Smithy

smithy

a place in which metal, usually iron or steel, is worked by heating and hammering; forge

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Smithy 

(Kuznitsa), a literary group founded in 1920 by poets who seceded from the Proletkurt (Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organization). Among its members were V. D. Aleksandrovskii, M. P. Gerasimov, V. V. Kazin, V. T. Kirillov, S. A. Obradovich, N. G. Poletaev, and G. A. Sannikov. The group’s theoretical platform developed through polemics with the dogmatic pronouncements of Proletkul’t, which restricted the development of poetry. In general, however, the group’s theoretical principles remained within the framework of Proletkul’t, with its oversimplified sociological ideas concerning the development of post-October culture.

The poetry of the Smithy group is an outstanding example of proletarian romantic lyricism of the first years of the Soviet era. By the mid-1920’s a strong group of prose writers emerged within the Smithy, including F. V. Gladkov, N. N. Liashko, A. S. Novikov-Priboi, P. G. Nizovoi, and V. M. Bakhmet’ev. Such programmatic works as Gladkov’s Cement and Liashko’s The Blast Furnace became classics of Soviet literature of the 1920’s. In 1931 the group merged with RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers). In 1920–22 the Smithy published the magazine Kuznitsa and in 1924–25, Rabochii Zhurnal (Workers’ Magazine).

REFERENCES

Papernyi, Z. S. “Proletarskaia poeziia pervykh let sovetskoi epokhi.” In Proletarskie poety pervykh let sovetskoi epokhi. Leningrad, 1959.
Voronskii, A. “Prozaiki i poety Kuznitsy.” In Literaturno-kriticheskie stat’i. Moscow, 1963.
Farber, L. M. Sovetskaia literatura pervykh dnei revoliutsii (1917-1922). Moscow, 1966.
Skvortsova, L. A. “Zhurnaly Kuznitsy.” In Ocherki istorii russkoi sovetskoi zhurnalistiki, 1917–1932. Moscow, 1966.

L. A. SKVORTSOVA