Underground poetry in China during the cultural revolution

The article discusses the issues of genesis and the functioning of the «underground poetry» in China during the Cultural Revolution. The subjects of the studied poetry works and closeness of their authors’ destinies allow to compare them with the «lost generation» in American and European literature. «Underground poetry» as a way of survival in the years of spiritual nihilism continued the tradition of realistic literature of the 1950s and anticipated the flourishing of creativity in the reform period.