SOLIDARITY: A poster form Polland's political movement of the the 1980s, on display in Prague's National Museum until Aug.25
UNITED KINGDOM SUMMER PEARLS: London's architectural gems along the banks of the Thames
MUSIC: Europe's best pop and rock gatherings
BAGPIPES: The plaintive sounds of Scotland
SUBMARIUM: Journey to the bottom of the sea FESTIVALS: Fun in the sun in West Belfast
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FRANCE and SWITZERLAND VULCANIA: Blow your top at France's volcano park
ART: Berthe Morisot, the unknown Impressionist
FESTIVALS: Aix-en-Provence has it all
ART: The Barbizon School painters come to life
ART: Take a stroll through medieval gardens of delight
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SPAIN, PORTUGAL, ITALY and GREECE SALAMANCA: The city splashes out on culture
MUSIC: God's rock stars: the singing Greek monks
FOOD: Italy's unusual culinary delights
FILM: Great outdoor viewing in Rome
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GERMANY and BENELUX HORTICULTURE: The world blossoms at Floriade
BRUGGE: Belgium's second city shines
ART: Berlin's homage to multiculturalism ART: The best of the world's artists on show at Documenta 11
DANCE: Czech twin ballerinos steal the show in Hamburg MORE ..
CENTRAL and EASTERN EUROPE ART: Yugoslavia's modern art museum is back
ART: A retrospective of Samizdat art and writing from the Communist bloc
GRAZ: Austria's little-known city of culture
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THE NORDIC REGION DESIGN: Denmark celebrates Arne Jacobsen
MUSEUM: Get a blast from the past at Stalin World
STOCKHOLM: Welcome to the Venice of the North
MUSIC: Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes on tour MORE ..
PLUS LISTINGS: Other things to see and do in each region
An exhibition showcases the art that dodged communist censorship
When Russian writer Nikolai Glazkov made carbon copies of his
poems to circulate among friends in the late 1940s, he called
his enterprise Samsebjaizdat (self-publishing house).
Thus, he not only spoofed the traditional compound names of
official Soviet publishing institutions but unwittingly christened
a cultural phenomenon that — abbreviated as Samizdat —
would foster the free flow of information behind the Iron Curtain.
Clandestine Samizdat publishing enabled writers and artists
to print and distribute their works despite censorship.
This medium — and the different forms it took in former
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, East Germany and the Soviet
Union — is presented at Prague's National Museum in an
exhibition called "Samizdat, Alternative Culture in Central
and Eastern Europe: The 1960s through the 1980s." Says Wolfgang
Eichwede, director of the University of Bremen's Research Center
for East European Studies, from whose archive the items have
been largely selected: "Our main goal is to show the colorful
world of the underground, and that much important European art
and culture had been produced outside the official sphere."
The term Samizdat referred to a wide variety of texts
and art that was produced and distributed unofficially. The
show's more than 400 exhibits are equally eclectic, including
underground literature like Glazkov's poetry and rare Samizdat
editions of works by Vaclav Havel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,
as well as petitions, political pamphlets, posters and secret
messages smuggled out of communist jails. Also on display is
a portable printing press used by Poland's Solidarity movement
in the 1980s.
The show also explores how writers and artists in different countries addressed varying issues in their works. The Poles, for example, pioneered social causes, and the East Germans ecological and peace initiatives, while the Czechs and the Soviets were more concerned with human rights and the rule of law. Technology varied from country to country too. Czech and Soviet Samizdat often circulated in small numbers and in typed copies, while the underground in Poland and Hungary used printing presses to produce Samizdat works by the thousands. The Poles even developed a parallel postal network that used its own stamps.
While it would be a mistake to credit Samizdat with the
collapse of communism, Eichwede says, its significance is indisputable:
Samizdat "helped civilize the revolutions at the end
of the 1980s due to the fact that it has traditionally championed
human rights and the rule of law as opposed to violence and
provocation." Learn all about it in Prague.
Samizdat, Alternative Culture in Central and Eastern
Europe: The 1960s through the 1980s at Prague's National
Museum, from June 6 until Aug. 25 • Open:
daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m. • Tickets:
Adults, $2.35, students, $1.18, children up to 6, free •
Phone: +420 (0)2 2422 6471
•Website:www.nm.cz
