Il samizdat e il tema della repressione sovietica: una ricostruzione storica tra criticità e punti di domanda = [Samizdat and Soviet repression: A historical review between complexities and open questions]

The paper aims to reconstruct the importance of samizdat in the emergence of the theme of repression in the Soviet Union. Through the analysis of the different paths on which the “repressed word” reached the samizdat public, the author shows the procedure of creating conscience of the past (and present) in the field of human rights and Russian literature. Historical documents, memoirs of former Gulag prisoners, literary works of what is now defined as lagernaya literatura, poems and tales of repressed writers, live reports from the Gulags, documents related to the field of human rights: all these materials compose a grand canvas of the restitution of historical truth. This cultural fight for the “true word”, opposed to the “fake word” dictated by the power, was based on the efficiency of the eyewitness’ word. After presenting the “emersion of the true word” about repression, the author will consider a few critical points, and address a few questions still open on the topic, with the intention of re-opening a debate on some aspects related to the studies of Gulag literature