Samizdat Past & Present (Ukázka, strana 99)

Ludvík Vaculík had a perfect overview of all activity in the series until 1979, but that subsequently Petlice transcriptions were made by the authors themselves off their own bat and thus without the typist’s ‘seal’.

DESIGN AND DESIGNERS As experience was increasingly gained, so the artistic standard of independently published books and periodicals rose. For the most part the graphic design and the selection of illustrations and binding was undertaken by the publishers and editors themselves. The straightforward but logical and consistent graphic regulation of Kritický sborník made use of simpler typograms, the point of which was not only to establish a fixed order in the division of the features, but also to provide a binding framework for the self-service dissemination chain, on which distribution of the magazine was based. A faithful hard-copybased transcription delivered to the primary parent cells could not only guarantee the same visual transcription quality, but also facilitate checks on text completeness (e.g. based on the final word on the page). Of course, not all copiers were disciplined enough to think of maintaining quality standards: evidently they often considered feature headings to be needless decorations and ignored them.

The deluxe review Spektrum [Spectrum], three editions of which came out between 1977 and 1979, was typographically quite original.

As far as I know, it was the first and last time that a professional with a strong creative bent was asked to do the graphic design. Jaroslav Krejčí, who was known primarily as a photographer and teacher, decided to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by a typewriter and to turn its shortcomings into something positive (for example, by using the black and red ribbon to achieve a two-tone effect at least on the original transcription. He drew up an entire swatch of possible title types and an initial draft of single-column and three-column ‘compositions’, he worked with various line-spacing densities, used vivid headings and provided the editors with various ways to

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retain and simultaneously further develop this dynamic style. Details such as pagination were carefully planned out: the original idea to use a paginator or a large steel stamp with automatically changing serial numbers was rejected, so the page number was written by the poor editor with a sharpened soft pencil in the bottom left-hand corner on the back of the page, which meant about 16,000 entries for each edition. The design of Spektrum was based on the best traditions of modern Czech typography in the 1960s and associated artistic phenomena at that time, which contrasted the artistic quality of the script with the literal and symbolic meaning of the text that it carried.12 The opulent typographic treatment in Spektrum contrasts with its austere binding made from burlap with long flaps loosely set between the end-sheets. Vladimír Pistorius chose an entirely different approach for his Krameriova expedice series. Individual titles are written in the simplest way, without any special typographical features (the A5 format shared by most volumes does not leave much space for free typography), but the binding is dealt with in a distinctly artistic manner, usually with photography, sometimes with a tinted base, occasionally with script designed as a negative or in colour, sometimes with three-dimensional effects achieved by cutting or cross-sectioning the front cover.

It is because of its high graphic and artistic standards that Czech samizdat differs so much from the output of independent publishers in Poland, who managed huge print runs, but the form of most duplicated or even printed publications was subordinate to utilitarian need. Even the symbols seemed to support the surviving stereotypes that each neighbouring nation had of the other: the Poles traditionally have marvellous posters – a street medium that engages with people, but does not concern itself too much with 12 The 1960s were years of visual poetry experiments. At the beginning of the decade Jiří Kolář created the first typescript typograms, a collection of typograms was later published by Václav Havel, while letters and symbols were included in graphics and painting by Jiří Balcar and other artists, and Jaša David experimented with typographical calligraphy.

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details, while the Czechs have their detailed work, which is somewhat impractical and going out of fashion.

PUBLISHING ECONOMICS: BUDGETING All the unofficial Czech publishers worked entirely beyond market principles, i.e. not for profit and in most cases for a loss. Their accounting was all the simpler for that: they did not need to concern themselves with items for author’s royalties or editors’ wages, and most of the other work associated with making books was voluntary and thus unpaid. Hence only a few figures needed to be watched, and each forthcoming book comprised the price of the paper, carbon paper, the typist’s wage, the cost of binding, any photography and other atypical material, and from time to time irregular costs such as typewriter repairs had to be added. Losses were covered by the publisher, who in any case had to invest an amount in each publication that was about equal to a month’s pay at that time, unless the typist was doing him a favour. Occasionally they could at least make up some losses from small subsidies (or rather social support) provided by foreign foundations, and a few were paid foreign royalties for their copyright work, which they could use as core capital. It was not until the late 1970s that two magazines were established on the subscription model – Spektrum and Kritický sborník, which was the only one that could pay its authors a small but definite fee.

The twenty-eight or thirty gram carbon paper, which had to be used for the number of copies to exceed ten, cost twenty-nine and thirty crowns throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Carbon paper came in two hundred sheets, each costing fourteen hellers, and a folder twenty-eight crowns. A Consul typewriter cost anything from 1,600 to 2,350 crowns.

The cost of transcription rose gradually, as it did elsewhere in offices and institutions (remember that at least some typists had a daytime job as secretaries or copy typists at competing state publishers) and in the early 1980s it came to five to seven crowns per standard

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