s 1957 novel ''[[Doctor Zhivago (novel)|Doctor Zhivago]]''.{{sfn|Crump|2013|p=105}} Although the literary magazine ''[[Novy Mir]]'' had published ten poems from the book in 1954, a year later the full text was judged unsuitable for publication and entered samizdat circulation.{{sfn|Crump|2013|p=105}}

Certain works, though published legally by the State-controlled media, were practically impossible to find in bookshops and libraries, and found their way into samizdat: for example [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]'s novel ''[[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]'' was widely distributed via samizdat.{{sfn|Crump|2013|p=105}}<ref>November 1962 issue of the ''[[Novy Mir]]'' literary magazine</ref>

At the outset of the [[Khrushchev Thaw]] in the mid-1950s USSR poetry became very popular. Writings of a wide variety of poets circulated among the Soviet intelligentsia: known, prohibited, repressed writers as well as those young and unknown. A number of samizdat publications carried unofficial poetry, among them the Moscow magazine ''[[Sintaksis (Moscow)|Sintaksis]]'' (1959–1960) by writer [[Alexander Ginzburg]], [[Vladimir Osipov]]'s ''Boomerang'' (1960), and ''[[Phoenix (literary magazine)|Phoenix]]'' (1961), produced by [[Yuri Galanskov]] and [[Alexander Ginzburg]]. The editors of these magazines were regulars at [[Mayakovsky Square poetry readings|impromptu public poetry readings]] between 1958 and 1961 on Mayakovsky Square in Moscow. The gatherings did not last long, for soon the authorities began clamping down on them. In the summer of 1961, several meeting regulars were arrested and charged with "[[Anti-Soviet agitation|anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda]]" (Article 70 of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|RSFSR]] [[criminal code|Penal Code]]), putting an end to most of the magazines.

Not everything published in samizdat had political overtones. In 1963, [[Joseph Brodsky]] was charged with "[[Parasitism (social offense)|social parasitism]]" and convicted for samizdat poetry. His poems circulated in samizdat, with only four judged as suitable for official Soviet anthologies.{{sfn|Crump|2013|p=107}} In the mid-1960s an unofficial literary group known as [[SMOG (literary group)|SMOG]] (a word meaning variously ''one was able'', ''I did it'', etc.; as an acronym the name also bore a range of interpretations) issued an [[almanac]] titled ''The Sphinxes'' (''Sfinksy'') and collections of prose and poetry. Some of their writings were close to the [[Russian avant-garde]] of the 1910s and 1920s.

The 1965 [[Sinyavsky–Daniel trial|show trial]] of writers [[Yuli Daniel]] and [[Andrei Sinyavsky]], charged with anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, and the subsequent increased repression, marked the demise of the Thaw and the beginning of harsher times for samizdat authors. The trial was carefully documented in a samizdat collection called ''The White Book'' (1966), compiled by Yuri Galanskov and Alexander Ginzburg. Both writers were among those later arrested and sentenced to prison in what was known as [[Trial of the Four]]. In the following years some samizdat content became more politicized and played an important role in the [[dissident movement in the Soviet Union]].