Among the participants were both those interested in pure art , and those inspired by dissident politics of various stripes . Many of those gathering in the square insisted on the right of art to remain " free of politics " . Others were drawn to the readings because of their social implications . This included an oppositionist student movement which had already begun to develop immediately out of the shock of Khrushchev 's 1956 report on Stalin 's purges . For these , like Bukovsky and his colleagues , " the right of art to be independent was merely one point of opposition to the regime , and we were here precisely because art happened to be at the centre of political passions . " The circle of students who had organized the Mayakovsky Square also began publishing unofficial poetry in the first samizdat ( " self-published " ) journals . They published their own poems but also those of Nikolay Zabolotsky , Dmitri Kedrin and Marina Tsvetaeva . Poet and journalist Aleksandr Ginzburg managed to get out three issues of '' Sintaksis '' before he was arrested for the first time in 1960 . In November 1960 , Vladimir Osipov produced one issue of a journal called '' Bumerang '' , which was modeled on Ginzburg 's work . A third samizdat journal , '' Feniks-61 '' , was produced by Yuri Galanskov in 1961
Stalin 's purges
Great Purge
Mayakovsky Square poetry readings