He was one of the incarnations of the Soviet underground literary scene of the 1970s and 1980s, that “new avant-garde” that aimed to be inventive and outrageous. Above all, he was one of the figures of Soviet dissidence and a critic of the Kremlin. Russian poet Lev Rubinstein died on Sunday, January 14, at the age of 76, his daughter announced. “My father, Lev Rubinstein, died today” she wrote on her blog, Live Journal.
On January 8, Lev Rubinstein was hit by a car in Moscow and seriously injured while crossing a street in the capital. The Moscow Transport Department said that the driver did not slow down before a pedestrian crossing and hit the poet. According to preliminary information, the car owner was involved in 19 traffic violations in the last twelve months.
Born in Moscow in 1947, the trained librarian is considered one of the founders of the Moscow “Conceptualist” movement in the 1970s, which ridiculed the official doctrine of socialist realism and wanted to counter it. Committed to rhythm, Lev Rubinstein had created his own genre, the “text-on-card,” which refers to both poetry and theater: the poet reads aloud short sentences written on perforated cards on stage.
The practice, inspired by his daily life as a librarian and a nod to the grim bureaucracy of the Soviet era, mixes performance, absurdist comedy and improvisation. With the idea of shaking off the rigidity of Sovietism. After the end of the USSR, he published in renowned Russian publishers and worked as a journalist. He has been invited to international poetry festivals and his works have been translated into many languages.
“Criminal war” in Ukraine
The poet had not hidden his hostile views towards the Putin regime, denouncing the war in Chechnya, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, political repression, human rights violations and participation in opposition demonstrations. In March 2022, he, along with other Russian writers, signed an open letter calling the Russian army’s large-scale attack on Ukraine a “criminal war” and scourging “Lie” You Kremlin.
The Russian NGO Memorial, which specializes in defending human rights and preserving the memory of victims of Soviet persecution, welcomed the event “a concise description of several eras of Russia.” In a press release, Memorial, which was actively supported by Lev Rubinstein during his lifetime, affirms that in his work he expressed “a perception of everyday life that is harsh and poetic, sad and sensitive, full of self-irony.”
“They didn’t arrest or torture Rubinstein, they didn’t poison him.” adds the NGO, which was banned by the government at the end of 2021.But his tragic death, shortly before the two years of the great catastrophe [l’attaque en Ukraine, ndlr], seems symbolic. Today’s Russia leaves no room for free citizens and poets. She doesn’t see them on pedestrian crossings.
