samizdat

[ sah-miz-daht; Russian suh-myiz-daht ]

noun

a clandestine publishing system within the Soviet Union, by which forbidden or unpublishable literature was reproduced and circulated privately.
a work or periodical circulated by this system.

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

Words Nearby samizdat

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use samizdat in a sentence

Where are the writers who helped smuggle samizdat out from behind the Iron Curtain?
Communism's Victims Deserve a Museum | James Kirchick | August 25, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
The bigger the market – the more pressure is applied to clamp down on the samizdat entrepreneurs.
After the Rain | Sam Vaknin

British Dictionary definitions for samizdat

samizdat

/ (Russian səmizˈdat) /

noun(in the former Soviet Union)

- a system of clandestine printing and distribution of banned or dissident literature
- (as modifier): a samizdat publication

Origin of samizdat

C20: from Russian, literally: self-published

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Browse