Russian poet and Kremlin critic Lev Rubinstein is dead. The 76-year-old died on Sunday, six days after he was hit by a car in Moscow and seriously injured, his daughter Maria Rubinstein said in her blog on the “Live Journal” website. . Rubinstein was hit while crossing a street in the capital on January 8 and was taken to hospital in critical condition.
According to the Moscow Transport Authority, the driver, who had already been involved in several traffic violations, did not slow down in front of the zebra crossing. Born in Moscow in 1947, Rubinstein was a trained librarian and one of the greats of the Soviet underground literary scene of the 1970s and 1980s.
Flash Card Poetry
He was considered a co-founder of Moscow Conceptualism, which rejected and ridiculed Socialist Realism. With his “card poetry”, Rubinstein created his own genre that combined theater and poetry: the poet read short sentences on stage that were written on index cards.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Rubinstein became increasingly well-known in Russia. His works have been published by renowned publishers and translated into several languages. Rubinstein also worked as a journalist.
He stood up against the “criminal war”.
Rubinstein never hid his opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin's government. He participated in opposition demonstrations and denounced oppression and human rights violations. In March 2022, he joined other Russian writers in signing an open letter calling the Russian army's attack on Ukraine a “criminal war.”
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