SMOG (literary group)

SMOG (Russian: СМОГ) was one of the earliest informal literary groups independent of the Soviet state in the post-Stalin Soviet Union. Among the several interpretations of the acronym are Smelsot', Mysl', Obraz i Glubina (Courage, Thought, Image and Depth), and, humorously, Samoe Molodoe Obshchestvo Geniev (Society of Youngest Geniuses).^[1][2]

It was organized in January/February 1965 by a group of young poets and writers: Poet Leonid Gubanov (initiator, membership card #1), writer and editor Vladimir Batshev (membership card #2), poet and publicist Yuri Kublanovsky, Vladimir Aleynikov, a poet who received the Andrei Belyi prize; and poets Nikolai Bokov, Arkady Pakhomov, later joined by several dozens of others.^{[3][4][5][6]:15}

The group carried out public reading of poetry and issued several samizdat collections and a magazine Sfinksy ("Sphynxes"). In 1965, they revived the literary meetings at Mayakovsky Square (Mayakovsky Square poetry readings).^[7]

Some of the members also helped organize the unsanctioned 1965 glasnost rally calling for a legal trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel.^[8]:13–14

The group was under the pressure of the state. The last poetry reading took place on April 14, 1966.

References

1. Or: Szhatyj Mig Otrazhennoi Giperboly (Condensed Moment of Reflected Hyperbole). 'Smog' is also a past tense of the verb 'to be able to', yielding 'I was able to', or 'I did it'. Kravchenko, E. I. (2013). The Prose of Sasha Sokolov: Reflections on/of the Real. MHRA texts and dissertations. London: Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 978-1-907322-52-5., p. 15
2. An interview with Kublanovsky
3. Диссиденты о диссидентстве. «Знамя». — М., 1997, № 9
4. Виктория Андреева , SMOG
5. Сенкевич А. Показания свидетелей защиты: Из истории русского поэтического подполья 1960-х. М., 1992г.; Алейников В. Смелость, Мысль, Образ, Глубина // Другое искусство (as cite in )
6. Kravchenko, E. I. (2013). The Prose of Sasha Sokolov: Reflections on/of the Real. MHRA texts and dissertations. London: Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 978-1-907322-52-5.
7. Sundaram, Chantal (2006). ""The stone skin of the monument": Mayakovsky, Dissent and Popular Culture in the Soviet Union". Toronto Slavic Quarterly (16).
8. A. Roginskii, A. Danielʹ; et al., eds. (2005). 5 dekabria 1965 goda: v vospominaniiakh uchastnikov sobytii, materialakh samizdata, publikatsiiakh zarubezhnoii pressy i v dokumentakh partiinykh i komsomolʹskikh organizatsii i v zapiskakh Komiteta gosudarstvannoi beznopasnosti v TsK KPSS (in Russian). Moscow: Memorial: Zvenʹia. ISBN 5787000862.

Bibliography

• Aleinikov, Vladimir (2004). Golos i svet, ili SMOG – samoe molodoe obshchestvo geniev. XX vek: liki, litsa, lichiny (in Russian). Moscow: Zvonnitsa-MG. ISBN 5-88093-133-1.
• Aleinikov, Vladimir (2008). SMOG: Roman-poema (in Russian). Moskva. ISBN 978-5-94282-468-6.
• Batshev, Vladimir (2009). SMOG: Pokolenie s perebitymi nogami (in Russian). USA: Franc-Tireur. ISBN 978-0-557-13929-3.

External links

• Сурикова, Ольга (2013-03-26). "К вопросу об истории СМОГа" [On the question of the history of SMOG]. gefter.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2015-12-02.