Zines as a dominant form of alternative book publishing in the first decades of the XXI century in Siberia

Metel'kov Anton Sergeevich ORCID: 0000-0002-6591-110X PhD in History Head of the sector of samizdat and Non-traditional printing, Researcher; Laboratory of Book Studies; State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 630102, Russia, Novosibirsk region, Novosibirsk, Voskhod str., 15, office 127 metelkov.gpntb@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

Zines— amateur low–circulation magazines on a wide range of subjects, have emerged as leaders in the domestic independent press in the second decade of the 21st century. Initially, in Western culture, zines were periodicals covering issues of a particular subculture (lovers of music, sports, and fantasy literature), and served as a means of forming identity, primarily among young people ^[1]. Having spread as a niche phenomenon of subculture and being in the marginal sector of book publishing, which allows for a large degree of freedom, zines began to acquire countercultural features. First of all, this was due to the ideology of punk rock and the do-it-yourself principles accompanying it, which opposed commercially oriented mass culture ^{[2, p. 5-6]}.

A number of researchers draw parallels between Western zines and Soviet musical samizdat of the 1980s ^[3]. But if in the West zines evolved from a subcultural orientation to a countercultural one, then in the USSR the trend was the opposite: before the beginning of Perestroika, musical samizdat was harshly persecuted ^{[4, pp. 79-96]}, and then its oppositional component began to be reduced - at the same time, the foundations of the state system were being destroyed, against which rock music was largely directed.

The number of domestic studies of zine culture and DIY aesthetics is incomparably small compared to foreign ones. ^{[5, 6, 7, 8]}. The authors consider these phenomena in the context of the existence of counterculture and subculture, paying attention to the influence that zines have on the cultural landscape as a whole: the creators of zines attempt to contrast themselves with the world of the establishment, while At the same time, commercial culture tends to absorb the independent book publishing sector, making it its own part. The Russian zines of the 2010s and 2020s are usually positioned as a form repeating Western patterns, while continuity with respect to domestic subcultural samizdat is often beyond the scope of attention. This article attempts to define this continuity more explicitly.

In general, the zine is a spontaneous author's reflection on a particular topic. The authors of the zines rely on artistic means of expression and create an original syncretic form combining textual and visual (graphics, photography, collage) elements, unusual layout and sometimes non-standard printing technologies (linocut). Researchers note the common features of zines and other types of alternative book publishing (in particular, handwritten albums) ^{[9, p. 384]}. With the development of technology, the zine form is becoming more complex, and the scope of the concept itself is becoming broader. Such a characteristic as the frequency of release is gradually becoming insignificant: many zines had only the first issue, and over time, a significant part of them stopped focusing on regular release altogether. It is characteristic that despite the rapid development of digital technologies, most subcultural zines were published in paper form ^[10]. They often had an electronic version optimized for screen readers, as well as a self-printable layout.

Due to the fact that zin is in many ways a spontaneous form accessible to everyone and is distributed in a system of horizontal links, it is quite difficult to keep a correct record of publications of this type. Nevertheless, specialized websites, groups and channels on social networks, as well as festivals that provide a platform for trade, exchange and communication, make it possible to accumulate information about them. The research was based on these sources, catalogs of zine culture festivals, and interviews with creators, distributors, and collectors of zines.

Alternative book publishing in the 1990s and early 2000s.

In the 1990s. The independent press has developed in several directions. On the one hand, there are opportunities for the legal publication of publications. In the European part of the country, the resources for private book publishing were much richer, and many magazines, which continued the traditions of samizdat in the 1980s, began to publish large editions aimed at a wide audience. Some publications remained focused on a high set level, while others, in a market economy, adapted to the tastes of the general reader. At the same time, and this is especially true in the province, where the circumstances for the development of private business in the field of culture are not so comfortable, publications have been preserved that continued the line of samizdat not only conceptually, but also functionally: home computers, printers, and copiers have become more accessible; amateur publishers have had the opportunity to experiment with layout and layout using software tools. Publications of this type, often made carelessly and in extremely cramped conditions, were very similar in form to Western zines. Notable examples include Underground (Ishim, 1986-1994), AOR and ORZ (Omsk, 1990-1992), Chernozem (Tyumen, 1991-1999), Yesterday News (Kemerovo, 1992-1993), KISS Revenge (Novosibirsk, 1993-1994), Blumkin News" (Novosibirsk, 1996-1997). To a large extent, the new wave of such publications was inspired by the publication of Alexander Kushnir's book "The Golden Underground. The complete illustrated encyclopedia of rock samizdat (1967-1994). History. An anthology. Bibliography", which accumulated and reflected the experience of musical samizdat of previous years. The fact that in the late 1990s and early 2000s played a role. The government began to pay attention to cultural financing again, and many magazines (Siberian Lights, Yenisei, Siberia) gained a second wind. The resumption of support for individual projects by the authorities served as an incentive for the formation of an alternative horizontal system of book publishing and book distribution.

The spread of the Internet in the late 1990s also influenced the state of affairs in alternative book publishing: the Internet space, optimally suited for the implementation of grassroots initiatives, began to be actively explored by both individual authors and communities. For example, the magazine "Likbez" (Barnaul), which had been published in samizdat since 1989, stopped being published on paper after its website appeared in 2001. The printed version was resumed only in 2009. In 2015, after Vyacheslav Kornev, editor—in-chief of Likbez, moved to St. Petersburg, the publication continued its activities already there. The neo-avant-garde magazine Dragoman Petrov (Novosibirsk, 2000-2002) was published by its editorial board only in electronic form, despite plans to publish it on paper. At the same time, Igor Loshchilov, one of the creators of Petrov's Dragoman, and Andrey Shchetnikov, founder of the independent publishing house Artel In Vain, published the literary magazine Kto Zdes (Novosibirsk, 2001-2003) in printed form. All these publications were created in line with the development of the underground tradition and the mindset of connecting the local and All-Russian context, which has become easier to implement with the development of communication media.

Unofficial periodicals on musical subjects — "The Wall" (Novosibirsk, 1998-2000), "Empire" (Barnaul, 1999), "Skinvortzhenie" (Barnaul, 1999), "Stand-ir" (Novosibirsk, 2000), "Gramophone Square" (Omsk, 2001-2003), "Tommy's" (Zelenogorsk, 2001-2002), "K. K. K." (Sarinsk, 2002), "Detoxification" (Sarinsk, 2002), "Danger" (Sarinsk, 2002-2003) — at the turn of the 1990s-2000s, they continued to follow the traditions of the informal press. The language of communication found by their predecessors in the 1980s, which reduced the distance between the author and the reader to a minimum, partly dissolved into the language of "glossy" magazines and advertising, and partly continued to develop on the pages of alternative small-circulation publications that form the local cultural environment.

The next surge of such independent magazines occurred in the second half of the 2000s: Selpokor (Krasnoyarsk, 2006-2008), ShEma (Tomsk, 2007), Galoshes of Perun (Krasnoyarsk, 2007-2009), Goodbye My Cruel World (Barnaul, 2008-2009), Sol (Tomsk, 2008), "New Rock" (Tomsk, 2008-2010), "Tomsk Recorder" (Tomsk, 2011-2013). This stage coincided with the next stage in the development of the Russian–language Internet, when thematic forums and rare personal websites were replaced first by LiveJournal, and then by more modern social networks. Despite the fact that the possibilities for operational communication have become much simpler, and the Internet environment has favored the organization, functioning and interaction of small communities, the material embodiment of their activities still seemed necessary.

Zines in the literary, musical and artistic environment

In the 2010s, unofficial publications such as MAKOVSCiY (Novosibirsk, 2011), KOLKO (Krasnoyarsk, 2014-2015), Oxygen (Kemerovo, 2014-2017), Riverport (Novosibirsk, 2015-2021), Vesalius (Tomsk, 2016-2018) appeared, focusing on literary and general cultural topics. They often had both paper and electronic versions and, on the one hand, took into account the experience of classical samizdat, on the other, they focused on the new aesthetics of the zines, albeit in a restrained form.

The music magazines of the 2010s came as close as possible to the zines in form and organically joined this direction of alternative book publishing: Tundra (Irkutsk, 2012-2014), Shampoo (Omsk, 2015-2016), I-see-this (Tomsk, 2017-2019), My Defense (Tyumen, 2018), "Girls" (Krasnoyarsk, 2019-2020). Self-published magazines have gained the greatest popularity among representatives of punk culture, whose ideology is dominated by the protest component ^[11].

In 2012-2015, the zine festival "I'll publish it Myself!" organized by Valeria Vetoshkina was held in Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Moscow. Subsequently, the festival's collection was transferred to the archive of the samizdat and uncensored press sector of the State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GPSTB SB RAS). In 2022, through the joint efforts of Studio 312 at the State Scientific and Technical University of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, fab galleries.On November 8, the Novosibirsk State Regional Scientific Library hosted the Koreshki Festival, which featured a wide range of zines, author's books, and classic samizdat. As part of the festival, Studio 312 and the book workshop "Savvy Donkey", founded by Valeria Yakovleva, conducted a series of laboratory work. Novosibirsk poets, artists and photographers created a two-part zine "Snakes and Ladders" dedicated to the streets of Novosibirsk. Subsequently, the same community in Razdolnoye village, Novosibirsk region, made another original zine, the Lost and Found Bureau. Milorad Pavic." In contrast to the heterogeneity and brightness of Snakes and Ladders, Lost and Found ... imitated a restrained and unified form of a personal file, but its content was organized according to nonlinear laws.

"Snakes and Ladders" and "Lost and Found ..." were essentially borderline phenomena between zine and the artist's book: from zine, they featured the spontaneity of fixing the creative process and the eclecticism of form, from the artist's book – the conscious and purposeful use of artistic means and positioning in the context of contemporary art. Modern artists often turn to zine's practice, creating them as peripheral (and sometimes basic) products of their work. In Novosibirsk, Elena and Andrey Bertollo ("So Simple" et al., 2006-2022), Yanina Boldyreva ("Rupture Zone", "Collective Inaction", "Birch People" et al., 2015-2023), Elena Ryumina ("Strange Tales", "Meeting", "Strizh") showed the greatest activity in this area.", "Let", "Insomnia", "Spring Forest", etc., 2018-2021), Maria Gnuchevskaya ("Summer 2019", "M52", etc., 2019-2022), Elena Tretyakova ("My Shoes", "London Menagerie", "Gray Oranges", "Beethoven. Symphony No. 9", "Emotions", "Four Hundred Days", etc., 2021-2024), Olga Tairova ("King of the Mountain", "Carpet", etc., 2024). Boldyreva's books stand out among those listed by the relevance of artistic expression in the light of the social and political agenda. In Omsk, Pavel Markov ("House of Memory", "Byzantine Rabble", "Der Erlkönig", 2021-2023) and Anna Bat, who makes piece textile publications ("film film", "New Times Roman", "Nostalgia", "Being Simone Forest", "The grandfather is inside" and others, 2022-2024).

According to Valeria Kruglova, organizer of the zina festival "Zerdela" (Rostov-on-Don), the zina format has been adopted not only by artists, but also by curators and activists, as a result of which zines are increasingly becoming integral elements of larger projects (exhibitions, art research, street art). For example, catalogs of apartment exhibitions and industrial biennales held in Tomsk by Lukiya Murina and Nikolai Isaev ("Nudity", "Imaginary Museum", "Provincial Biennale: a City within a City", etc., 2017-2024) are published in the form of zines. Sofia Shipitsina's zine "By the Grain" (Tomsk, 2024) became part of Lolita Moiszrapishvili's large exhibition project "The First Sunday after the First Full Spring Moon", opened in the walls of the Tomsk Catholic community parish; Svetlana Savinsky's zine "Aesthetics and Mysticism of the "Quiet Village" (Novosibirsk, 2024) became part of the exhibition "Paradise on earth", collected by Anastasia Ermish. Both zines are united by their work with urban realities in the genre of hoax and alternative history. Zines made in the aesthetics of kitsch were regularly included in the exhibitions of the Tomsk art group "Malyshki 18:22" ("Castle Dungeon", "Queen", "Welcome", etc., 2020-2024). Krasnoyarsk artist Yuri Adomeyko designed zines that serve as explications and guides to exhibitions ("A tribe named poisk", "Sibir11", "Nadia went to the forest", etc., 2021-2024), and also used the zine form in other author's and collective projects (zine menu "Legends of the City of K." for the restaurantTunguska", 2024).

Zines as an educational and research tool

Artists often use zines in their educational programs: Zosia Leutina, Maria Gnuchevskaya, Elena Tretyakova and Kristina Shabanova made a series of zines with students of the Novosibirsk architectural and art studio Kontur, reflecting on the topos of Novosibirsk Akademgorodok, city parks, the space of emotions, memories of summer, etc. (2022-2024). A large number of zines occur in the school and student environment, both when children interact with adults and independently. Natalia Potseluyeva, in Russian language and literature lessons, created zines together with students of Novosibirsk gymnasium No. 10 based on the works of authors of the XIX–XX centuries (2023-2024). In 2018, Maxim Cherednichenko and Ekaterina Grigorenko founded the amateur publishing house Anna Maria in Tomsk. Within the framework of numerous creative workshops (mainly on the basis of the Eureka-Razvitie school), they made several hundred zines ranging from 8 to 256 pages. In cooperation with Novosibirsk Studio 312 and the book workshop "Savvy Donkey", the publishing house has prepared more than 10 issues of the zine newspaper "Pigeon Post" (2023-2024). In addition to Pigeon Mail, Studio 312 and Savvy Donkey have released a number of other zines developed together with children and adults and most often dedicated to exploring a particular territory (Bishbalta, Fisherman's Garden, Forgotten Things, etc., 2023-2024). At the same time, Valeria Yakovleva launched her author's zine "Businka" (2023), also based on one of the creative laboratories. The Beads project involves the publication of 50 small books for children with the same content, but with different designs.

While studying at the Faculty of Journalism at Novosibirsk State University, Diana Zadneprovskaya released the zines "Cuming Out", dedicated to the current agenda, and "Doormat", focused on the topic of post-Soviet life (2019-2020). The main audience of the zines were also students. Student publications often become diploma projects in their respective specialties, as happened in the case of Irina Butkovskaya's zines ("About Myself and Siberia", 2019) and Ulyana Nikolaeva ("Novosibirsk Poetic", 2022) at Novosibirsk State University of Architecture, Design and Arts, Daria Ukrainskaya ("A Walk through the Old Town", 2023) at Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University.

Based on the practice of "hospital clowning", Nastya Fursenko and Sasha Nikolaeva are engaged in creating zines in Novosibirsk together with children and adults. They also released their own zines: Fursenko's "Gorodok" (2019), Nikolaeva's "Anno Domini 21" (2021), "Scraps of Owls" (with Katya Kuzminykh, 2022), "You Have Time" (with Katya Kuzminykh, 2023), "Peter Repeats" (together with Inga Krupeneva, 2023).

Zines in local history

Nastya Fursenko's "Town", which is an author's reflection on the theme of childhood, can at the same time be attributed to the local history type that has become very popular. Among the zines devoted to the study, comprehension and presentation of a certain area, it is also worth mentioning "Krasnoyarsk. Places" (Krasnoyarsk, 2020-2024), "Zin about the Kirovsky district" (Krasnoyarsk, 2021), "Krasin" (Krasnoyarsk, 2021), "Boiler Room" (Tomsk, 2021), "Around the Corner" (Tyumen, 2022), "Wonders of the Altai Territory" (Barnaul, 2022), Novo-zin (Novosibirsk, 2024). In this series, there are zines that focus on the ethnic characteristics of the region: "Boholdoy" (Ulan-Ude, 2021), "I comprehend the diversity of my ethnic part" (Ulan-Ude, 2024). Many of the mentioned works were carried out with the support of various institutions in order to present the region in a modern form. Attempts to institutionalize independent projects in the 2020s they become regular.

Travelogues can be considered as a related direction: "Peter Repeats" tells about the impressions of the authors' trip to St. Petersburg; "50 kg" by German Jordansky and Konstantin Andreev (Novosibirsk, 2021) is based on their artistic works made in the Crimea; "summer-autumn" by Lera Mirovovich (Tomsk, 2023) tells about the author's departure from Tomsk to St. Petersburg; "Bishbalta" (2023) and "The Fisherman's Garden" (2023) were created by children from different Siberian cities as part of the Kazan research laboratory; "Morphology of Streets 24" (2024) was created by St. Petersburg artist Vasily Bazelevs based on a trip to Tyumen. The collective zine "COLD" (2022), made by residents of the city under the guidance of St. Petersburg artist and photographer Lena Holkina, and the zine "Train to the Future" (2023) by St. Petersburg photo artists Kristina Shkileva and Kristina Sergeeva, presenting the results of their zine laboratory, are dedicated to Norilsk. In 2022, the artist Karina Andreeva founded the open "Library named after him" in the Creative Space of the Norilsk Development Agency. The Zines." In the first two years of its existence, it has collected more than 200 zines from different cities of Russia, a quarter of them are zines made in Norilsk and most of them dedicated to this city ("Sun 0202", "By the way, about the "birds", "Norilsk. We are not afraid", "Turmeric Root", "Non-elementary house", "Labyrinth City", "Norilsk in sketches", etc., 2022-2024).

Zines across a range of genres and subcultures

Often, zines arise and spread in the subculture of comic book lovers: 5 issues of the Krasnoyarsk zine. Places" were created by the KRAS COMICS CULT club; in Novosibirsk, a large number of zines are made on the basis of the SOCK comic club ("What birds did I see last week", "Welcome to the White Space", "Rules for keeping toads", "Adaptation", "How to make a book", etc., 2023-2024). The trilogy of Tyumen (2017-2019), the founder of the Cosmic Cow art collective Gosha Yelaev, is devoted to the theme of local superheroes, and many other works by this group have also been published as zines.

The main trend related to the peculiarities of the modern information space in the late 2010s and early 2020s was the creation of personal, personal zines, as well as zines dedicated to small and ultra-small communities. Among them are the zines "Jo-jo: Synthetic Zine" (Irkutsk, 2007), "Jaw-Jaw" (Irkutsk, 2007-2010), "That's life" by Masha Mikhailenko (Tyumen, 2020), the zines of the Inkwell cooperative (Novosibirsk, 2022-2023), Anastasia Kondrina (Kemerovo, 2022), Kristina Babina ("Family: Expectation and Reality", "Cardiogram", "What are you doing?", Tyumen, 2023), "It was/There was no" by Veronika Petrovskaya (Tomsk, 2023), "take it home" by Anastasia Mikhaleva (Krasnoyarsk, 2023), "when (yours) the house is Askew" by Katya Kosmakova and Marina Boyarintseva (Tyumen, 2023) and others. Often, the zines approach the photobook in form: "Thoughts of a Small Town" by Alexey Kerkin (Tyumen, 2022), "Who am I?" by Nadia Shtyrova (Novosibirsk, 2022-2023), "People are Out Everywhere" by Nastya Shinkaryuk (Tomsk, 2023), etc. Among other relevant topics addressed by the authors of the zines, one can name the study of physicality (Vitaly Pautov, "nep. Sounds for the body", Tyumen, 2021) and experiments with artificial intelligence (Anastasia Bunakova, "Impersonal correspondence", Omsk, 2023; Evgeny Ivanov, "Letters and Numbers of the word ball", Novosibirsk, 2024).

Conclusion

The key role in the development of the small press in the 21st century was played not only by changes in the political and social situation, but also by the widespread use of the Internet and affordable printing technologies. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the first author's websites began to appear, the outflow of independent publications to the Internet was still insignificant. The use of personal computers and printers during this period stimulated the further growth of home printed publications. However, the Internet is an extremely favorable space for uncensored communication — with the possibility of anonymity, speed and mass dissemination of information, as well as the use of multimedia technologies and hypertext. In the mid-2000s, social networks began to dominate the Internet environment, and opportunities for creating copyright resources became even more accessible. The communication field — in the field of both official and underground media — is rapidly moving to the Internet. Unofficial printed publications continue to appear, on the one hand, by inertia, on the other hand, duplicating electronic ones. But in the mid-2010s, a countertrend emerged: an overabundance of electronic content and blurring of boundaries in the Internet environment, a change in the psychology of participants in cultural processes (everyone feels like a full-fledged actor in the cultural space), and a focus on Western trends led to a rapid growth in amateur print and handwritten publications. Being largely shaped by the mechanisms of the Internet, this environment goes beyond it, offline. This trend is not becoming mainstream (given the familiarity and convenience of digital communications, small print runs of zines), which emphasizes the alternative nature of this area of book publishing. It should be added that despite the distinct continuity of Russian zines in relation to Western ones, in historical retrospect, their discursive inheritance of subcultural samizdat of the late Soviet period and samples of album culture is also noticeable.

The prospects for further research include the study of the correlation between electronic and paper publications. Identifying and recording new sources is also extremely important: paper copies of alternative periodicals are small and original copies are rapidly becoming rare, and information on the Internet is unstable, which requires the preservation of electronic sources. The next stage should be not only an in-depth study of the sources of the period under review (both within the specified geographical framework and against the background of the cultural landscape of the country, in comparison with global trends), but also their comparison with similar phenomena in the context of the evolution of alternative book publishing in general.