Nyetizdat: how the Internet is building civil society in Russia

• Leon Aron
• American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

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22 July 2011In the past decade, Russia has experienced explosive growth in the spread of the Internet and its applications. As in other authoritarian regimes, where the national media are state controlled, censored, or selfcensored, the Russian “net” has become “a shelter in the world of censorship. ” In this “shelter” capacity, “Ru.net,” as it is known in Russia, is reminiscent of samizdat (literally, “self-publishing”), an underground network of banned fiction and nonfiction copied and clandestinely disseminated in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. Samizdat was central to preserving at least a trickle of uncensored information during the bleakest years of the Brezhnev “stagnation,” and in doing so paved the way for perestroika and glasnost. In breaking outside the perimeter of officially sanctioned public debate, Ru.net harks back to its legendary predecessor. It thus may be named nyetizdat, since in Russian “no” and “net” have an identical spelling and sound. Growing daily in penetration and sophistication, nyetizdat is a major and evolving factor in Russian politics today and, even more so, tomorrow.