Summer School 2024

This course is an exploration of the first publications, circulation, and reception of clandestine manuscripts from behind the Iron Curtain first published abroad during the Cold War, as well as a journey through the history and culture of the Baltics in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Although our main historical framework will be 1956-1991, we will start with some earlier examples of “tamizdat” (Alexander Herzen, Evgeny Zamyatin) and finish with a discussion of the present geopolitical situation, when censorship in Russia is back and many writers, artists, and journalists are forced to publish abroad and/or emigrate, particularly to Latvia. Placed at the intersection of literary studies, history, political science, geography, media studies, and other disciplines, the course will consist of lectures, guest talks, seminars and workshops devoted to works of literature written at home but first published abroad, with or without the author’s knowledge or consent. Exterritorial publications of contraband literature from the former Soviet Union, including Latvia and Lithuania, will be juxtaposed to theoretical writings on book history and exile, as well as to Western authors likewise banned on the inner side of the Iron Curtain. The course will offer students an opportunity to join the Tamizdat Project, a public scholarship initiative for the study of banned books from the USSR and the Eastern Bloc: depending on their interests and qualifications, students will work with archives and émigré periodicals, transcribe and translate documents for publication, conduct oral history, compile bibliographies, and more. Knowledge of Russian or another East European language is welcomed but not required.