Music Samizdat as Zines? The Case of Ot Vinta from Soviet Latvia

D the first wave of research and reflection on samizdat in the Soviet Union, which began after the democratization of the political system in the second half of the 1980s, statements such as the following were often made: “The Westerner will hardly understand the meaning of rock samizdat,”2 [because] “in a civilized democratic society, samizdat does not exist, because almost everything can be printed in a normal press; in totalitarian, dictatorial regimes it is also absent due to the complete absence of freedoms.”3

Would we still argue today that Soviet music samizdat is something so original and unique to the Soviet Union (as well as some other socialist countries)? Is there something fundamentally different between the alternative and underground media born in Western democracies (which when referring to the underground music press we will hereby refer to as zines)? If we look at the research to date on such publications, it seems that yes, music-oriented zines and samizdat are phenomena that originate from different areas. Published works tend to look at one or the other, practically never together.
The fact that the Russian term "samizdat" has become internationally used to refer to illegal literature published in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and other socialist countries supports the thesis that samizdat is something unique. However, is this a sufficient argument? Amateur zines created by music fans in both socialist and capitalist countries appeared simultaneously in the second half of the 1960s, 4 the only difference being that in non-democratic countries such an initiative of the citizenry, which was outside the official press and censorship system, was drastically kept in check, while zine-makers in the West were free to continue producing. Their fate was largely dependent on market demand and/or the enthusiasm of the publishers.
This raises the question: are there any significant differences between unofficial, underground music samizdat published in the Soviet Union and Western zines? If the difference is only in the reactions of state regimes -in one case prohibition, in the other, ignorance -maybe these two phenomena should be analysed within the framework of a single theory? I will attempt to provide provisional answers to this conceptual question by examining one example of Soviet, music-oriented samizdat: Ot Vinta (1987 -1991), which was published in Riga during the last years of Soviet Latvia.
As there is still very little academic research on Soviet samizdat, and none at all on Ot Vinta and the Latvian zine scene, I will begin with a review of the literature in this field. This will be followed by the story of how the publication was created and produced. Two sources are used: firstly, original interviews with the publishers and authors, and, secondly, the content of the publications themselves. Since the publication was produced completely independent of the official Soviet publishing system and was invisible in the official Soviet mass media, one has to rely on secondary data and oral history.

Zine Theory?
The concept of zines has long seemed so self-evident that it is often not even defined in academic texts. However, in this case it is necessary if we want to compare zines with music samizdat. The following is a definition given by Stephen изданий (1985 -1991), Архив нетрадиционной печати, дополненное издание 2-е. Москва  Duncombe in one of the most authoritative books on the subject, Notes from the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture: "Zines are non-commercial, non-professional, small-circulation magazines which their creators produce, publish, and distribute by themselves." 5 English dictionaries also have similar definitions of zines, for example "a small magazine that is produced cheaply by one person or a small group of people and is about a subject they are interested in;" 6 or "a non-commercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject matter." 7 The most common technical characteristics of zines are the following: • made by amateurs, non-professionals, music fans; • issued by one, a couple, or a few people; • produced and published with the creator's own resources; • dedicated to a specific genre/theme; and • having a small circulation.
Not all of these conditions have to be met for a publication to be called a zine. There can always be various exceptions; for example, a zine can be published by professional journalists; it can have a print run of thousands or even tens of thousands, and it can be dedicated to different topics and so on. However, these attributes are considered to be suitably representative of the technical structure of zines and are regularly found in their explicit or implicit definitions. 8 Zines are a specific form of text circulation largely determined by the limited resources of their publishers, especially pre-Internet. Since most music zines specialize in a particular genre or style of music, their distribution only made sense within specific subcultures or scenes. Consequently, zine distribution was most often very local, often using only informal channels and institutions, based on social ties and reproducing a specific subcultural identity.
More problematic are those features of zines that are value-laden. These include: being created in the do-it-yourself (DIY) tradition, being deliberately non-commercial, supporting the community, being a form of political protest, being created to please, etc. Firstly, zines are diverse in their content and aesthetic and political orientation, and such statements cannot be generalized, even in the context of the zines of one music genre. Secondly, zines can be analysed through various conceptual and theoretical prisms, which often lead to contradictory conclusions. Can zines be considered tools of political resistance or just expressions of aesthetic pleasure? It is, in fact, a discussion well known in the modern research of subcultures and in cultural sociology in general. On the one hand, the Marxist-structural approach (Dick Hebdige, Pierre Bourdieu) views cultural production and consumption, including taste, as arising from economic relations, emphasizing the political importance of artistic and cultural practices whose function is either to preserve the status quo or to change it. On the other hand, the postmodern approach (Antoine Hennion, Andy Bennett) questions the thesis of economic determinism in the modern context, attributing to individuals much greater freedom and influence over their own behaviour, tastes, and ways of enjoyment.
Although this discussion also occurs in the research field of zines, 9 these two approaches should not be considered mutually exclusive. Firstly, the political may be combined with entertainment: "A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having". 10 Secondly, it is a question of how we interpret politics: how explicit and intentional should the contents of the publication be in order to be able to say with certainty that this or that zine is political? This clash of theoretical approaches is, however, essentially about one question: how can the emergence of subcultures (including zines) be interpreted? One tradition sees the phenomenon as the symbolic response (protest) of the subordinated; the other tradition sees it is an expression of aesthetic needs.

Music-oriented Samizdat as Zines?
To investigate the degree to which samizdat resembles or differs from zines, I will use both the technical parameters of zines (being the self-published work of one or a few amateur autodidactic music fans geared to a specific theme or genre) and the contradictory "ideological" theses of either political protest or aesthetic pleasure. In addition, I will pay particular attention to aspects of Soviet music samizdat production and distribution that differ from Western zines. These details may not play a significant role in the comparative conceptualization of music samizdat, but they are often fascinating and worthy of note.
It is generally assumed that the content of classic samizdat consisted of both artistic and political work that was forbidden for publication, as well as content that would most likely be banned or censored, thus emphasizing the political aspect of this type of publishing. Within this interpretation, samizdat implicitly implies political opposition to a totalitarian (or at least undemocratic) regime. It should be noted that in Stalin's Soviet Union, samizdat did not exist due to total state control and immediate persecution. Likewise, no punk zines were issued in the German Democratic Republic from 1979 to 1983. 11 It was only with the softening of the Soviet regime that a gradual change in attitudes towards unofficial publishing practices took place, from a policy of total eradication to controlled surveillance from the early 1970s. 12 In any case, the transfer of a Western Neo-Marxist theory of subcultures to the USSR is problematic. It would be difficult to argue that Soviet subcultural expressions (poetry, literature, underground music) were a response to the exploitation of the working class of the late Socialist period. It was not the workers or the peasants whom the Soviet state regarded as producers and consumers of samizdat. Instead, they identified the technical and creative intelligentsia, students, and representatives of various religious and nationalist groups to be the problematic groups.
Samizdat was also fed by Soviet artistic or aesthetic censorship, which may not always be seen as political interference in art. When the "artistically inferior" essays rejected by publishing editors were published by the authors themselves, both professionals and amateurs, these also became samizdat. In fact, we can also consider translated and published foreign pulp fiction, esoteric literature, pornographic material, horoscopes, games, etc. as samizdat. 13 We can also consider music samizdat as a political act, because it was in deliberate opposition to Soviet cultural and aesthetic canons and the official (and sole) Soviet cultural policy. The small number of such publications in the pre-Perestroi ka era and the evidence of systematic repression enacted by the USSR's oppressive institutions support this thesis. At the same time, it can be assumed that overt or covert criticism of the political regime was not the dominant driving force behind the music samizdat. The impetus was basically the desire of adherents of the new rock aesthetics to talk about music that was dear to them: "Throughout its short history, the underground rock press has consistently opposed the two »upper inhabitants« -Soviet society (until 1987) and »wild capitalism« (since 1990)." 14 This opposition, even if it was purely aesthetic, was also political, as any direct or indirect criticism of socialist artistic canons and cultural policy positions implied disloyalty or even resistance to the regime. This created some tension between zinesters and public authorities, which could manifest itself in the universities where zinesters studied or in the places where they worked, and it could lead to the involvement of the KGB (Committee for State Security).
Creators of samizdat used many methods to avoid confrontation with the KGB, ranging from self-censorship and collaboration with the regime (for example, establishing so-called "Rock Clubs") to various conspiratorial methods, such as small circulation, pseudonyms, writing text in other languages, reverse translations, confused edition numbering and title changes, and the use of different typewriters. Despite this, however, there were recorded cases of confrontations with the KGB and censorship in the period up until 1989. One reason for this is that the samizdat publisher could be prosecuted under several articles of the Criminal Code. 15 Communication with Soviet state power during the Perestroika period was gentler than before, but a "call from a KGB employee" or an "invitation to visit the KGB" were still relatively common in 1987/1988. 16

Research of Music-Oriented Samizdat
The first wave of research -or more precisely, bibliographic organisation -into music samizdat in the territory of the USSR began in the very last years of the Soviet Union's existence. This was a time when samizdat was no longer considered a politico-ideological taboo from a forbidden culture. There was instead an interest both in the USSR and beyond in what had recently been forbidden fruit.
Music samizdat was sometimes included in the cataloguing of samizdat in general, but as it was not a thematic priority, it occupied a marginal and undeveloped place. The main focus was on political publications and those that focused on literature and poetry. It could be argued that in the context of music samizdat, a bibliographic-historical interest prevailed at the time. Essentially, there were two motivations for this. One was the attempt by insiders of the underground and music samizdat scene to perform a comprehensive audit and to document the field; the other was the efforts of professional bibliographers to formally catalogue all previously unofficial publishing. Both groups actually carried out their work at the same time, i.e. 1989 -1991.
The most important contribution of librarians and bibliographers of that time came from Alexander Suetnov, whose main interests were dissidents, human-rights defenders, and informal literature in general. His most significant collection, Самиздат: библиографический указатель. Каталог нетрадиционных изданий (1985 -1991)  concise bibliographic information is given: title, type, edition, start year, issues, edition. The introduction notes that the chapter on music samizdat Muzykal'nye izdanija was created with Aleksandr Kushnir. 18 Aleksandr Kushnir (born 1964) was an underground music journalist and producer during the Soviet period who has compiled the most authoritative catalogue of USSR music samizdat to date, Дискретная энциклопедия рок-самиздата (Diskretnaja enciklopedija rok-samizdata), which was published in the leading independent music fanzine/journal of those times, КонтрКультУр'а (Kon-trKul'tUr'a) number three, 19 in which he acted as both author and editor. 20 This research was written between 1988 and 1990, and Kushnir's sources of information and informants came from the very scene he had been personally involved in since the early 1980s. The 45 pages of the magazine briefly describe 165 Soviet music samizdat fanzines (mainly rock music), beginning with the first editions of the late 1960s. For each fanzine, data is provided on the number of issues, dates of the first and last issues, edition, format, type of publication, the composition of the editorial board, and city. The individual fanzines are described concisely, with their front page and an editorial photo. It should be noted that: "Editions with a circulation of one copy were also included in the encyclopaedia on an equal footing, because the moment of success with the reproduction of products has no sociocultural significance for samizdat: the fact of the presence of an internal impulse, rather than an external perception, is important." 21 This is and will be one of the practical problems in studying Soviet music samizdat: how to decide which handwritten single-copy "magazines" that look like a notebook, a draft book or a diary are considered to be a zine, and which are not?
A few years later, this encyclopaedia was expanded into a book Золотое подполье: полная иллюстрированная энциклопедия рок-самиздата 1967 -1994: история, антология, библиография (Zolotoe podpol'e: polnaja illjustrirovannaja jenciklopedija rok-samizdata 1967 -1994: istorija, antologija, bibliografija). 22 It deals, in the same way, with some 250 editions from about 90 USSR and former-USSR cities, but the core, i.e. the major and better-known publications remain virtually unchanged, as most of them were no longer being published by 1991 or were in hibernation. The book also publishes two analytical introductory articles (by Sergej Gurjev and Aleksandr Kushnir) and more than 50 reprints of classic samizdat articles from various editions of different periods.
To this day, Kushnir's work is considered to be the most authoritative source of rock-oriented samizdat in the USSR, there being no other study or publication to rival its comprehensive detailing of the genre. 23  samizdat well; however, it does not include or cover issues in other languages apart from a few written in Ukrainian and Belarusian. It is possible that this was not only due to the language barrier presented by the other, non-Slavic languages of the USSR, but also because these other Soviet states had their own distinct national scenes. Within one Soviet republic, or even one city, there could be two or more quite distinct scenes, which not only differed along the lines of their aesthetic preferences, but also along the lines of nationality and ethnicity, language, and political ideology. Granted, this second thesis remains only an unexplored assumption; however, we can see a similar Slavic-centric vision in all samizdat bibliographies, including Suetnov's. 24 The next wave of exploration and systematisation of music-oriented samizdat began in the late 1990s, and this time it was more extensive and diverse. It was no longer just underground activists and professional Russian librarians who were interested in dissident literature, but also literary scientists, linguists, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. They were no longer just from the capital cities of the former USSR. They included among their number amateur scientists and researchers from the outermost regions of the former Soviet Union and beyond.
More and more memoir-type publications are beginning to emerge that focus on specific instances of music samizdat, either on single publications and/or specific urban and regional samizdat scenes. 25 As a rule, these are not academic articles. The authors are witnesses to or even creators of the events described. In addition to giving valuable first-hand evidence on the production and distribution of publications, the relations with official authorities, the local and USSR-wide rock scene, and the content of editions, they often contain the conceptual generalizations of insiders on this subject.
A somewhat idealistic and romanticized interpretation of the emergence of Soviet music samizdat is often present, namely the perception of it being a means of seeking and practicing freedom. 26 If this freedom is not put forward as being the only or dominant motivating factor, then this assumption does not stand in contradiction to other concepts or theories. There are indications that during Perestroika one of the driving forces of music samizdat was economic considerations. This period (1986 -1987 and onwards) saw not only greater democratic rights for the citizenry, but also greater freedom for individual businesses. Concerts by previously unrecognized or even banned rock bands were now legal. These bands, many of which had been underground and present solely in the col- umns of music samizdat, were now able to play in stadiums. The same people who had issued samizdat publications and had organised illegal "apartment concerts-kvartirniki" (small concerts held in apartments), now started to organise big concerts and festivals. Although profit may not have been the main motivation for some, it was an undeniably strong factor for others.
The creators of the music samizdat Урлайт (Urlait, 1985(Urlait, -1992 In the early 00s, a new wave of late Soviet socialist research emerged in the humanities and social sciences, sometimes involving a reinterpretation of the function and meaning of samizdat (including music samizdat). The informal press and some other allegedly non-state activities of this period of the Soviet regime were no longer viewed as being an expression of binary opposition to a repressive power. Instead, researchers viewed them in a more nuanced way, 30 even beginning to question the resistance of the music samizdat to the regime. 31 One of the least studied areas to date is the content of music-oriented samizdat.
The only examples of this genre that have been commented on, republished, or analysed are the classic big publications of Рокси (Roksi) and KontrKul'tUr'a and a pair of regional samizdat. If we focus on Soviet-era music samizdat from Latvia, it can be said that there has been virtually no research. The collections of libraries and archives in Latvia and other countries have not been studied, and private collections have not been identified. Although there are some crumbs of information in memoirs and retrospective interviews, most knowledge is to be found in previously untold oral histories.
To sum up the exploration of music samizdat of the Soviet period so far, it can, first of all, be concluded that there is still very little academic research. Bibliographic work and memoir-type publications dominate. Secondly, more than ten years after the collapse of the USSR, samizdat was viewed as a unique phenomenon of the totalitarian Soviet state, which may have been one of the reasons why Western theories were not used in its analysis. This tradition, viewed in the light of political dissidentism and based primarily on a descriptive rather than conceptual analysis, is still strong, although the discourse on the interpretation of samizdat is beginning to change, especially since Alexei Yurchak's publications on the everyday life and activities of those in the artistic field in late socialist societies.

Production of Ot Vinta
Ot Vinta (1987 -1991) was one of the first Latvian music zines, as this term is understood in the West -an "unofficial" rock magazine made by amateurs and music fans/musicians, with a small circulation (a few dozen) and mainly devoted to the local underground scene. At the same time, it represented the Soviet tradition of samizdat, which in fact was, originally, its sole influence. 32 Apart from the Latvian (language)-issued new wave/punk fanzine Stieple (1984 -1990), there had only been a few editions of music or art-oriented amateur publications in the Latvian SSR. We can say that they qualify as samizdat, if we accept Kushnir's definition that a single copy edition is enough. 33 These include Zirgābols, WCZLS, and Seque, published by Hardijs Lediņš and Juris Boiko in 1971 -1974, 34 and Без Жмогас (Bez Zhmogas ) in 1974. 35 These were one-issue editions of Riga school pupils, and they were very much like notebooks, diaries, or manuscripts, where young people expressed their music and artistic aspirations and tastes in a collage or in non-illustrated handwriting. 36 Although there was only one copy of such samizdat, they were often circulated widely. Most often this just meant a circle of friends, acquaintances, and classmates; however, sometimes it also came to the attention and investigation of the repressive state authorities, causing real trouble for their authors. 37 According to the most generalized periodization of Soviet samizdat, Ot Vinta is a publication belonging to the second phase of the perestroika period. It began in 1987, when various changes brought about by the reforms had already become real. Although the situation varied in different regions and cities of the country, the state's attitude towards informal media became more and more liberal, especially regarding explicitly non-political samizdat. Although there is more evidence of the KGB's interest in and repression of music samizdat in 1987 and 1988, including in Latvia, 38  Ot Vinta content was markedly musical, and if anything political or socio-critical appeared, it was not an overly radical view. Most likely, the KGB's priorities in Latvia were purely political publications that had already begun to call for the restoration of Latvia's sovereignty or even independence or cultivated other ideas that were hateful to the Soviet authorities. 41 It would have been difficult to rebuke Ot Vinta for "bourgeois nationalism" (one of the regime's main ideological enemies in the so-called national republics) if only for the reason that it came out in Russian, there were no ethnic Latvians in the editorial team, and most of the content was devoted to Riga's Russian-language rock music scene.
At the same time, pseudonyms were used by virtually all the writers contributing to the magazine; there was no information about the editorial team, no addresses, and no instructions on how to acquire the publication. Some issues bear the words На правах рукописи (Na pravah rukopisi, that is As a manuscript), as if to suggest that there was no intention to circulate the publication and that it should not, therefore, be subject to censorship. Alternatively, there was the ironic use of Винт -движитель рекламы (Vint -dvizhitel' reklamy or Vint -advertising engine), Пролетариям всех стран (Proletarijam vseh stran or To the proletarians of all countries), and the use of the title font of the main Communist Party newspaper Правда (Pravda or Truth) for the title of Ot Vinta (see fig. 3, 6, 8). It was both a tradition of pre-Perestroika samizdat conspiracy and precautionary practices and a technique of "steb" (mockery or derision).  44 There is no mention anywhere in the issues of the publication that it is an organ or voice of the Rock Club, and it positions itself in interviews as independent. However, despite this, Ot Vinta's affiliation with this institution is obvious (several members of the "editorial board" were involved in the management of the club, played in groups, and the contents of the journal covered the activities of the rock club). The Rock Club was an official institution of the Soviet state. Its "parent organization" was the Latvian Communist Youth (Komsomol) division of the City of Riga and it was supervised by the KGB. 45 It therefore had to comply with the laws and cultural policy of that time.

SV: "In fact, if you read the title in a row without pauses, then the expression »To the proletarians of all countries Ot
For example, club groups had to submit their lyrics for approval (censorship) to the respective Komsomol employee, the rock club curator. 46 Ot Vinta also probably managed to maintain a level of self-censorship that satisfied both parties. In interviews, the creators of Ot Vinta say that the KGB was aware of its contents but did not give them any direct comment or recommendation. Ot Vinta was created by young amateurs with no previous experience of producing such publications. Previously, they had read samizdat, and Volchenko had even reproduced some editions of samizdat, including some articles of music-oriented samizdat. 49 The person with the greatest experience was Andrei "Kastot" Kostanenko (born 1964), who had produced handwritten editions of Орган БЭКО (Organ BEKO) with friends and other musicians from the emerging Bolderāja scene since 1984 (or earlier). 50 Neither Kastot nor Sergei Volchenko and Dmitry Sumarokov (born as Sustretov in 1967), who made up the first "editorial board", nor any of the other original authors of Ot Vinta had any specialized education in media production or publishing.
Volchenko and Sumarokov had extramural engineering studies at the Riga Polytechnic Institute (now Riga Technical University) and worked at ЭЛЛАР (EL-LAR, Factory of the USSR Ministry of Electronic Industry), where hardware for the manufacture of microchips was produced. They both sat at the same table in an experimental mechanical engineering design bureau, and it is here that the production of Ot Vinta took place, 51 illegally, of course, using the resources of a public authority during working hours without permission and without payment.
Technically, Ot Vinta was created using the classic samizdat technique of that time: typewriter, paper, carbon paper, photo, scissors, and glue. Five or six copies of the magazine were printed at the same time by using carbon paper. Photographs were then glued on to each of these originals, plus a cover or other illustrations, whether in the form of a drawing, collage, or the like. 52 Sergei Volchenko says that his duties ended after he had edited and typed up the articles, and then put the publication together. He left one or two copies for himself (the archive), and distributed the rest to the Rock Club, the authors, and acquaintances. However, Ot Vinta gained a greater circulation thanks to copies made by others. For example, Dmitry Sumarokov remembers having reproduced the magazine on the spot, in the factory, secretly using the "soviet xerox" there. He also manually stitched the printed pages with a wire used in the electrical industry and placed it in a transparent cover. 53 Further reproduction of the finished edition of the samizdat was spontaneous and uncontrolled. If someone who had a samizdat edition in their hands was exposed to its contents and had the appropriate means of production at his or her disposal (e.g., a typewriter, although this was not compulsory as handwritten samizdat were circulating in the early 1990s), 54 and he/she was not afraid, then they made as many copies as possible. The same thing happened with music samizdat. This was a widespread practice that had the approval of the samizdat community. Therefore, it is difficult to judge the number of Ot Vinta magazines that were reproduced, but it can be assumed with certainty that there were fivesix original copies produced in Riga (typewriter, carbon paper copying, with real photos) and a few dozen "xerocopied" copies. How and by what means Ot Vinta was propagated in other cities of the USSR is unknown and unstudied.
Due to the traditions of samizdat and the technical means available, including the education of the creators of the Ot Vinta makers (they did not go to art schools), its design is laconic-technocratic: straight, uninterrupted, typewritten A4 or A5 pages on one side, with maybe a photograph, drawing or collage in the middle (or on the whole page) (see Figures 1 -7). When they began publishing Ot Vinta, its makers had only seen Soviet samizdat, including some examples of music samizdat, 55 so the visual and design aesthetics of classical western punk/DIY cannot be seen in the first issues of their magazine. This came later, due to, firstly, the flow of information coming from the West; and, secondly, the greater availability of xerox machines in the USSR at the end of the 1980s. 54  In the second issue of Ot Vinta (Spring 1987), half is written by Kastot, his main pen name being Х. Уев (Kh. Uev), and the rest by three other authors. The third issue (Summer 1987) of 122 pages in an A5 format contains articles by at least seven authors. It should be noted that all the authors used pseudonyms or nicknames that were known to people in the scene. The Ot Vinta editorial board was not a formal institution, so it is difficult to pinpoint its boundaries, but besides the three authors mentioned above, we can, after the second issue, add the authors Igor Detkovsky and Sergey Rozhko. 60 Both were also directly affiliated with the Riga Rock Club.
The year 1989 can be considered as the year when censorship effectively ended in the Latvian SSR. 62 This meant that samizdat could be published officially and viewed as a commercial opportunity. In terms of its population, Latvia is a relatively small country, comprising at that time approximately 2.7 million people. Although half of the population belonged to the Russian-speaking community, it was difficult for the Russian-speaking press to compete with Russia's (All-Soviet) magazines. While some new "normal" (not samizdat) music-oriented Latvian-language magazines appeared at that time, in 1990 -1991 (e.g., Parks, Una, Patsnieku Iela), none appeared in Russian. The Ot Vinta editorial board had considered publishing a "normal" music magazine but concluded that it would not be cost-effective. 63 The Russian-language music samizdat in Latvia continued to function in the style of a fanzine until the early 1990s (e.g., Малая Земля, ИБО, Авось, Ересь -Malaja Zemlja, IBO, Avos', Eres'), finally ending around 1991 -l992.
The last two issues of Ot Vinta were released after a pause of two years. The first of these was an unnamed four-page "blues number" dedicated to the birthday of Riga guitarist Jānis Vanadziņš (born 1951) and was published at the beginning of 1991. The last edition, the seventh, was released at the end of the year. It consists of 25 eclectic pages, and the reader can feel that the material has been stretched over a few years. Volchenko and Sumarokov continued their work with samizdat sporadically through the 1990s and beyond; however, it was no longer a systematic activity. They re-issued the Garbarenko edition twice (in 1994 and 1995). 64 A final attempt to create a new issue of Ot Vinta took place in 1996; however, it didn't progress beyond the draft stage and an unfinished layout design. 65 The drop off in intensity after 1987, when only four issues were published in the next four years, can be explained not only by changes in the editorial composition, but also by rapid and cardinal changes in the socio-political-economic context in Latvia. These changes began at the end of 1987, with the democratization of the public sphere, the strengthening of the national independence movement, and the legalization of some forms of private business. On May 4, 1990, the Parliament of the Latvian SSR proclaimed independence from the USSR. Although this was a significant historical moment, the very rapid economic crisis taking place at that time had a much greater impact on the daily lives of the population. It was marked by a decline in industrial production and trade, a shortage of commodities and foodstuffs, high unemployment, and a growing state of social anomie. 66 This economic recession followed a period in which rock music and other popular musical genres were completely legalised by the state administration and freed from state control. The incredible mass attendance at concerts that had taken place in 1988 -1989 disappeared as a result of this economic strife. 67 The lifting of censorship and the transformation of the economy saw a change in the role of the Riga Rock Club. This shift from the Soviet totalitarian cultural policy to one characterised by market-based music production and mechanisms of circulation resulted in a lessening of its influence. After all, the most important function it had played for rock musicians during the Soviet period, namely securing a legal gig, was no longer relevant. Moreover, the idea of a central "rock organisation" did not correspond to the new spirit of the time. Competing organisations emerged; many of Riga's Russian-speaking musicians emigrated, and a new generation of musicians entered the scene. In parallel with the work on Ot Vinta, some of its authors had already started cooperating with the official Russian-language media of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1987, for example, writing in the weekly Рок диалог (Rok dialog) section in the newspaper Советская Молодежь (Sovetskaya Molodezh), published by the Latvian Komsomol. They continue to practice journalism, including music, even after restoration of the independence of the Republic of Latvia in 1990, joining the new professional Russian-language mass media system 70 as well as trying out other types of business.

Conclusions
It is likely that differences in the nature of zine and music samizdat research is not a result of any theoretical disagreement but rather due to the competence and subjective or aesthetic interests of the researchers. In most cases, research is dominated by a more or less pronounced insider approach, 71 and every researcher is likely to have come from a zine or samizdat scene of a certain time and geographic location. This paper is no exception, and so it is narrowly specialized. We have, therefore, the American Stephen Duncombe with a book on, basically, American zines; 72 the Brit Matthew Worley with publications on British punk zines; 73 the Soviet-Ukrain-ian-Russian author Aleksandr Kushnir on Soviet (basically Slavic) rock samizdat; 74 and the Portuguese researchers Paul Guerra and Pedro Quintela with studies on Portuguese punk zines. 75 These are cases of classical ethnocentrism that take the form of Slav-centrism, British-centrism, or UK punk-centrism in zines and samizdat research.
"While other media are produced for money or prestige or public approval, zines are done […] for love: love of expression, love of sharing, love of communication." 76 These words can be fully attributed to the creation and production of Ot Vinta, the Soviet Latvian music samizdat discussed in this article. It had a small circulation and was made by non-professional "journalists" and "publishers" in the DIY spirit. They were rock music fans and music lovers, some of whom had already become musicians. The creators of Ot Vinta, as musicians and support staff, were closely linked to the underground rock scene in Riga, and most Ot Vinta content was devoted to it.
The production of Ot Vinta was certainly also a protest, however. By defending their aesthetic tastes, the authors of this samizdat opposed, directly or indirectly, the values of the Soviet ideology and its accepted cultural policy. It was the period of late socialism, which had already passed through Перестройка (Perestroika) and Гласность (Glasnost), and had a reformed, more democratic society and administration. It was a political act to question socialist realism (however unpredictable and contradictory it may have been) and other canons of official culture, and to opt for the mass music of "rotting Western capitalism". However, in the case of Ot Vinta, it cannot be said that the driving force behind its publication was political protest.
At the same time, it is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between aesthetic and political values. Is it possible to discern any "pure" aesthetic values from Western rock music, as well as from Soviet pop music, without considering social or political values? Can the rebellion of the former -sexual and substance (ab)use, inactivity, isolation, pessimism -or the positivism of the latter -collectivism and conformismsomewhere die away or transform? It is possible, but not at that time and not in that context.
Did Soviet Ot Vinta differ from the zines of the Western world? No. There are no significant differences in terms of production, distribution, values, or ideology. There are differences in the details of production (in design, in the means used, in distribution channels, and in the degree of conspiracy required) as well as in the attitude of the ruling political regime (ignorance or control). However, these are features that lie outside the definition of what is a zine, so the main conclusion of this article is that Western music zines and Soviet music samizdat are one and the same phenomenon.
information about the underground music (mainly Russian-language) scene of Riga during its time. It came from and belonged to this informal culture, which remained largely undocumented in official media or other documents. Secondly, this is the first study of the most important Riga zine of its time, during which two hitherto digitally unavailable numbers were digitized and made public. Thirdly, the preliminary study of the Soviet music-oriented samizdat collections reveals that the largest collections are in private hands, while the largest collections of publications in state libraries and archives are to be found outside of the countries where they were produced, which is the case for both Latvia and Russia. 77 This, in turn, implies researching archives, library collections and private collections in the name of the national interest of these countries, with the aim of cataloguing, digitizing or even purchasing such publications.