Tamizdat Project is a virtual environment that explores to the patters of circulation, first publications and reception of contraband literary manuscripts from the USSR during the Cold War. It is an online archive of documents that deals with how and why masterpieces of Russian literature first appeared abroad long before they could see the light of day in Russia, already during or after Perestroika. Although its subject matter is historically finite, Tamizdat Project is an ever growing undertaking as the website is constantly populated with new content, including previously unpublished archival materials.
This Tamizdat Project Lab will be devoted to Lydia Chukovskaia's novella Sofia Petrovna. A fictional account of the Great Terror (1930s), Sofia Petrovna was written 25 years before it was first published in Paris as a book in 1965 and serialized in New York in 1966. Chukovskaia's manuscript survived Stalinism and WWII only to be rejected by Soviet editors and leak abroad, where it appeared long before it could see the light of day in Russia in 1988. To read Sofia Petrovna in Russia, click here. For the English translation, click here.
Tamizdat Project Lab is limited to 25 participants. It is designed as a hands-on workshop, so please bring your own laptop. We will be working with both archival and print sources on Sofia Petrovna, typing them, translating them into English or Russian, and thus collectively contributing to Tamizdat Project. Please RSVP below and let us know what languages you can work with (NB: knowledge of Russian is NOT required). If you are unable to attend but would still like to volunteer for Tamizdat Project, please click here (or email yakov.klots@hunter.cuny.edu). Looking forward to seeing you.