Samizdat, the production and circulation of texts outside official channels, was an integral part of life in the final decades of the Soviet Union. But as Josephine von Zitzewitz explains, while much is known about the texts themselves, little is available on the complex communities and cultures that existed around them due to their necessarily secretive, and sometimes dissident, nature. By analysing the behaviours of different actors involved in Samizdat - readers, typists, librarians and the editors of periodicals in 1970s Leningrad, The Culture of Samizdat fills this lacuna in Soviet history scholarship. Crucially, as well as providing new insight into Samizdat texts, the book makes use of oral and written testimonies to examine the role of Samizdat activists and employs an interdisciplinary theoretical approach drawing on both the sociology of reading and book history. In doing so, von Zitzewitz uncovers the importance of 'middlemen' for Samizdat culture. Diligently researched and engagingly written, this book will be of great value to scholars of Soviet cultural history and Russian literary studies alike.

This book explores the prophetic characteristics of literature, particularly poetry, that seek to reimagine the world in which it is written. Using theological and philosophical insights it charts the relentless impulse of literature to propose alternative visions, practicable or utopian, and point toward possibilities of renewal and change. Drawing from each of the three main Abrahamic religions, as well as Greek and Latin classics, an international group of scholars utilise a diverse range of analytical and interpretive methods to draw out the prophetic voice in poetry. Looking at the writings of figures like T. S. Elliot, Blake, Wittgenstein and Isaiah, the theme of the prophetic is shown to be of timely importance given the current state of geo-political challenges and uncertainties and offers a much-needed critical discussion of these broad cultural questions. This collection of essays offers readers an insight into the constructive power of literature. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars working in Religion and the Arts, Religious Studies, Theology and Aesthetics.

This book explores the prophetic characteristics of literature, particularly poetry, that seek to reimagine the world in which it is written. Using theological and philosophical insights it charts the relentless impulse of literature to propose alternative visions, practicable or utopian, and point toward possibilities of renewal and change. Drawing from each of the three main Abrahamic religions, as well as Greek and Latin classics, an international group of scholars utilise a diverse range of analytical and interpretive methods to draw out the prophetic voice in poetry. Looking at the writings of figures like T. S. Elliot, Blake, Wittgenstein and Isaiah, the theme of the prophetic is shown to be of timely importance given the current state of geo-political challenges and uncertainties and offers a much-needed critical discussion of these broad cultural questions. This collection of essays offers readers an insight into the constructive power of literature. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars working in Religion and the Arts, Religious Studies, Theology and Aesthetics.

The Religious-Philosophical Seminar, meeting in Leningrad between 1974-1980, was an underground study group where young intellectuals staged debates, read poetry and circulated their own typewritten journal, called '37'. The group and its journal offered a platform to poets who subsequently entered the canon of Russian verse, such as Viktor Krivulin (1944-2001) and Elena Shvarts (1948-2010). Josephine von Zitzewitz's new study focuses on the Seminar's identification of culture and spirituality, which allowed Leningrad's unofficial culture to tap into the spirit of Russian modernism, as can be seen in '37'. This book is thus a study of a major current in twentieth-century Russian poetry, and an enquiry into the intersection between literary and spiritual concerns. But it also presents case studies of five poets from a special generation: not only Krivulin and Shvarts, but also Sergei Stratanovskii (1944-), Oleg Okhapkin (1944-2008) and Aleksandr Mironov (1948-2010).

Samizdat, the production and circulation of texts outside official channels, was an integral part of life in the final decades of the Soviet Union. But as Josephine von Zitzewitz explains, while much is known about the texts themselves, little is available on the complex communities and cultures that existed around them due to their necessarily secretive, and sometimes dissident, nature. By analysing the behaviours of different actors involved in Samizdat - readers, typists, librarians and the editors of periodicals in 1970s Leningrad, The Culture of Samizdat fills this lacuna in Soviet history scholarship. Crucially, as well as providing new insight into Samizdat texts, the book makes use of oral and written testimonies to examine the role of Samizdat activists and employs an interdisciplinary theoretical approach drawing on both the sociology of reading and book history. In doing so, von Zitzewitz uncovers the importance of 'middlemen' for Samizdat culture. Diligently researched and engagingly written, this book will be of great value to scholars of Soviet cultural history and Russian literary studies alike.