Monument to Maiakovskii in Moscow
V. Osipov, A Monument to Maiakovskii is opened in Moscow. July 29, 1958
Original Source: Oktiabr' i neobkhodimost' kommunizma v Rossii, Grani, No. 80 (1959).
To conclude the event, several officially-recognized poets read their verse. After the conclusion of the official event, members of the audience began to read from their own poetry. Everyone liked this unexpected and unplanned "enterprise." Many people wanted to read, and when dusk approached, it was agreed to meet again at the monument in the future. Thus began the regular (more than once a month) public meetings at the Mayak (the Lighthouse). Amongst the many readers of course there were mediocrities and graphomaniacs ... Yet over the years a group of young poets began to distinguish itself: Galanskov, Kovshin (Vishniakov), Shchukin, Shukht, Morozov, Mikhail Kaplan. Maiakovskii Square gave future Komsomol poets (Volgin) their first audience ... The evenings were not just limited to poetry readings. Ideas followed after the verses ... There were arguments about sincerity in literature, about the so-called "revisionists" Dudintsev, Iashin, Tendriakov ("Potholes"), about Kochetov and his enmity towards the intelligentsia, about innovations in painting, even about genetics and the theory of relativity. Sometimes daring folk even touched on the forbidden subject of politics ... But I do not ever remember anybody saying anything from a counter-revolutionary or conservative point of view, in fact nobody even placed under scrutiny the value of the October Revolution or the need for communism in Russia.