Author: Jakub Mikulecký
Slavic Institute – Czech Academy of Science, Prague
Published in: Slavyanski dialozi, XVI, 2019, 24
Abstract: This study has an ambition to present an overview of the genesis, existence, and activities of selected unofficial counterculture milieus in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc from the 1950s to the 1980s. The study focuses on circles, groups, communities and individuals who were disturbing the dominant discursive system of socialism through their works and nonconformist lifestyle. This study draws our attention to the situation in Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Bulgaria. The unifying sign for the selection of described phenomena in those countries was their mutual strive “to be outside” of the main stream discourse. Being outside of the dominant discourse results in many cases of delimitation not only from the socialist culture, but also from the emerging political dissent.
Key words: East European underground, counterculture, nonconformism, youth subcultures