What does samizdat mean?
Samizdat comes from Russian and means “self-published” as opposed to “government-published”. Samizdat was how the opposition and dissent in the USSR fought censorship and propaganda, and distributed Western literature, like Orwell’s “1984”. People made copies of texts themselves, by typing them manually with a typewriter, five sheets of paper with carbon sheets in between to produce carbon copies. Then the texts were distributed among a network of trusted people.
Here’s a The New York Times article about samizdat from 1970.
Who’s behind this project?
A sleepless mother of two, born in the USSR and immigrant in the prosperous West, the bastion of free speech and human rights, seeing women being silenced and their rights trampled on. She goes by pseudonym Becky Regins.
And all the lovely contributors to the zine.
Why “Roots”?
Because Roots aims to get back to the roots of feminism and to the roots of women’s disadvantaged position in society. That is: our femaleness. The Suffragettes and the feminists of the Second Wave understood it; as feminism got mainstream it also got dilluted and forgot whom feminism is for: women. Time to change that.
Why “.pub”?
It’s a friendly nod to 4w.pub and to the lesbian pubs that were so important to the women’s liberation movement. A pub is also a place to meet friends and have a chat about what matters to us in an informal atmosphere.
Can I submit my writing?
How can I support Roots?
The best thing you can do is to print as many copies of Roots zine as you can and leave them around for other women to find. (Is this how you got here?)
Roots-roll strangers on the Internet. Cosmo-wrap the roll in anti-women areas by wrapping Roots into a cover of Cosmo (or any other magazine for that matter; a Cosmo would be the funniest though).
Roots doesn’t accept donations. If you have some coins to spare, please donate to an organization which promotes women’s rights. Here are some suggestions:
4w.pub
feministcurrent.com
womensliberationradionews.com
Womens Liberation Front (WoLF)
Women’s Declaration International
nordicmodelnow.org