Tamizdat Project

Our online archive of documents explores the first publications, circulation, and reception of contraband manuscripts from behind the Iron Curtain on their way to the readers at home and abroad. The archive highlights the historical, geopolitical, cultural, and material aspects of tamizdat as a literary practice and political institution of the Cold War era.

Long after the Cold War ended, books are still banned in such countries as Russia and Belarus, to name but a few. Our archive extends to nowadays, raising awareness about state censorship and documenting exterritorial publications by authors who have been forced into exile or are unable to publish at home.

Our library features banned books from the former USSR and the Eastern Bloc that were first published abroad years or decades before they could see the light of day at home during or after perestroika. It is also a repository of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian émigré books and periodicals. A special part of the library is devoted to books on censorship, emigration, and exterritorial publishing, signed or inscribed by the authors.

Our programs consist of philanthropy, oral history, conferences, summer schools, and publishing. We support students and scholars displaced by war or repressions in their home countries, run interviews with actors of tamizdat then and now, organize conferences and exhibitions devoted to banned books, teach courses on writing and publishing in exile, and publish our own books.

Our events series offers a platform for writers, artists, journalists, filmmakers, stage directors, musicians, scholars, and intellectuals who work on Slavic, East European, and Eurasian cultures to present their work in New York. The events are designed to inspire students and are usually free and open to the public. Recording of in-person events are published on our website and YouTube channel.