Poetics and Politics of Samizdat Periodicals. The Case of & nbsp;Transponans

The article describes the position of the transfurist group within the field of Soviet unofficial culture and the way they used it to speak about the current state of the underground community. It shows that their self-positioning within this field as well as their overall aesthetic project were a reaction to their provincial status which marginalized them in the community. Apart from this, poets from Moscow and Leningrad saw transfurists as heirs of the Russian avant-garde, the movement that allegedly held the same ideological views as the Soviet state. The article demonstrates that, while taking on Futurist aesthetics, transfurists adopted a conceptual approach towards the avant-garde legacy and the poetic systems of their contemporaries. They invented ways of indicating the ambiguous position of unofficial culture, which was caught between tradition that had ended abruptly and new forms of literary mores and publicity. The paper argues that such a conceptualist drive was common for samizdat periodicals as one of the main tools of communication within the unofficial field.& COPY; 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Automated summary

The article explains the role of the transfurist group in Soviet unofficial culture and how they utilized it to address the underground community's current situation. Their positioning and overall aesthetic project were a reaction to being marginalized due to their provincial status. Additionally, transfurists were seen by Moscow and Leningrad poets as inheritors of the Russian avant-garde, which shared similar ideological views with the Soviet state. The article demonstrates how transfurists adopted a conceptualist approach towards the avant-garde legacy and contemporary poetic systems, highlighting the ambiguous position of unofficial culture between abruptly ended traditions and new literary norms and publicity.