The Literary Agent as Book Diplomat. Erich Linder’s Agency in the Transnational Socialization of Tamizdat

By focusing on the transnational relations established among small state and non-state actors—individuals and institutions—cooperating in the transnational socialization of clandestine Soviet and Eastern European manuscripts (samizdat) and books (tamizdat), this chapter highlights the agency of informal book diplomacy in the cultural Cold War. The case study examined here is that of the president of the International Literary Agency [Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale, ALI]—Erich Linder—who played a distinguished role in the transnational socialization of tamizdat. By considering literary agents as actors of the transnational community which made possible the production, circulation and reception of tamizdat in the West (and, clandestinely, also in the Eastern bloc), this analysis sheds also new light on the interpretation of this specific cultural object as a tool of soft power.