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HU OSA 300-85-45
Fonds 300: Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute
Subfonds 85: Samizdat Archives
Series 45: Unpublished Samizdat: Biographical Files

Date(s) 1940-1992

Extent and medium 23 Archival boxes, 3 linear meters

Archival history

Some of these files originally had titles established by the Samizdat Archives (SA) staff. Others were given their titles while being processed at OSA. In the OSA database the latter titles are printed in square brackets. During the processing work, In the case of Samizdat documents which were not placed in folders, but kept with other loose materials, they were separated and put into folders which were named accordingly. If Samizdat documents were accompanied by specifically selected reference materials or other records, they were kept together and the resulting collection treated as a file of Samizdat documents.

Scope and content

This series, which is part of the Samizdat Archives (SA) backlog, contains files of unpublished Samizdat documents with personal names as titles. The individual whose name is the title could be either the author of the document(s) or somebody the document(s) relate(s) to.

The files in this series could be seen as a useful supplement to the published Samizdat (Series 9,10). The best represented topics are the following: Emigratsiia, Religiia, Perestroika (subject categories are borrowed from the list developed by SA staff for the clipping Subject Files (Series 12), and used for classifying unpublished Samizdat documents).

Accruals Not expected

System of arrangement

Conditions governing access Strictly restricted

Language/scripts of material

English, German, Kyrgyz, Russian, Ukrainian

Finding aids

Related units of description

Note

The chronology of Samizdat documents is a very complicated issue. Many Samizdat documents are not dated. Very often the dates of their creation and circulation are not the same, and it is hard to establish which of the two is indicated on the document. Finally, the dates that appear on folders or in the left or right hand corner of the reverse of the first page of each document (this was supposed to be standard practice at the SA, but unfortunately the rule was not always followed) are dates of its receipt by the SA. But in spite of the variety of possible evidence it was sometimes impossible to establish any date with certainty. This is why the dates that appear in the database and on each folder should often be seen as relative.

To give users better idea of the SA's approach to selecting Samizdat documents for publication, we marked out those documents, which were prepared for publication but for different reasons were not published. (Very often they were printed as stencils or, after the Radio had been computerized, as printouts.) Documents in this group have a [Prepared for publication] sign in the folder record.

Archivist's Note

To provide users with more searching opportunities, in some case additional names and keywords were included in the folder record (for example: [Kiselev, IU]; [Emigratsiia: Otkazniki]). Subject categories were borrowed from the list developed by SA staff for the clipping Subject Files (see Series 12):

Vlast’ i gosudarstvo
Voiny
Geografiia
Gruppy
Zakonodatel’stvo
Inakomyslie
Inostrantsy v SSSR
Istoriia
Karatel’nye organy
Kul’tura
Mesta lisheniia svobody
Nauka
Natsional’nosti
Perestroika
Prava cheloveka
Protesty
Psikhiatriia i psikhiatricheskie bol’nitsy
Religiia
Samizdat
Sviaz’ (pochta, telefon)
Sotsial’nye gruppy i sotsial’nye iavleniia
Sredstava massovoi informatsii
Ekologiia
Economika
Emigratsia

Date(s) of descriptions

Arranged by Natasha Zanegina; described by Natasha Zanegina, 15 July 2002
Online version updated 6 January 2012
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