SMOG (literary group)


SMOG 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, and, humorously, Samoe Molodoe Obshchestvo Geniev.
It was organized in January/February 1965 by a group of young poets and writers: Poet Leonid Gubanov, writer and editor Vladimir Batshev, 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.
The group carried out public reading of poetry and issued several samizdat collections and a magazine Sfinksy. In 1965, they revived the literary meetings at Mayakovsky Square.
Some of the members also helped organize the unsanctioned 1965 glasnost rally calling for a legal trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel.
The group was under the pressure of the state. The last poetry reading took place on April 14, 1966.