Soviet Diy: Samizdat & Hand-Made Books
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www.bookvica.com SOVIET DIY: SAMIZDAT & HAND-MADE BOOKS. RECENT ACQUSITIONS 2017 F O R E W O R D Dear friends, Please welcome our latest venture - the October catalogue of 2017. We are always in search for interesting cultural topics to shine the light on, and this time we decided to put together a collection of books made by amateurs and readers to spread the texts that they believed should have been distributed. Soviet State put a great pressure on its citizens, censoring the unwanted content and blocking the books that mattered to people. But in the meantime the process of alternative distribution of the texts was going on. We gathered some of samizdat books, manuscripts, hand-made books to show what was created by ordinary people. Sex manuals, rock’n’roll encyclopedias, cocktail guides, banned literature and unpublished stories by children - all that was hard to find in a Soviet bookshop and hence it makes an interesting reading. Along with this selection you can review our latest acquisitions: we continue to explore the world of pre-WWII architecture with a selection of books containing important theory, unfinished projects and analysis of classic buildings of its time like Lenin’s mausoleum. Two other categories are dedicated to art exhibitions catalogues and books on cinema in 1920s. We are adding one more experimental section this time: the books in the languages of national minorities of USSR. In 1930s the language reforms were going on across the union and as a result some books were created, sometimes in scripts that today no-one is able to read, because they existed only for a short period of time. Our goal is to show the well-known cultural phenomenons from alternative angles, making them more prominent. The books are the best instruments to understanding those phenomenons, as they are projections of culture. Bookvica team 2 I SOVIET SAMIZDAT & DIY-BOOKS 01 [SOVIET KAMA SUTRA] Two books on sex, originating from the same source: 1.Entsiklopediya intimnoi zhizni [i.e. The Encyclopedia of Intimate Life]. [N.p., 1970s]. 44 leaves. 30x22 cm. Typescript. In owner’s plastic folder. Soiling and deformations of the folder, clean text block. The Soviet underground translation of an American book from the 1960s. On the title page it’s stated ‘Detgiz’ (main Soviet publishing house for children’s books) in the place where the publisher should be, which is probably an irony by the creators of this samizdat copy. The text is in the form of a dialog between sexologist and married couple. Translation is very interesting linguistically as the Russian language at the time was not very prepared for this topic and sometimes the translator had to look for phrases and expressions that didn’t exist yet. Also unusual is the fact that homosexuality is mentioned but not as a separate topic, but while discussing other matters. The homosexual relationships are mentioned in the neutral contexts, while in USSR at the time the special article of the criminal code was dedicated to ‘Sodomy’ and the homosexuality was often viewed as a mental abnormality. 2. [Kama Sutra]. [1980s]. 92 black and white photos in album. 18,5x14 cm. Handmade album, originally a large quarto notebook, cut to the size of the photos. The leaves glued together, using the cardboard strips between them for solidity. This improvised binding’s rear cover is folded as a bookmark. Album without a title. Few photos are montaged during film development to show the positions of the bodies in motion. First photograph is also montaged showing erogenous zones. Occasional handwritten notes naming the positions and describing the emotions of male and female, e.g.: ‘‘Male perceives female in general which works SOVIET SAMIZDAT 3 to female’s favour, because in the moment of sexual arousal she becomes very attractive, so male after this won’t ‘stare’ at other females’’; ‘‘classic European position aloud by Queen Victoria, male is trying to stimulate female’s clitoris with his penis’’. It’s our understanding that the album and the book could have been used together. Title page. No 01 Photograph. No 01 SOVIET SAMIZDAT 4 Photograph (erogenous zones). No 01 Photograph. No 01 SOVIET SAMIZDAT 5 02 [RADIO PRISON] Hand-made congratulatory charter. [Leningrad: 1st correctional labor colony, 1933]. 45x30 cm. Hand-written, watercolor. The charter was made by the prisoners of LFZITK #1 on the 16th anniversary of the Revolution. In the colony there was a radio workshop presumably consisting of engineers and workers of the radio industry. In this ‘sharashka’ they made radio equipment. We don’t know the number of people involved, but there are 19 signatures at the bottom of the charter, some of the names can be identified: Gusev, Nilov, Dvornikov, Panov, Andreev, Glazdorev, Samsonov. The note in pencil says that the charter’s design made by the prisoners as well. The monogram ‘B.N.’ stands in the right bottom corner. The charter gives us the opportunity to glimpse into life of prisoners of Stalin era pre-1937. In the text signed by the chairperson of the group some bizarre inconsistencies can be noticed. It was addressed to Georgy Borisovich Metlin who was managing the group, but his status was not mentioned. He’s been congratulated with the anniversary of the Revolution, but addressed as ‘gospodin’ instead of ‘tovarishch’ - the address, that was heavily associated with the pre- Revolutionary bourgeoisie. In the second paragraph prisoners wished that under Metlin’s guidance they could provide the radio devices for the Soviet Union to help cultural building of the socialism. The year of 1933 could be considered the year when Soviet radio started: although ‘Radioperedacha’ was broadcasting newspaper articles starting from 1924, only in 1933 the all-Union radio-channel Radio-1 was created in Moscow. It is possible that the radio prisoners of LFZITK #1 was creating the equipment for that occasion. 03 [ANIMAL FARM] Ferma zhivotnykh [i.e. Animal Farm]. [N.p., 1970s]. Typescript. 61 leaves. 30x21 cm. Owner’s cardboard binding. Fine. The first page contains a short biography of George Orwell, taken from Big Soviet Encyclopedia, printed in 1974. Orwell’s satire on the totalitarian regime was too candid for SOVIET SAMIZDAT 6 Soviet censors, so the author was labeled as ‘trotskist’ in 1930s and was never published during Soviet era. However it’s not widely known that Orwell corresponded briefly with ‘Internatsionalnaya literatura’ magazine [i.e. International literature], in 1937. The editor-in-chief of the periodical wrote him asking to send his new novel ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ to Moscow because periodical was interested in publishing it. Orwell sent the book replying that he could even write something specially for the magazine but also that they should know he recently fought in Spain on the side of POUM, and that led to the abruption of all the contacts with Orwell from Soviet side. From that time on Orwell’s name was under taboo in official press, and his books were published only in late 1980s. Animal Farm was first published in USSR in Latvian periodical ‘Rodnik’ in 1988. Certainly Animal Farm as well as 1984 was too significant and interesting reading material for an ordinary soviet man, the dweller of the actual farm, so it’s appearance in Samizdat was inevitable. According to Arlen Blum (‘Zvezda’, #6, 2003) samizdat versions of Animal Farm started to appear in USSR in late 1960s. No 02 First page. No 03 SOVIET SAMIZDAT 7 04 [UNDERGROUND POETRY] Ambako [i.e. Lyrics]. [Tbilisi: published by Bread and Salt Academy, 1960]. 51, [2] Pp. 20x15 cm. Cloth binding. Fine. Author’s photograph after the title page (actual photo glued to the page). Text in Georgian. The collection of the frivolous verse created by the unknown author for the group of his friends, all hidden under pseudonyms. The language of the book is very allegorical, so it wouldn’t be understood by unwanted audience. The joyous character of the book is reflected even in the information about the edition: ‘‘Printrun: as many as you like; technical editor: sturgeon; editor: chipurt; price: one bread and butter’’. The book contains 11 verses filled with inside jokes and references, often with erotic content (like the metaphoric description of a group sex with ballerinas in poem ‘Two Swans’). An interesting example of mockery samizdat in Tbilisi intellectual circles in 1960s. Title page. No 04 Photograph. No 04 05 [ROCK’N’ROLL ENCYCLOPEDIA] [Cohn, Nik]. [Rock from the Beginning]. [N.p., 1970s]. 315 leaves. 28,5x21 cm. Owner’s cardboard binding. Typescript. Text on rectos only. Pp. 135, 150, 191 laid in. Unauthorised fan translation of Nik Cohn’s iconic rock history SOVIET SAMIZDAT 8 book. This copy can be called a ‘3rd run’: there was an ‘original’ typescript, then a few English titles were corrected in pen in the 2nd run and in this copy a few indistinct phrases are corrected in pen as well. The copy starts with a table of contents and a preface, without a title page as a usual case in Soviet samizdats. The content includes: The Beginning, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Classic Rock, ’School’, P..J. Proby, English Pop, America of the 1960s, Twist, Spector Sound, California, Should, Beatles, Rolling Stones, English Rhythm’n’Blues, Bob Dylan, Folk Rock, London in 1964-68, Monkees, Love, The Who, Super-Pop; with two addendums: US Top Singles. 1950 - 1968, Pop and Cinema. Nik Kohn’s book translated probably from American edition of 1969 was the Bible of rock’n’roll history for the generation of Soviet people interested in western music. During 1970s-80s rock movement was still illegal, even though the Soviet censorship was not as strict as in pre-Thaw times.