Before and Alongside Zines: Independent Print
Pamphlets, little magazines and samizdat reveal different reasons people publish outside established channels.
People were making and circulating their own texts long before the word “zine” became familiar. Other forms of independent publishing also developed alongside zines.
These connections help explain the possibilities of small publications. They do not mean every pamphlet or underground text should be renamed a zine.
Pamphlets: a compact space for an argument
A pamphlet is a short publication, often focused on a particular subject. It can explain a position, present information or ask readers to act.
A broadside is different: usually a single sheet printed on one side, intended to be displayed or distributed. The Library of Congress's printed ephemera collection brings together material made for particular occasions and practical purposes across several centuries.
“Ephemera” means material not originally expected to have a long useful life. The term describes its intended use, not its eventual historical importance.
The connection to zines is the possibility of choosing a small form to address a specific need. The distinction is that a physical format alone tells us little about who published it or why.
Little magazines: room for literary work
A little magazine is a literary periodical, usually with a relatively small readership. It may publish poetry, stories, criticism and experimental work.
The University of Chicago's Modern Poetry Little Magazine Collection includes publications addressing writing, politics, art and local culture. Many of the titles in that collection lasted only a few issues.
These magazines show how an editor could create space for work that did not fit comfortably into a larger publication. Their relationship to zines is partly one of scale and editorial independence, though the communities and traditions are not identical.
Samizdat: circulation under censorship
Samizdat refers to the unofficial copying and circulation of writing under censorship, particularly in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries.
People used methods including typewriting with carbon paper, which could produce several copies at once. Readers passed texts through trusted networks. The overview of samizdat explains these methods and the political circumstances around them.
Its resemblance to DIY publishing should not obscure the stakes. Circulating prohibited writing under a repressive state is a different situation from choosing to self-publish where doing so is permitted.
Similar methods, different histories
All these forms can involve people taking responsibility for circulation. But they answer different questions: how to spread an argument, publish literature or make censored writing available.
Samizdat is also not simply an ancient predecessor. Much of its familiar twentieth-century history overlaps with the history of fanzines.
Thinking in terms of related practices is more accurate than imagining one neat family tree. It lets us notice what zines share with other publishing traditions while respecting the circumstances that made each one distinctive.
Read next: Where Did Zines Come From?.