Sintaksis (A. Ginzburg)

Cover n.1 1959, L. Kropivnitskii.

Title of the almanac:
Sintaksis [Syntax]

Dates: December 1959-April 1960

Place of publication: Moscow

Editor: Aleksandr Ginzburg

Total numbers: 3

Description:
Sintaksis was a literary almanac published from December 1959 until April 1960 and was one of the first samizdat magazines. In total three issues were released (1, December 1959; 2, February 1960, and 3, April 1960). The young director Aleksandr Ginzburg was in close contact with Lianozovo’s circle and participated in the meetings in Maiakovskii Square (cf. Soifer 2002): after Sintaksis closed  in 1961, he read the poem Chelovecheskii manifest (Human manifesto) by Iurii Galanskov to young people gathered in the square. The poem was subsequently included in another illegal almanac Feniks (cf. Parisi 2013: 261). The issues had different print runs: 300 copies (issues 1 and 2) and 120-130 copies (issue 3; cf. Lygo 2010: 60).
In contrast to later samizdat magazines, Sintaksis circulated in two cities, Moscow and Leningrad (cf. Parisi 2013: 148). The almanac published the poetry of writers from both cities; the first and second issue included works by Genrikh Sapgir, Bella Akhmadulina, Vsevolod Nekrasov and Bulat Okudzhava, while the third and final issue was dedicated to poets writing in Leningrad, such as Iosif Brodskii, author of 5 poems including Evreiskoe kladbishe okolo Leningrada (The Jewish cemetery near Leningrad) and Zemlia (Earth) – Dmitrii Bobyshev, Gleb Gorbovskii, Viktor Goliavkin – author of a few short sketches in prose such as Gvozd’ v stole (A Nail in the table) published in nr.3 in 1960 – and Mikhail Erëmin.
Sintaksis stopped publishing in 1960, when Ginzburg was arrested for spreading anti-Sovietic propaganda and sentenced to two years in prison. The editor had been preparing an issue dedicated to Lithuanian poets, but this was never released.
In the West, the emigrant magazine “Grani” republished the three issues of Sintaksis in its nr. 58, in 1965, and in 1966 a few poems were translated into Italian in the anthology Da riviste clandestine dell’Unione Sovietica (From illegal magazines in the Soviet Union) edited by Nicola Sorin and Jean Ibsen (Sergio Rapetti and Giovanni Bensi’s pseudonyms) and published by the newly founded Jaca Book.

Notes: The journal can be consulted online at the Samizdat Collection of the University of Toronto. Original copies are kept at the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen.

Giuseppina Larocca
[30th June 2021]

Translation by Diletta Bacci

Bibliography

• Barbakadze M. (ed.), Sintaksis, http://antology.igrunov.ru/60-s/periodicals/sintaxis/, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).
• Lygo E., Leningrad Poetry 1953-1975: The Thaw Generation, Peter Lang, Berna 2010: 59-62.
• Parisi V., Il lettore eccedente. Edizioni periodiche del samizdat sovietico. 1956-1990, Il Mulino, Bologna 2013: 145-153, 261.
• Soifer V., Pamiati Aleksandra Ginzburga, “Kontinent“, 3 (2002), http://magazines.russ.ru/continent/2002/113/gin.html, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).