The International Samizdat Day was declared in 2016 at the Libri prohibiti library in Prague with the participation of the actors of the 1988 petition.
In 1988, ninety-two samizdat publishers sent a letter to President Gustáv Husák in connection with the imprisonment of Slovak publisher Ivan Polanský. In their request for a consistent approach to all samizdat publishers, they boldly wrote, among other things:
“We call on you to either set Ivan Polanský free or prove the consistency of your perverse justice by imprisoning us all.”
To commemorate this act, a thematic event is held annually, this year organised by the Nation’s Memory Institute in cooperation with the University Library in Bratislava and the samizdat.sk civic association.
Our colleague Dominik Melichar from the Literary Samizdat and Exile Bibliography Section will join this year’s seminar with a paper entitled Hanspaulka literární: k literárnímu a hudebnímu samizdatu hanspaulské komunity 70. a 80. let 20. století.
— Seminar programme [PDF]
