Underground literature is writing that cannot legally be published in the USSR. It circulates through the medium of samizdat – handwritten or typewritten (and carbon copied) manuscripts, distributed on something like a chain-letter principle. The borderline between underground and “above-ground” literature is not always distinct. It sometimes happens that, because of a sudden switch in official policy or merely an arbitrary bureaucratic decision, a writer whose works are usually acceptable for publication will run into censorship difficulty with a given work and be forced to resort to underground channels. Also, some writings that the censors would probably find innocuous nevertheless circulate through samizdat simply because their authors choose not to submit them for publication. Some of the works of authors no longer living, such as Mandelstam and Pasternak, are still prohibited by censorship and thus have become underground literature. And many works no doubt circulate underground for the reason that editors have rejected them for lack of literary merit. The most significant underground literature, however, is that which has been found unacceptable for political and ideological reasons.

Despite occasional compromises and relaxations of controls, the Soviet regime has always been at odds with liberal writers, and the regime became increasingly hostile toward them during the last decade of the period with which the present study is concerned. At times, works of direct and open social protest or satire had found their way into print, such as Evtushenko's “Baby Yar” and Tvardovsky's Tyorkin in the Netherworld. These were allowed to appear, however, only because their sentiments happened to coincide with, or at least not seriously conflict with, those of responsible officials at the given moment.