Introduction

This exhibit focuses on the samizdat journal СИРЕНА (The Siren). Two different issues were published in 1962. This journal features poetic works and illustrations produced by people who gathered together to exchange ideas and poetry in post-Stalin Russia. 

Stalin’s death in 1953 brought great literature liberation. However, censorship was not completely absent in Khrushchev era. Public exchanges of political and social ideas were still frowned upon. People participating in these exchanges, for example at the Mayakovsky Square, were threatened and arrested by authorities. Samizdat journals were a great way to record and share the different ideas that were discussed.

СИРЕНА’s editor, Mikhail Kaplan, sent copies of the journals to different cities in Russia in order for ideas to be distributed accross the country. His goal was to share poetry, illustrations, and new socio-political ideas with others. Evidently, samizdat journals were dangerous to write and share which makes СИРЕНА an endangered and a banned book.