Samizdats

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Printed materials or literature produced clandestinely, often by hand or using unconventional methods
2. Publications that bypass official censorship, reflecting dissenting views or alternative perspectives
3. Self-published works circulated informally, typically in oppressive regimes to share forbidden knowledge or art

Etymology: Samizdat was a self-run underground publishing system in the Soviet Union, and the name is a joke at the state's expense. The Russian "sam" means "self," and "izdat" is short for "izdatelstvo," meaning "publishing house." The coinage echoes "Gosizdat," the name of the official State Publishing House, so a self-made publisher was cast as a mirror image of the state's own. Readers made the copies by hand, typing through carbon paper or retyping manuscripts, and passed them from person to person. The word "samizdats" is simply the plural, referring to several such texts or to the whole body of them. Its meaning followed the practice: publications that escaped the censors and carried dissenting or alternative views.