Vladimir Alejnikov archive

The archive of poet and artist Vladimir Alejnikov will be of interest to researchers studying his solo work or the activities of the SMOG collective. SMOG, which stands for Samoe Molodoe Obshchestvo Geniev (The Youngest Society of Geniuses) or Smelost’, Mysl’, Obraz, Glubina (Boldness, Thought, Image, Depth) was founded in 1965 by four young poets at the beginning of their careers: Alejnikov, Leonid Gubanov, Arkady Pakhomov, and Yuri Kublanovsky (Alejnikov’s classmate in the History Department of Moscow State University).

The archive consists of books, works on paper, and archival materials.

The books in the collection include rare small‑edition publications of Alejnikov’s works, such as Journeys in Memory of Rimbaud (1964–1966), Returns (1966–1970), The Echoes of Holidays (1969–1973), The Star of Island Dwellers (1979–1988), and novels, including autobiographical works, released over the last thirty years by various publishers.

Along with the archive, Vladimir Alejnikov has transferred to Garage a series of his works on paper that are portraits of close friends. Using gouache and pastels, he depicted writers such as Venedikt Yerofeyev, Genrikh Sapgir and Eduard Limonov and painters such as Dmitri Plavinsky, Ülo Sooster, Eduard Steinberg, Oskar Rabin, and Vladimir Yakovlev, as well as other important figures of the nonconformist culture of the 1970s and 1980s.

The archival materials in the collection include typewritten poems with autographs in Alejnikov’s signature style: the poet’s portrait in felt‑tip pens and pencils on the first page is followed by typewritten poems and another felt‑tip‑pen portrait. This part of the archive also contains handwritten albums with works by Genrikh Sapgir, Igor Kholin, Leonard Daniltsev, Mikhail Eremin, Nikolai Shatrov, and Arseny Chanyshev. Each collection features illustrations and the poet’s autograph.

The archive also includes an important artifact, an original edition of Tadzimas, Vladimir Alejnikov’s seven‑page typescript on the culture of samizdat (self‑publishing).

Vladimir Alejnikov transferred the archive to Garage in 2021.

About Vladimir Alejnikov

Vladimir Alejnikov (b. 1946, Molotov) is a Soviet and Russian poet, novelist, translator, artist, and one of the founders of the writers’ collective SMOG. In 1973, he graduated in Art History and Theory from Moscow State University. In 1964, his samizdat texts brought him his first acclaim. In 1965, he founded the literary collective SMOG with poet Leonid Gubanov and became its leader. In the 1980s, he became known as a translator of the poetry of Soviet peoples. He was awarded the Andrey Bely Prize in1980 and the Cyril and Methodius Medal for outstanding achievement in Russian literature in 1996.