Clandestine Literature Throughout History

While I was researching for my presentation on Czech literature in the 1960s, I directed a lot of my focus on the Samizdat and clandestine literature. Through my searches, I found a lot of information about underground literature not only in the 20th century but throughout the history of modern society. Regardless of time period, there was always some sort of all-controlling body that infringed upon the personal freedoms of those under their jurisdiction. For instance, in 10th century China, upper class women conducted a secret language, Nushu writing, to communicate without the government's knowledge. Another example of underground text occurred during the Enlightenment Era in France when pamphlets with anti-Church messages secretly circulated. The concept of government censorship clearly has not been anomalous in the past and continues to be a conflict in the present. Notably, China and Russia are two countries that actively exercise censorship particularly in the fields of social media. In fact, several Chinese foreign exchange students at STM itself have told me that many instant messaging/social media websites readily available here are blocked where they live. I think this is interesting because Czech underground literature seems sort of distant to us (or at least me) but really the conflict of restrictions against freedom of speech is very prominent in our world and affects many countries.