tamizdat

T1A1M3I1Z10D2A1T1

noun

Writings published abroad and smuggled back into the former USSR.

Scrabble 20

Meanings

nountamizdat (countable and uncountable, plural tamizdats)

plural tamizdats

  1. countableuncountableWritings published abroad and smuggled back into the former USSR.

    Foremost—and most controversial — of the Western groups engaged in tamizdat is the Posev‐Grani [organization], commonly known as N.T.S.

    1970 March 15, Albert Parry, “Samizdat Is Russia' Underground Press”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2019
    2 more examples

    The fact that samizdat/tamizdat were written symbols of the human suffering in the Eastern bloc encouraged a less critical and often naive reading of the texts both then and now. Thus, we hope here to critically view some of the inherent dangers of samizdat/tamizdat publication, without diminishing its relevance as visualizations of human experience.

    2013, Friederike Kind-Kovács, Jessie Labov, “Introduction: Samizdat and Tamizdat”, in Friederike Kind-Kovács, Jessie Labov, editors, Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media during and after Socialism (Studies in Contemporary European History; 13), New York, N.Y.: Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page 3

    Some are describing these works as a new version of tamizdat — a term meaning “published over there” used during the Cold War to describe manuscripts smuggled out of the Soviet Union for publication in Europe or the US.

    [2026 July 24, Valeriya Safronova, “Russia’s New Censorship Fuels a Literary Resistance Abroad”, in Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg L.P., retrieved 03 Aug 2026, Dispatch

Origin

  1. Russianтамизда́т
  2. Englishtamizdat

Borrowed from Russian тамизда́т (tamizdát, literally “published there”), from там (tam, “there”) + изда́ть (izdátʹ).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

tamizdat. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tamizdat

MLA

“tamizdat.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tamizdat. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tamizdat,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tamizdat.

Source: tamizdat on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.