Tamizdat Project is a virtual environment that explores to the patters of circulation, first publications and reception of contraband literary manuscripts from the USSR in the West 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Project is an ever growing undertaking as the website is constantly populated with new content, including previously unpublished archival materials.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 the prose fiction of Yuli Daniel, whose writings appeared abroad since 1962 under the pseudonym Nikolai Arzhak. In September, 1965, Daniel was arrested in Moscow together with his fellow writer Andrei Sinyavsky (aka. Abram Terts) and sentenced to 5 years of hard labor for publishing his "slanderous" works abroad, in tamizdat. His prose, including the novellas This Is Moscow Speaking, Hands, Redemption, and A Man from MINAP, combines descriptions of everyday life in post-Stalin Russia with elements of the fantastic, A book of his verses written in prison was published in Amsterdam in 1971.
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 such as reviews, diaries and editorial correspondence, typing and 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!