“My dad, Lev Rubinstein, died today”, his daughter Maria Rubinstein wrote on her blog on the Live Journal site, an announcement echoed in Russian media. In one line, he announced the death of the Russian poet, Soviet dissident and critic of the Kremlin at the age of 76 on Sunday, January 14.
The official Interfax agency and opposition news site Meduza report that Lev Rubinstein was hit by a motorist while crossing a street in the capital on January 8, and was hospitalized at the Sklifosovsky Institute in critical condition, suffering from multiple fractures and head trauma.
In a statement, the Moscow Transport Department announced that the driver failed to slow down before a pedestrian crossing and knocked down the poet, specifying that, according to preliminary information, the car owner was involved in nineteen violations of the Highway Code. last twelve months.
From Moscow “conceptualist” to criticism of the Putin regime
Born in Moscow in 1947, a librarian by training, Lev Rubinstein was one of the figures of the Soviet underground literary scene of the 1970s and 1980s. “The New Avant-Garde” Willingness to be inventive and cynical. He was considered one of the founders of the movement in the 1970s “Conceptualist” Muscovite, who mocked the official theory of socialist realism and wanted to go against it.
Linked to rhythm, Lev Rubinstein created a distinct style, which “Text on Card”Related to both poetry and theater: the poet reads short sentences on stage, aloud, written on punched cards.
The practice, inspired by his daily life as a librarian and the sinister bureaucracy of the Soviet era, references mixed performances, absurdist comedy and improvisation. With the idea of removing the passivity of Sovietism.
After the collapse of the USSR, his notoriety in Russia grew. He is published in reputed publishing houses and also works as a journalist. He is invited to international poetry festivals and his works are translated into many languages. In 1999, he won the Andre-Bayly Prize, an independent literary award launched in 1978. In 2012, he was awarded a prize by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation, which awards works of prose in Russian.
At the same time, the poet did not hide his views hostile to the Putin regime, participating in political repressions, human rights violations and protests. In March 2022, along with other Russian writers, he signed an open letter condemning the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army. “Crime War” and blame “lie” of the Kremlin.
