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).

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.

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).

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.