A Systematised History of Latvian Music Samizdat and Fanzines
Creators: name: Daugavietis, Jānis
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Music Samizdat
Rock Samizdat
Fanzines
Zines
Music fanzines
Soviet Latvia
USSR
Samizdat
Riga punk
Latvian underground
80ies underground
DIY
Stengazeti
Wall Newspapers

description: Paper presented at conference:“Converging Paths: The Baltic Between East and West“, 24-26 April 2025, University of Cambridge, UKThe 16th Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe (CBSE 2025 Cambridge)https://aabs-balticstudies.org/cbse-2025-at-cambridge

ABSTRACTThe corpus of Latvian music zines, though limited by the small population of Latvia and decades of authoritarian control under the Soviet regime, reflects a unique convergence of Eastern and Western influences. During the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic era (1940-1990), publishing unofficial press was difficult (Strods 2010), with early fanzines emerging sporadically in the 1970s and gaining traction only in the mid-1980s (Astahovska & Žeikare 2016; Yoffe 2020). The arrival of perestroika under Gorbachev in 1985 initiated a period of cultural opening, allowing Latvian zines to develop with less political restriction from 1987 onwards (Daugavietis 2020; Troitsky 1988; Кушнир 1994). The subsequent wave of new zines in the early 1990s signaled the growth of a local independent music scene, as Latvia reoriented itself towards the West and engaged with broader cultural and ideological influences.In exploring the trajectories of Latvian music zines, this paper situates their development within the larger tradition of Soviet samizdat and international music subcultures, positioning the Baltic region as a locus of converging paths between East and West. The analysis will include quantitative metadata, visual representations of individual zine pages, and select excerpts, providing insights into the content and structure of Latvian fanzines over time. These findings illuminate how Latvian zines not only mirrored but also contributed to the Baltic identity as a dynamic site of cultural exchange, particularly relevant amidst contemporary geopolitical shifts and the urgency for multilateral perspectives. Lastly, the paper considers the resurgence of printed music zines in Riga’s current punk and hardcore scene, suggesting new pathways for Baltic subcultures in the global context (Daugavietis 2024a,b,c).

 

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