History of the Poem Group "Almanac"

Almanakh as a performance and a poetic group was formed in the late 1980s and included “unofficial” poets (Michail Aizenberg, Lev Rubinstein, Timur Kibirov, Sergei Gandlevsky, Dmitri Prigov, Denis Novikov, Victor Koval) - and “one singer” - Andrei Lipsky. In this work, we present as many aspects of the phenomenon as possible: taking into account the position of the reader / critic (“from the audience”), the view “from the stage” (the perspective of the group members) and “from behind the curtains” (testimonies of theater figures and organizers of performances ). The purpose of the work can be described as a historical and literary one, consisting of restoring a partially forgotten and lost context. The key thesis: the private history of the Almanakh group reflected a period of absolute freedom, unique in the context of 'big' Russian history. Selected conclusions and theses: - Almanakh was formed and existed in the era of transformation of familiar cultural institutions. The end of the 1980s was marked by the institutionalization of oral readings. Speeches under the banner of 'Almanakh' became a real alternative to the (semi) official press for its authors. - Despite the fact that the formation and functioning of the Almanac as a group did not obey, as Lev Rubinstein puts it, the “principles known in literature”, we carried out both “synchronous” (club “Poetry”, “Moscow time”), and “Diachronous” (“chinari”) parallels with other poetic groups. - The formation of the group was based on personal affection and friendship, supported by a common life (Eichenbaum's concept of "literary life") and a common creative philosophy (despite the difference in individual manners and poetics). In addition, the criterion for the formation of poetry communities was the (un) desire of the author to be published in censored magazines. - The history of the Almanakh is part of a large-scale process of transforming the appearance of the late Soviet theater, and the Almanakh was associated with the theater environment not only “on stage”, but also “on paper” (collection “Lichnoye delo №.”). - The group members read their poems one by one, and the one who had just finished reading usually presented the next one (a“ friendly move ”), and the authors’ output order obeyed the logic “from“ classical ”to experimental”.