Table of contents:
- Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
- Cancer Ward, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- "Empty House", Lydia Chukovskaya
- Yawning Heights, Alexander Zinoviev
- "Life and Extraordinary Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin", Vladimir Voinovich
Video: 5 best works of Soviet samizdat that were forbidden by censorship
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Today it is very difficult to imagine those times when you could not go and just buy a good book. Severe censorship was on guard and did not allow the publication of works that could be suspected of anti-Soviet propaganda. The term "samizdat" owes its appearance to the poet Nikolai Glazkov. Back in the mid-1940s, he gave his friends typewritten collections of his poems with an inscription on the cover "He will publish himself." And already in the 1950s, samizdat became a significant cultural phenomenon.
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
An absolutely amazing novel, on which the author worked for a whole decade, was banned from publication by censorship due to the very ambiguous attitude towards the 1917 revolution and its consequences for the country. The Znamya magazine published a collection of poems from the novel, but all three manuscripts sent to the Novy Mir, Znamya and Literaturnaya Moskva magazines returned to him with an accompanying note about the refusal to publish.
The novel was first published in Italy, then in Holland. For books published abroad, there was a special term - "tamizdat", but books brought to the Soviet Union were very rare and immediately fell into the hands of samizdat people, who copied, reprinted, photographed and then passed copies from hand to hand. "Doctor Zhivago" was published in the USSR only in 1988.
Cancer Ward, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Initially, the novel was supposed to be published by New World, but after several chapters were set for publication, the process was stopped by order of the authorities, and the set itself was scattered. Distribution in the USSR for many years was carried out only thanks to samizdat. In Russian, Cancer Ward was first published by the English publishing house The Bodley Head, and in the Soviet Union the novel was first published only in 1990. Thanks to samizdat, Soviet readers could get acquainted not only with the Cancer Ward, but also with other works by Solzhenitsyn: The Gulag Archipelago and In the First Circle.
"Empty House", Lydia Chukovskaya
The story of a simple woman Sofia Petrovna, who tried to raise her son “correctly”. She sincerely believed: if you work honestly and are a decent person, then nothing threatens you. But the arrest of her son turned Sofia Petrovna's whole life upside down. When she realized that it was not an ordinary mistake, but the system, she simply went crazy. Lydia Chukovskaya wrote her novel in 1939, and the writer's friends who preserved the manuscript distributed it in samizdat. Naturally, the work, which deals with the terror taking place in the country, could not be published. The book was published abroad in 1965, and in the Soviet Union only 23 years later.
Yawning Heights, Alexander Zinoviev
The fictional city of Ibansk, in which the action of the novel "Yawning Heights" unfolds, could hardly have forced anyone to classify the work as a fantasy genre. Both the ruling Brotherhood party and the invented social system so clearly resembled Soviet reality that immediately after the publication of the novel in Switzerland in 1976, the author was fired from the Institute of Philosophy, expelled from the party members and took away all awards and titles for scientific work. When the second book "A Bright Future" saw the light, the author was deprived of his citizenship and simply expelled from the country, where he returned only in 1999, eight years after the release of "Yawning Heights" in the USSR. Up to this point, the novel was distributed exclusively in samizdat, like "The Bright Future" and "Yellow House".
"Life and Extraordinary Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin", Vladimir Voinovich
Vladimir Voinovich wrote his novel for six years, finished it in 1969 and it became the first part of a trilogy. But the work turned out to be so provocative that it was simply not possible to publish it officially. Accordingly, in the Soviet Union it was distributed exclusively through samizdat. It was first published without the author's permission in 1969 in Frankfurt am Main, and after the author was expelled from the USSR Writers' Union, the novel was published in Paris. In the Soviet Union, excerpts from "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin" first saw the light of day only in 1988.
Censorship exists all over the world, and books, theatrical performances and films are often subjected to censorship. In Soviet times, literature, like many other spheres of culture, was under total control by the party leadership. Works that did not correspond to the propagandized ideology were banned.
Recommended:
How Soviet soldiers survived, who were carried into the ocean for 49 days, and How they were met in the USA and the USSR after they were rescued
In the early spring of 1960, the crew of the American aircraft carrier Kearsarge discovered a small barge in the middle of the ocean. On board were four emaciated Soviet soldiers. They survived by feeding on leather belts, tarpaulin boots and industrial water. But even after 49 days of extreme drift, the soldiers told the American sailors who found them something like this: help us only with fuel and food, and we will get home ourselves
How children were given names in Russia, and which were forbidden for commoners
Today, parents do not know the problems when choosing a name for their child - you can name the child the way mom and dad like it. But before, everything was not so simple, and strict rules had to be followed when naming. How names were chosen in pagan Russia, what changed after Christianization, why Razin was called Stenka - read in our material
Forbidden art: 6 paintings that at different times became victims of censorship
Art was censored not only in Soviet times. During the time of tsarist Russia, works of fairly famous artists were banned. The reason for the refusal to demonstrate a work of art could have been simply a truthful depiction of events or, on the contrary, an extraordinary interpretation of them. Sometimes it is difficult to believe that real masterpieces of fine art fell under the censorship
How the Pope was a poet and playwright: What works were written by John Paul II and what films were shot based on them
Fifteen years ago, John Paul II passed away, not only the Pope and Catholic saint, but also a playwright, poet and actor, who enriched world art with cycles of poems, plays and plots for feature films. By the way, in the film versions of the works of Karol Wojtyla - and this is the name the pontiff had before his election as Pope - it was considered an honor to appear world-famous stars such as Bert Lancaster, Olivia Hussey, Christoph Waltz and not only
Behind the scenes of the film "The Taming of the Shrew": What scenes were cut out by the Soviet censorship, and what Celentano was silent about for many years
Today one of the most famous Italians in the world, a wonderful singer, composer, actor, director and TV presenter Adriano Celentano turns 80 years old. And in adulthood, he did not lose his attractiveness and charm, and films with his participation still do not lose their popularity all over the world. The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most famous of them. However, not everyone knows that Soviet viewers did not see several episodes cut by the censorship. And the answer to the question whether the novel was me