This article explores how underground religious communities in Slovakia used samizdat to share faith, ideas, and information during the period of “Normalisation,” and how these fragile networks grew into a nationwide movement despite repression.
The word samizdat is derived from the Russian word samoizdatel’stvo, which means ‘self- publishing’. Samizdat refers to the illegal publication of various types of printed materials (e.g. religious, historical and political) reproduced by hand, typewriter, duplicating machines and computers that could not be published legally owing to political or ideological reasons.
During the so-called ‘Normalisation’ period[1], widely regarded as a time of cultural and moral decline across the republic, the underground church began to grow – its roots reaching back to the 1950s. At the core of this religious revival, and thus the underground church, were small communities (circles) consisting of five to ten people. These groups helped deepen the understanding and experience of faith.
Their task, as one Catholic activist put it, was ‘to raise intelligent Christians in a socialist society’. This meant not only being introduced to the Christian life in its fullness but also deepening intellectual aspects of faith. The first communities began to form in the early 1970s, mostly in Bratislava, where most of the country’s universities were located. These became the first sites where university students and, later, graduates began to meet secretly.
After finishing their studies, university graduates left Bratislava for smaller towns and villages, where they shared what they had experienced and received in their small communities. In these new places, they either directly established new communities or at least laid the groundwork for them. In this way, the number of communities – and young believers – grew exponentially across Slovakia.
Gradually, children, youth, families and priests began to meet in communities throughout Slovakia. Later, new spiritual movements emerged from their activities. There were also secretly operating religious orders that spiritually supported these budding movements.
One function of the communities was the transmission of information. In the early 1970s, when the first communities were formed, there was not much information available about developments in the Church. Over time, both the number of communities and the amount of information grew. Verbal transmission and note-taking became time-consuming. With the growing volume of information, repeating the same content for many different groups proved inefficient. People felt a shortage of information and study materials, which were generally accessible only in Bratislava, the centre of religious activity at the time.
The meeting of these two needs – efficient transmission of information within communities and the provision of information and study materials to people outside Bratislava – gave rise to the creation of a nationwide samizdat periodical.
Although samizdat carried a high risk of repression, it was still a ‘magical world’. A world of spirit, freedom, meetings, friendship, courage … A world that drew people in. It was hard to say goodbye to such things. Yet the moment came. Civil liberty opened the door to this world. A world once confined to small rooms –where its atmosphere could almost be cut with a knife – was now set free. Farewells began. New friendships emerged, new encounters and new courage …
[1]Normalisation. An informal period in the history of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia between the years 1969-1989, specifically designed to bring things “back to normal” after the reforms enacted by Alexander Dubček in early 1968 and the subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion. Characterised by heavy censorship and “soft persecutions” – gathering information on “enemies of the state” by using Secret Police agents and informants, prohibiting people from studying or working in higher paying jobs if they don’t conform to the communist ideology.