SMOG (literary group)

SMOG was one of the earliest informal literary groups independent of the Soviet state in the post-Stalin Soviet Union. Among several interpretations of the acronym are Smelost', Mysl', Obraz i Glubina, and, humorously, Samoe Molodoe Obshchestvo Geniev. It is also a pun: the Russian word "смог" means " was able ".
It was organized in January/February 1965 by a group of young poets and writers: Poet Leonid Gubanov ; writer and editor ; poet and publicist Yuri Kublanovsky;, a poet who received the Andrei Bely Prize; and poets Nikolai Bokov and, later joined by several dozens of others.
The group held public poetry readings and issued several samizdat collections and a magazine, Sfinksy. In 1965, they revived their literary meetings at Mayakovsky Square.
Some 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 pressure from the state. Its last poetry reading took place on April 14, 1966.