The current Russian practice of samizdat (self-publishing) is well-known in the West. By samizdat, Russians endlessly retype and clandestinely circulate the work of such banned Russian writers as Alexander Solzhenitsyn. With the increasing availability of tape recorders, another practice, called magnitizdat (publishing by tape recorder), is becoming even more popular than samizdat. Through magnitizdat, artists record songs that are not acceptable for official release. The tapes are then passed from hand to hand with lightning rapidity as each person makes copies for his friends.
Unlike samizdat, which is forbidden, magnitizdat has not been declared illegal. "So far as we know, no one has yet been arrested for composing, performing, taping or playing the tapes in Russia," says Misha Allen, an emigre from Russia living in Toronto who has collected more than 700 modern Soviet songs. "Probably the state regards the songs as a safety valve for the rebellious. Besides, many are patriotic." Still, as Allen points out, the Soviet authorities are not exactly delighted about the trend. Recently, tapes acquired in Russia by a few Western tourists have been seized by Soviet customs. The government has also tried to divert the public's attention from the biting new ballads by reissuing old favorites on records, like pre-revolutionary gypsy tunes, that were officially denounced as decadent until recently.
Beating the Jews. The new lyrics, which range widely over Soviet life and politics, provide the Russians with an opportunity to tune out the monotonous propaganda and "socialist realist" songs that still blare from Soviet radios. A recent theme is the increase in traditional Russian antiSemitism, now being whipped up by a press campaign against Israel and by Soviet propaganda for the Arab cause. For example, the official radio broadcasts the song of a Soviet soldier who begs, "Oh, mother write me a letter to Egypt; we're going to be here for a while." But far different sentiments are circulating on tape. "Should I become a thief, a bandit, or maybe better, an anti-Semite?" asks a boy in one satiric song. "I know for a fact the Jews stole all last year's wheat harvest from the people," he says, repeating a characteristic fantasy of Soviet anti-Semites. Echoed in the song's last line is the slogan of the "Black Hundred" society that fomented pogroms some 70 years ago: "I'm beating the Jews and saving Russia."