Abstract

This article examines the notion of “truth” in samizdat journals in the Soviet
Union. Appeals to truth found in these uncensored publications were of multiple types
and cannot be reduced to opposition to official lies: the impulse toward truth-telling in
samizdat had its roots in official Soviet culture after Stalin. Theory of publics provides
a framework for describing the specificity of the late Soviet situation in its relation to
liberal western concepts of objective truth and public checks on state power, which are
only partially explanatory. This article reviews the role of journals in the constitution of
samizdat selfhood and alternative publics. It considers appeals to truth found in rights
activism, unofficial culture and Ukrainian samizdat journals. This survey shows that
modes of truth telling in samizdat – fact-based, spiritual, social or national – may be
mixed. The multiplication of planes of significance suggest that samizdat authors aimed
to tell truth that would a transcend the public function of addressing Soviet authorities.
Samizdat journals aimed to mobilize audiences on behalf of truth as they saw it for the
sake of civic, cultural and communal consciousness at the time: many of these appeals
to truth continue to be relevant and resonant today.