Voices of freedom: Samizdat

This article analyses the social phenomenon of samizdat as the domain of free thought in the Soviet experience. The data come from the archival source Arkhiv Samizdata. A quantitative analysis of samizdat is made on two fronts. First, a content analysis of Arkhiv Samizdata divides its 6,607 items into four categories: 1. literary, 2. nationalist, 3. religious, and 4. political. Following the content analysis, the annual frequency of underground materials is mapped to trace the temporal fluctuations of samizdat from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. The ideological evolution of samizdat is examined by means of a qualitative analysis. The limits and contributions of three paradigms - socialists, democrats and Slavophiles - are discussed as "political" phenomena.