samizdat
Americannoun
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a clandestine publishing system within the Soviet Union, by which forbidden or unpublishable literature was reproduced and circulated privately.
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a work or periodical circulated by this system.
noun
Etymology
Origin of samizdat
1965–70; < Russian samizdát, equivalent to sam ( o )- self- + izdát ( el'stvo ) publishing agency; coined as a jocular allusion to the compound names of official Soviet publishing organs, e.g., Gosizdát for Gosudárstvennoe izdátel'stvo State Publishing House
Vocabulary lists containing samizdat
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Radio Free Europe transmitted programs; samizdat passed typed manuscripts hand to hand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
But the text of his speech was quickly leaked by his supporters who posted it online in a modern-day version of samizdat, the way works of dissident writers were copied and shared in Soviet times.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2023
By contrast, the scenes of the teenage Adéla helping to produce samizdat in communist Czechoslovakia feel lived in and significant.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 28, 2023
The dissidents in the Soviet Union wanted Western, democratic, liberal values to infuse their societies, and were beginning to create that through samizdat.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2022
This doctrine was so dangerous that the manuscript describing it had to be circulated in secret, an Athenian samizdat.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
