"virtual theatre" : )
... virtual? I don't see it!
... SEMIOTICS
picasa album [ images ]
...
[ Left & other references to Michael Epstein? ]
... Although some theorists of Russian postmodernism have argued in favor of identifying socialist realism as the first manifestation of the postmodern spirit in Soviet culture, 3 as a practical matter (that is, as a self-conscious movement) Russian verbal postmodernism was born in the early 1970s with the emergence of Moscow conceptualism, initially an art movement inspired by Joseph Kosuth's conceptualism 4 but which struck deep roots in the Soviet soil: using quotation, silence, and a parodic conformism as their tools, poets such as Prigov and Rubinshtein reached a "zero degree" of writing. Setting language against itself, they exposed the illusions of the self, the overdeterminations of ideology and monological discourse, thereby opening Soviet-Russian culture to the experience of silence, the something (or no-thing) that lies beyond. One of the central merits of the work here introduced is its highlighting of the spiritual and religious dimensions of this process; indeed the spiritualization of the postmodern aesthetic (or ethic) may be the most important distinction between Soviet-Russian and Western postmodernism.
Even more so than in the West, the 1970s and 1980s in Russia were a period of "post-history" (a period later to be called the era of "stagnation" by Soviet ideologues). Both officially and in theory, Soviet society had reached the paradise of communism, annulling history and time. However, while in practice the official culture continued to enforce a narrow, generally socialist-realist, aesthetic, in the underground a massive avant-garde flourished. 5 Marginalized from the centers of official culture (in sociological terms, this official culture can be construed as roughly equivalent, mutatis mutandis, to Western popular culture), the writers, artists, and poets of the underground were free to organize themselves into bands of like-minded brethren, living outside the march of time. Employed as laborers, night watchmen, or not at all, they in fact lived for and through literature (an already venerable tradition in a country notorious for difficult living conditions). Whether using this intense engagement with culture for purposes of parody (as was essentially the case with the conceptualists) or for reconnecting with Russian spiritual and avantgarde traditions, in particular with the not yet canonic Khlebnikov, Mandel'shtam, and Tsvetaeva, and the Oberiu poets Harms, Oleinikov, and Vvedensky (who themselves lived on the margins of official culture until their ultimate annihilation), these writers created a ready-made canon -- or anti-canon -- that burst into the mainstream during the latter half of perestroika (that is, after the exhaustion of the dissident culture that had taken center stage in the mid-to late 1980s). Not surprisingly, the results of this integration were paradoxical: while in a purely literary sense the aesthetic and spiritual values of the likes of Shvarts, Zhdanov, Rubinshtein, and Prigov clearly won the day, definitively reconnecting Russia with a variety of "lost" modernist traditions, this same emergence into the public eye, and the gaining of general public respectability that followed, turned into a kind of death-knell for the underground culture itself.
Thomas Epstein [brother?]
... That is why contemporary art, literature, and philosophy are displaying a symbiosis of genres and methods, as well as translating one discourse into another. By contaminating images and concepts from various epochs and systems, contemporary culture strives to create a metalanguage of universal applicability. At the same time, at the point of collision between the various discourses, an awareness of their individuality and simultaneous transcending of their enclosed particularity emerges, producing elements of irony and parody without which no serious contemporary work of art can be created. However, it would be a grave mistake to take this by-product as its ground, that is, to regard the parodic as the ultimate horizon of contemporary art. This mistake is made by certain theoreticians of postmodernism and the trans-avant-garde in the West. The meaning of the process now being witnessed is not in the ridiculing of the pretentiousness and limitations of all existing monolanguages. It is in transcending these limitations and emerging onto the plane of a metalanguage which is that of a universalist creativity. [M. Epstein]
...
CONCLUSION
On the Place of Postmodernism in Postmodernity Mikhail Epstein
Venedikt Erofeev is the first but certainly not the sole manifestation of the new sentimentality. At the end of the 1980s and particularly at the beginning of the 1990s, Erofeev's "sentimental aesthetics" became a major influence on Russian literature. Sergei Gandlevsky, one of the leading poets of his generation, has defined this trend as "a critical sentimentalism," holding the middle ground between two extremes, a lofty and detached metarealism that ignores contemporary life, and conceptualism, which is deliberately reductionist, ridiculing all stilted ideals and models of discourse. "Situated between two polar opposites, it [critical sentimentalism] borrows as needed from its more resolute neighbours, transforming their extremes in its own fashion: it diminishes the arrogance of the righteous poetry and curtails the excesses of the ironic poetry. Such a method of poetic perception of the world is more dramatic than the other two because its aesthetics is subject to minimal regulation; it has no ground except that of feeling, mind, and taste." 1 These principles define not only Gandlevsky's own poetry but the skeptical and sentimental "hangover poetics," which pulls the rug out from under not only the haughty sober person but the haughty drunk as well--a practice introduced into the latest Russian literature by Venedikt Erofeev. [456]
... APPENDIX
Who's Who in Russian Postmodernism
Compiled by Mikhail Epsteinand Alexander Genis
This brief reference dictionary does not claim to be either exhaustive or definitive in its selection of entries: it is up to future generations of critics to determine the exact criteria by which the postmodern aesthetic will be defined. Our goal was rather to encompass as wide variety of writers--mostly poets, novelists and critics, but also some representative philosophers, artists, and film directors--who actively participated in Russian intellectual life of the fourth quarter of the twentieth century and whose creativity exhibited features typically associated with postmodern aesthetics: stylistic eclecticism, intertextualism and the citational mode, the interplay of signifiers, irony, parody, pastiche, and (self-) deconstruction of artistic discourse. We were particularly interested in those figures who contributed to the development of a Russian post-totalitarian literature, but who did not belong either to the official (socialist realism), dissident, traditionalist (critical realism, village prose), or purely avant-garde culture (derived from the avant-garde of the beginning of the twentieth century).1
This dictionary presents approximately one hundred seventy authors, of which the overwhelming majority have never before appeared in a reference work of this kind. In several cases, we included entries on prominent authors who are well-represented in other dictionaries, such as Vasily Aksyonov or Yury Lotman: here,
though, we did so only to highlight a postmodernist aspect of their writing. We hope that despite its deficiencies and shortcomings, this dictionary will be useful to those interested in the latest trends in Russian literature.The first section of this Who's Who is comprised of biographical entries in alphabetical order. The second contains thumbnail sketches of periodicals associated with various trends in literary and artistic postmodernism.
Who's Who
Aigi Gennady (b. 1934)--poet. Born in Chuvashiia, graduated from the Moscow Literary Institute. Lives in Moscow. From 1961 to 1971 he worked at the Mayakovsky Museum. Writes in the Russian and Chuvashian languages. One of the first "alternative" poets whose poems were markedly influenced by contemporary French poetry and existentialist philosophy. Until the period of glasnost his works were published exclusively abroad. Collections of poems include By the Name of the Fathers ( 1958), Poems 1954-1971 ( Munich, 1975), Distinguished Winter ( Paris, 1982), Here ( Moscow, 1991).
Aizenberg Mikhail (b. 1948)--poet. Participant and theoretician of the poetic association "Heart-to-Heart Conversation" (also called "Monday," "Almanac") comprising D. A. Prigov, L. Rubinshtein, T. Kibirov, S. Gandlevsky, and others.
Aksyonov Vasily (b. 1932)--a leading Russian novelist. Emigrated to the United States in 1980, lives in Washington D.C., teaches literature at George Mason University. In his works written in the USSR he introduced such postmodern devices as play with socialistrealist clichés, complex irony on many narrative levels, ambivalent parody. This writing strategy was successfully employed in many of Aksyonov's works belonging both to official and unofficial literature of the 1960s and 1970s. Several of Aksyonov works exerted a special influence on the formation of Russian postmodernism: the short stories "Victory" and "We regret that you were not with us"; the novellas Overstocked Tare of Barrels ( 1968), and In Search of a Genre ( 1978); the novel Jean Green Untouchable, which is a parody on the Western spy novel, written in collaboration with O. Gorchakov and G. Pozhenian; the children's book My Grandfather Is a Monument ( 1972); the novel The Burn ( 1980).
Alekseev Nikita (b. 1953)--conceptual artist. Between 1975 and 1980 he participated in the group "Collective Actions." In 1979 was one of the founders of the Moscow Archive of the New Art. In 1982 helped found Apt-Art--a direction in conceptualism linked with the organization of exhibitions in apartments. Lives in France since 1987.
Aleshkovsky Peter (b. 1958)--novelist. Educated as an archeologist. Widely published since 1992: Harlequin, or the Biography of V.K. Trediakovsky ( 1993), Seagulls ( 1992), Vladimir Chigrintsev ( 1995), a novella Polecat's Biography ( 1993). Realistic narrative in his works is complicated by mystical overtones.
Aleshkovsky Yuz (b. 1929)--novelist. Born in Krasnoyarsk (Siberia). Served in the Soviet Army, spent several years in a labor camp. Lived in Moscow and, since 1979, in the United States ( Middletown, Conn.). Composer of several songs that attained folk status, including "Comrade Stalin, you are a great scholar ..." His Nikolai Nikolaievich ( 1968) was the first novel in the history of Russian literature to use "vulgar" and "obscene" language to tell a "Sentimental" and "edifying" story. His novels The Modest Blue Shawl, Death in Moscow, Ruru (Russian Roulette) and others are distinctive for their adventurous plots, expressive use of foul language and extensive political and moral commentaries. Kangaroo ( 1986), The Hand ( 1989), and A Ring in a Case ( 1995) have been published in English translation.
Anufriev Sergei (b. 1964)--conceptual artist. Since 1987 is a member of the "Medical Hermeneutics" group together with P. Peppershtein.
Arabov Yury (b. 1954)--poet and scriptwriter. Close to the poetics of polystylistics and ironism. Author of the poetry collections Simple Life ( 1991) and Hitch-hiking ( 1992). Author of many scripts for the films of Alexander Sokurov.
Arbitman Roman (b. 1962)--literary critic. Under the pseudonym R. S. Kats published a playful History of Soviet Science Fiction, in which he partly parodies and partly falsifies Soviet literary history and literary studies.
Aristov Vladimir (b. 1950)--poet, essayist. Graduated from Moscow Physical-Technological Institute. Member of the Essayists Club from 1983 to 1987. Author of the book of poems Moving Away from this Winter ( Moscow, 1992). Metarealist poetics.
Bakhchanian Vagrich (b. 1938)--artist, author of collages, absurdist texts and art books. Born in Kharkov, lived in Moscow from 1966, moved to New York in 1974. Works in many unique genres. Member of the "Concrete" group, organized in 1971 with G. Sapgir, I. Kholin, E. Limonov, V. Nekrasov and others, which developed the Russian futurist and Oberiu (a Leningrad avant-garde group of late 1920s) traditions. One of the founders of the movement that came to be known as sots-art, a parodic style that mockingly employs devices and themes of socialist realism. In the USSR published pietures and cartoons in the newspaper Literaturnaya Gazeta, also samizdat books Heaps of Flies, A Bottle of Soup, The Last Finger, and others (partly published in the literary miscellany Apollo-77. Participated in many exhibitions in the West. In the U.S. and France published a series of illustrated books: Top Secret Art ( 1978), Diary ( 1981), Black Eye, No Day without a Line and others. Actively collaborated with Russian periodicals abroad ( New American, Seven Days, Muleta and others); author of many books covers (for Russica, Liberry and other Russian presses in the U.S.). A short collection of his texts can be found in the book: Dmarche of Enthusiasts ( Paris, 1985).
Bakshtein Iosif (b. 1945) -- sociologist, art critic. Graduated from Moscow Electronic Industrial Institute ( 1968). Since 1991 director of the Institute of Modern Art in Moscow. He conceived and realized a number of conceptual art projects, including Monumental Propaganda ( 1993).
Barsky Vilen (b. 1930)--poet. Born and lived in Kiev, since 1981 lives in Dortmund, Germany. One of the first conceptualists. Experiments in visual ("Concrete") poetry.
Bartov Arkady--writer-conceptualist. Lives in St. Petersburg. His prose involves the technique of multiple narrative repetitions and variations on the same anecdotal situations.
Berg Mikhail ( Shternberg, b. 1952)--novelist, essayist. Lives in St. Petersburg. Author of the novels Eternal Jew, Ros i ia, Vasily Vasil'evich published in his book Three Novels ( 1991), and others, based on parodical interpretation of classical literary paradigms, ideological clichés, and myths. One of the founding members of the "New Literature" association, editor-in-chief of the literary magazine The Messenger of the New Literature (Booker Prize, 1992).
Bitov Andrei (b. 1937)--writer. Born in Leningrad. Graduated from Leningrad Mining Institute ( 1962) and the Higher Scriprwriter's School ( 1967). Published since 1960. Author of numerous novellas,
collections of short stories, philosophical and lyrical essays: Big Ball ( 1963), Country Side ( 1967), The Image of Life ( 1972), The Choice of Nature ( 1974), Seven Journeys ( 1976), The Days of Man ( 1976), Sunday ( 1980), The Teacher of Symmetry ( 1988), and Subtraction of a Hare ( 1992). His novels include a "dotted-line" novel entitled The Role, and most recently Oglashennye ( 1995), comprising the novellas Birds, A Man in a Landscape, and The Monkey Link. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a leading representative of "intellectual," "city" prose. His novel Pushkin House (trans. S. Brownsberger, 1990) presents the Soviet reality of the 1960s through the prism of nineteenth-century Russian classical literature and explores the complex relationship between the author and his hero; it is one of the first and exemplary works of Russian postmodernism ( 1964- 1971, published in the U.S. in 1978, in Russia in 1988, translated into several languages). President of the Russian branch of PEN-club (since 1991).
Brodsky Joseph ( 1940- 1996)--poet, essayist. Born and resided in Leningrad, belonged to a circle of poets close to Anna Akhmatova (together with Evgeny Rein and Anatoly Naiman). Convicted of "parasitism" in 1965, Brodksy was sentenced to exile in the Russian north. Emigrated to the United States in 1973. Lectured at various colleges and universities. Collections of poetry published in the U.S. and translated into numerous languages: Poems and Narrative Verses ( 1965), A Halt in the Wilderness ( 1970), The End of a Beautiful Era ( 1977), A Part of Speech ( 1977), Roman Elegies ( 1982), Urania ( 1987), The Notes of a Fern ( 1989), In the Neighborhood of Atlantis ( 1995). His essays are collected in the books Less then One ( 1986) and On Grief and Reason ( 1995). In Russia his poems began to be published only in December of 1987. A multivolume selection of his works was published in St. Petersburg in 1992. One of the most prominent poets of the twentieth century, winner of the Nobel prize ( 1987) and Poet Laureate of the United States ( 1991). Many features of Brodsky's poetics, such as neoclassicism, lyrical restraint and objectivity, intellectual estrangement and direct linking of material objects and abstract ideas (without the explicit intermediary of emotion), a subtle play of quotations and allusions, exerted significant influence on the "New Wave" Russian poets and to some extent laid the groundwork for a number of postmodern movements (metarealism and presentism).
Bruskin Grigory (b. 1945)--artist and sculptor, a leading representative of Moscow conceptualism and sots-art. Graduated from Moscow Textile Institute ( 1968). Author of serial paintings, sculptures, and installations: Fundamental Lexicon ( 1986), Monuments, Logii ( 1989) and others, which enjoyed success in the West. Since the 1990s he has lived in New York.
Buida Yury--prose writer. Born in Kaliningrad, lives in Moscow. His novels and novellas combine everyday life with grotesque fantasy: The Domino Player ( 1993), Yoke ( 1996), Boris and Gleb ( 1997).
Bulatoy Erik (b. 1933)--artist, one of the founders of Soviet conceptualism. Born in Sverdlovsk. Graduated from Moscow State Artistic Institute ( 1957). Worked as an illustrator of children books. His paintings such as Dangerous, Horizon, and I am Going are considered classics of sots-art and conceptualism. Personal exhibitions at the Kunsthalle ( Zurich, 1987), the Pompidou Center ( Paris, 1988), in Italy, England, and the United States.
Bunimovich Evgeny (b. 1954)--poet. Teaches mathematics at a Moscow high school. Actively participated in the group "Moscow Time" and the club "Poetry." Author of the collections There Is No Such City as Paris ( Paris, 1990) and Because I Live ( Moscow, 1992).
Bychkov Andrei (b. 1954)--writer. A physicist by education. Lives in Moscow. Short stories written in a sharply experimental style collected in Up and Down ( 1990).
Bykov Dmitry (b. 1967)--Moscow journalist, critic. Member of Moscow postmodernist literary group "Kurtuaznye man'eristy." Writes essays, poetry, and prose employing postmodern devices: his major works are "Declaration of Independence," "The Night Trains" ( 1992), and "Epistle to a Youth" ( 1994).
Dark Oleg--Moscow critic and prose writer. Graduated from the philological faculty of Moscow university. Author of numerous essays on Russian postmodern fiction (Sokolov, Vik. Erofeev, Narbikova, Sorokin and others).
Denisova Olga (b. 1944)--poet. Her style is close to metarealism. Lived in Kiev, since 1981 lives in Dortmund, Germany.
Doviatov Sergei ( 1941-1990)--prose writer. Born in Ufa. Lived in Leningrad and Tallin and in New York after 1979. One of the most popular Russian short-story writers. Often worked within the peculiar postmodern genre of "documentary grotesque." A collection of his works in four volumes, including letters and memoirs, was published in St. Petersburg in 1993/95.
Dragomoshchenko Arkady (b. 1946)--poet, essayist. Born in Potsdam, lived in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, and in Leningrad since 1969. One of the founders of the Leningrad Club-81 and the MoscowLeningrad group "Poetical Function" ( 1988). Author of the collections Description (published in English, 1990), The Sky of Correspondences ( 1990), Xenia ( 1993), Phosphorus ( 1994), Under Suspicion ( 1994). His poetry, based on the metaphoric deconstruction of language, is close to the American "Language School." Some of his works have been translated into English by the American poets Lyn Hejinian, Barret Watten, and John Ashberry.
Druk Vladimir (b. 1958)--poet. A psychologist by training, he currently is researching the psychic effects of computerization. Organizer of the Institute of Dreams and Virtual Realities in Moscow. One of the founders of the Moscow club "Poetry". Author of the poetic collection Commutator, with book design by the conceptual artist Olga Astafieva ( Moscow, 1991). His texts abound with formalized repetitions, technical clichés and are close to the poetics of ironism, absurdism, and neoprimitivism. Since 1994 he has lived in New York.
Dybsky Evgeny (b. 1955)--artist, representative of metarealism in painting ("Metaphysical trans-avant-garde"). Graduated from V.I. Surikov Moscow State Art Institute ( 1984). His works are on display at the Ludwig Museum ( Germany) and others. In the 1990s he has lived in Italy and Germany.
Eppel Assar--poet, novelist and translator. His short story collection Grassy Lane ( 1993) is marked by high narrative intensity, acute precision of detail and characters' dialogue. In a highly idiosyncratic way he combines mythological archetypes with shocking naturalism in depiction of Soviet everyday life.
Eremenko Alexander (b. 1950)--poet. Lives in Moscow. One of the founders of "polystylistics," combining features of conceptualist and metarealist poetics. Masterfully plays with "official speech" and the clichés of Soviet literature. One of the most popular Moscow poets of the mid- to late 1980s, was voted "the king of poets." Often performed together with A. Parshchikov and I. Zhdanov. Published in samizdat. Collections of poetry include Models and Situations ( Moscow, 1990), Poems ( Moscow, 1991). Since the end of 1980s has almost ceased to publish new poems.
Eremin Mikhail (b. 1936)--writer. Born in Caucasus, lives in St. Petersburg. Playwright and translator of English and Middle-Eastern
poets. Writes esoteric poems with foreign language inserts, including Egyptian hieroglyphics. See his collection Poems ( 1991).
Erl' (real name Gorbunov), Vladimir (b. 1947)--poet, playwright, editor of the works of Vvedensky, Kharms, Vaginov, Aronzon. As a youth was befriended by Leonid Aronzon and Leonid Gubanov. Leader of the first neo-Oberiu group in Leningrad, the "Khelenukhty." Author of plays and poetry. His volume Poems (Stikhi) was published in 1994.
Erofeev Venedikt ( 1938-1990)--writer. Born in Chupa station (Kolsky peninsula). Studied at the departments of philology of the Moscow State University and Vladimir State Institute, where an expulsion procedure was undertaken against him. Worked as a construction worker. Author of the novel Moscow to the End of the Line ( 1968), translated into nineteen languages and recognized as one of the first and model works of Russian postmodernism. His prose combines lyrical and autobiographical motifs with humor, parodic quotation and the grotesque. Essay "Vasily Rozanov" and a play Walpurgis Night, or the Steps of the Knight Commander ( 1985). Until 1989 was not published in the USSR. The most complete edition of his works is Leave My Soul Alone ( Moscow, 1995). Died of throat cancer.
Erofeev Viktor (b. 1947)--writer, literary critic. Born in a family of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat, lived in Paris as a child. Graduated from Moscow State University in philology. Researcher at the Institute of World Literature in Moscow, specializing in French literature. In 1979 was expelled from the Writers' Union for his participation in the "Metropol" almanac ( U.S., 1979), re-instated in 1988. Author of the novels The Russian Beauty ( 1982, first Russian publication, 1990; English translation Moscow Beauty, 1993), The Day of Judgement ( 1996) and fantastic-grotesque short stories translated into many languages. Collections: Anna's Body, or, the End of the Russian Avant-garde ( Moscow, 1989), Selected Works, or The Pocket Apocalypse ( Moscow, 1994). Selected works in three volumes published in Moscow ( 1994- 1996). Short story "Life with an Idiot" served as a basis for Alfred Shnitke's opera of the same name. Author of critical essays on Dostoevsky, Russian philosophy, and French existentialism.
Falkov Boris (b. 1946)--novelist, pianist. Lives in Germany ( Munich). Author of "playful" novellas: Truver, The Nutcracker, Landing Party in Cyprus, and the novel Mozart in Karelia ( 1989) written in the genre of Gothic realism.
Fedotov Mikhail--prose writer. Trained as a doctor. Lived in St. Petersburg, emigrated to Israel at the beginning of the 1970s. Author of the novel Compatriots, and the non-fiction sketches Jerusalem Chronicles ( 1992). His best work is a collection of grotesque nostalgic and romantic short stories The Rich Bedouin and Tanya ( 1986).
Gachev Georgy (b. 1929)--philosopher, cultural and literary critic. Son of the Bulgarian political émigré and aesthetician Dmitry Gachev ( 1902-1945). Lives in Moscow. Worked as a senior researcher at the Institute of World Literature, the Institute of the History of the Natural Sciences and Technology, and the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In his works he reveals the corporeal-spatial imagery underlying the most abstract scientific and philosophical concepts. Researched the linguistic relativity of national cultures and their specific world outlooks as formed by geographic and ethnic conditions. His writing style, combining metaphoric imagery, notebook intimacy, and systematic conceptual thinking, laid the initial ground for Russian philosophical postmodernism. Author of the following books: Accelerated Development of Literature ( 1964), The Contents of Artistic Forms. Epos. Lyric. Drama ( 1968), Life of the Artistic Consciousness. Essays on the History of the Image ( 1972), The Image in Russian Artistic Culture ( 1981), National Images of the World ( 1988), Russian Thought ( 1991), The Book of Surprises. Natural Sciences Viewed by a Humanitarian ( 1991), Images of India ( 1993), Russian Eros (written in 1966 /67, published in 1994).
Galkovsky Dmitry (b. 1960)--novelist, essayist, author of the monumental novel The Endless Dead-End (fifteen hundred hand-written pages), partly published in the journals Novy mir and Nash Sovremennik, and which produced immense interest and polemics in the press. Published in full in 1997, the novel represents an example of quotational and self-quotational art: multilayered commentary on the author's thoughts addressed to the Russian philosopher Vasily Rosanov ( 1856- 1919) and to the Russian national character as a whole. Author of articles condemning both Russian nationalists (pochvenniks) and the liberalism of the "men of the sixties."
Gandlevsky Sergei (b. 1952)--poet, essayist. Graduated from Moscow State University in philology, worked as a high-school literature teacher, museum guide, and night watchman. His poetry, which is relatively traditional in its lyrical form, combines irony and nostalgia for the Soviet everyday life. One of the founding members of the
poetic groups "Moscow Time" (together with Alexander Soprovsky, Bakhyt Kenzheev, Evgeny Bunimovich) and "Heart-to-Heart Conversation" (together with Dmitry Prigov, Lev Rubinshtein, Timur Kibirov, and others). Carefully compiled a collection of his best poetry in Holiday ( 1995). Autobiographical prose in Trepanation of the Skull ( 1995), which won the minor Booker Prize for 1996.
Ganikovsky Igor (b. 1950)--artist, representative of metarealism in painting. Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys ( 1979). His works have been exhibited at art galleries in Berlin, Paris and elsewhere. Currently lives in Germany.
Gareev Zufar (b. 1955)--prose writer. Born in Bashkiriia. Lives in Moscow. A proponent of so-called "Russian masochism." Author of the prose book Multiprose ( 1992) and the one-act play Family Day. Was persecuted for pornography in the post-Soviet period.
Gavrilchik Vladlen (b. 1929)--poet, author of absurdist and ironic poems. Often utilizes a "macaronic" technique and low-brow literature for comic purposes. Author of Bliakha-Mukha--Creature of Spirit (partly published in Apollo-77) and other works.
Girshovich Leonid (b. 1948)--writer, violinist, lives in Germany ( Hanover). Published essay "Wizards with Violins," a novel in the "alternative" detective genre entitled Exchanged Heads ( 1992), and "alternative" science fiction Price ( 1995).
Glezer Alexander (b. 1934)--a leading activist in artistic and literary life, publisher, poet. Born in Baku. Engineer by training. Has been collecting the paintings of "unofficial" Soviet artists since 1967. One of the organizers of the "Bulldozer" exhibition in Moscow ( 1974). Emigrated in 1974, lives in Paris and New Jersey City ( U.S.), where he organized the Museum of Contemporary Russian Art. In 1976 founded The Third Wave publishing house and the literary magazine The Archer, which was one of the first periodicals that regularly published Russian postmodern writing, new wave poets and novelists. In the 1990s he has lived mostly in Moscow, publishing the series The Library of the New Russian Prose. Author of A Man with the Second Bottom. A Book of Memoirs Memoirs ( 1979) and Russian Painters in the West. Essays and Articles ( 1986).
Goricheva Tatiana (b. 1947)--philosopher, an activist in religious and feminist movements. Graduated from Leningrad University in philosophy. Together with her former husband Viktor Krivulin published a samizdat journal 37. In 1974 converted to Orthodox Christianity. One of the founders of the Christian feminist movement, published the journals Woman in Russia and Maria. In 1980 emigrated to the West, lived in Paris; returned to St. Petersburg in the 1990s. Since 1983 has been publishing the literaryphilosophical journal Beseda ( Paris-Leningrad) dedicated to postmodern topics. In her books Unexpected Joy. Religious and Philosophical Essays ( Paris, 1987), Talking about God is Dangerous. The Diary of a Russian Dissident ( New York, 1987) and others she provides a critical analysis of the Western postmodern phenomenon ("the cynical mind") from a religious-existential position, simultaneously searching for a point of convergence between contemporary culture and Orthodox Christianity.
Grebenshchikov Boris (b. 1953)--writer and rock singer. Cult figure in Russian underground and youth culture. Lives in St. Petersburg. Founder of the most famous Russian rock group Aquarium. The texts of his songs exemplify sophisticated stylistic eclecticism and carry the imprint of Oberiu poetics. Also writes mystical prose, fairy-tales and plays ( The Book of Prose, 1992).
Grigoriev Oleg ( 1943-1992)--poet-primitivist. Unpublished during his difficult lifetime, Grigoriev has enjoyed immense posthumous success. The latest edition of his Collected Poems was published in 1997.
Grimberg Faina (b. 1951)--poet, novelist, philologist, translator. Specializes in Balkan literatures (Bulgarian, Turkish). Poems close to metarealist poetics, many of them dedicated to the imaginary motherhood theme. Author of the poetry collection Green Weaver ( 1993). Under multiple pseudonyms she has published a series of "pulp" novels disguised as translations from foreign authors.
Groys Boris (b. 1947)--philosopher, theoretician of postmodern art. Graduated from Leningrad University in "mathematical logic." Emigrated to Germany in 1981, lives in Cologne, taught at Münster University. In his article "The Moscow Romantic Conceptualism" ( A-Ia journal, Paris, # 1, 1979) Groys formulated the principles of Soviet conceptualism. Explores Russian postmodernism in connection with socialist realism, the avant-garde of the 1920s, and contemporary French poststructuralist theory. Publishes frequently in the journals Chasy ( Leningrad) and Beseda ( ParisLeningrad). Author of the books A Philosopher's Diary, The Total Art of Stalinism ( Princeton, 1992), Utopia and Exchange ( Moscow, 1993). Has written essays on the philosophy of Russian culture, conceptual art and poetry, and theoretical commentaries on Ilya Kabakov's exhibitions.
Gundlakh Sven (b. 1959)--conceptual artist. Studied at the Moscow Polygraphic Institute and at the Leningrad Academy of Arts. From 1978 to 1984 was a participant and the founding theoretician of the conceptual group "Fly-Agarics," which also included the brothers Vladimir and Sergei Mironenko and Konstantin Zvezdochetov. From 1987 to 1989 led the "Mid-Russia Plateau" group. Exhibitions: "Art as Conspiracy" ( Moscow, 1991) and "The Dreams of a Dukhobor" (Russian religious sect of "Fighters-in-Spirit," [ Friedrichhasen, Germany, 1992 ]).
Iourienen Sergei (b. 1948)--novelist. Born in Minsk. Graduated from Moscow State University in philology. In the USSR published a book of short stories, On the Way Home ( 1977). Moved to France in 1977. His first novel Vol'nyi strelok (Free Shooter), published in French in 1980, in Russian in 1984, received great critical acclaim. Lived in Munich from 1984 to 1995; currently lives in Prague, working for Radio Liberty as a scriptwriter for cultural programs. Author of the novels Frontier Intruder ( 1986), Hurt Me, and A Desire to Be Spanish. Collections of short stories: Son of the Empire. An Infantile Novel ( 1986) and Fast Train to St. Petersburg ( 1990).
Irteniev Igor (b. 1947)--poet. Together with N. Iskrenko, one of the founding members of the club "Poetry." Leading representative of ironic poetry. Books: An Attempt at Escape ( 1989), Vertical Cut ( 1990), Fur- Tree in a Pocket ( 1991) and others. Winner of the prize for Russian humorists, the "Golden Ostap."
Iskrenko Nina ( 1951-1995)--poet. One of the founding members of the Moscow club "Poetry" ( 1986), the first official Moscow "underground" poets' society. In her verses and critical articles she sets forth the principles of "polystylistics." Author of several collections of poetry: Or. Poems and Texts ( 1991), The Right to Err. Selected Work (in English translation by John High, Colorado Springs, 1995) and others.
Ivanchenko Alexander--novelist. Lives in Ekaterinburg and Moscow. His postmodern novel Monogram combines motifs of everyday Soviet life and Buddhist mythology. Other novels: Solar Plexus ( 1979, pub. 1994), Self-Portrait with a Dog ( 1987), and Safety Measures I ( 1988).
Kabakov Alexander (b. 1943)--novelist. Graduated from Dneprpetrovsk University and Moscow State University, department of Mechanics and Mathematics. Worked at a space-rocket plant. Author of the popular novella No Return ( 1989), which predicted
the coming disintegration of the USSR and the phantasmal incongruity of its consequences. Other novels and short stories that provide ironic representation of the Soviet way of life include Strike for Strike. The Approach of Kristapovich Kristapovich ( 1930, The Adventures of a True Man in Moscow and other Incredible Places ( 1993), and The Last Hero ( 1995).
Kabakov Ilya (b. 1933)--artist, essayist, cultural critic, one of the founders and leading thinkers of Soviet conceptualism. Born in Dnepropetrovsk, lived in Moscow after 1945. Graduated from the V. I. Surikov Moscow State Art Institute ( 1957). For thirty years he worked as an illustrator of children's books. Moved to Paris at the end of the 1980s, has lived in New York since 1992. Personal exhibitions at the Pompidou Center, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and many other of the world's major museums and galleries. In 1970s and 1980s worked in album and "stand" genres; from the mid- 1980s the genre of "total installation" becomes predominant. As a painter and a cultural critic he researched such phenomena and "archetypes" of the Soviet reality as "emptiness," "the dumping ground," "the communal apartment," and "the housing office (ZhEK)." Series of albums: Ten Characters and On White and Grey Paper. More than 80 installations, including: Box with Garbage ( 1981), Fly with Wings ( 1982-83), Ten Characters ( 1981-88), The Rope of Life ( 1988), Mad House, or Institute of Creative Research ( 1992), The Red Pavilion ( 1993), and We Are Living Here ( 1995). Almost all of Kabakov artistic works include critical reflection and aesthetic self-analysis. Author of the monograph (course of lectures) On the "Total" Installation ( 1995). Also has written several volumes of recollections and reflections: 1960s, 1970s (manuscripts).
Kedrov Konstantin (b. 1940)--critic, poet, one of the theoreticians of metarealism (which he prefers to call "metametaphorism"). Author of the book Poetic Cosmos ( Moscow, 1989) where he traces "new wave" poetry to the philosophical and scientific revelations of Lobachevsky, Tsiolkovsky, and Khlebnikov. In the 1970s and 1980s he lectured at the Moscow Literary Institute. In the 1990s he has been the culture critic for the newspaper Izvestiia. His own poems belong to the tradition of futurist trans-sense.
Kenzheev Bakhyt (b. 1950)--poet, novelist, member of the "Moscow Time" group, which was founded in 1974. Author of Selected Lyrics, 1970-1981 ( Ann Arbor, Mich., 1984) and other works of poetry and prose. He has been living in Montreal, Canada, since 1983.
Kharitonov Evgeny ( 1941- 1981)--novelist, poet. Born in Novosibirsk, graduated from the State Institute of Cinematography, worked as a director at the Moscow Theatre of Gesture and Mimics. His prose was published in the samizdat journals 37 and Chasy (Hours) and the miscellany Catalogue. His book, Under House Arrest, has the form of a diary. fA fine stylist, his primary theme is the existential solitude and estrangement experienced by a gay man in a repressive society.
Kharitonov Mark (b. 1937)--novelist. Lives in Moscow. The first Russian winner of the Booker Prize ( 1992) for his novel The Line of Fate, or Milashevich's Chest. Other books: A Day in February: Novellas ( Moscow, 1988) and Selected Prose (in two volumes, Moscow, 1994). His prose is characterized by a mixture of detailed descriptive pieces and extensive intellectual commentary.
Kholin Igor (b. 1920)--poet. Served as an officer, waiter, restaurant manager; wrote children's books. A representative of the Moscow "Lianozov" school of the 1950s and 1960s, an early version of sots-art. He was one of the first poets to turn to the themes of the Soviet "slums" (barachnaia poeziia). He was also a member of the "Concrete" group (see Bakhchanian). Author of twelve collections of poetry, a novel Cat and Mouse Game, and many other, mainly unpublished works. Has also written somber, surrealist "cosmic" poems about the future. Author of the pseudoprophetic sots-art poem about Stalin, entitled The Leader's New Name (published in Apollo-77).
Khudiakov Genrich (b. 1930)--poet, artist, and English translator, who has lived in New York since 1974. In his poems (from 1956 to 1972) he developed phonetic, syllabic poetry, which specifically required the performance of "humming" by the author. In the U.S. he has painted and designed experimental clothing, especially suits, shirts, and neckties.
Khvostenko Alexei (b. 1943)--poet, singer, artist, playwright and actor. Grew up in St. Petersburg, now lives in Paris. Author of absurdist poems, The Book of the Wild Boar and a play Fire Exit (with A. Volokhonsky ). Performs songs co-authored with Andrei Volokhonsky. One of them, arranged by Boris Grebenshchikov, "Under the Blue Sky," became an "anthem" of the unofficial youth culture of the 1980s. In the 1990s he works as a sculptor and performs with the group Auction. Produced two albums, The Teapot of Wine and Citizen of the Summits (lyrics by Velimir Khlebnikov).
Kibirov Timur (b. 1955)--poet. Educated as a high-school teacher of Russian language and literature, graduated from Moscow District Pedagogy Institute. Served in the Soviet Army from 1975 to 1977. Leading representative of postconceptualism, or "new sincerity." Abundantly uses pastiche and parody, prefers large lyrical-epic genres: long poem, idyll, epistle. Author of the poems Life of K. U. Chernenko and Commodes, cycles The Apartment Resident's Christmas Song, Poems of Love, epistles To L. S. Rubinshtein, and Twenty Sonnets to Sasha Zapoeva. Author of a conceptual sots-art book Lenin Was Young ( 1995, produced with A. Florensky, an artist from the group "Mit'ki"). The most comprehensive collections of his verses are: Sentiments: Eight Books ( Belgorod, Risk, 1994), Paraphrasis: A Book of Poems ( St. Petersburg, 1997). One of the most popular Moscow poets of the 1990s. Winner of the Pushkin Prize awarded by the Bavarian Academy ( 1992).
Kim Anatoly (b. 1943)--novelist. Born in Kazakhstan to a family of Korean immigrants. Graduated from the Moscow Literary Institute ( 1971). Author of the novels Squirrel ( 1983), Father-Forest ( 1989), The Village of Centaurs ( 1992), and numerous novellas and short stories, collected in Blue Island ( 1976), Nightingale's Echo ( 1980), and The Herb Collectors ( 1983). Major representative of artistic mythologism, leaning towards Buddhist and Zen mysticism. Since 1993 co-editor of the literary journal Novy mir.
Klimontovich Nikolai (b. 1952)--novelist, playwright. Trained as a physicist, lives in Moscow. Experiments with postmodern narrative devices, explores specularity, continuously turns to erotic plots. Novels: Double Album ( 1979), The Road to Rome ( 1995), a short story collection Making Photographs and Other Games ( 1989).
Komar Vitaly (b. 1943) and Melamid Alexander (b. 1945)--two of the founders of sots-art, leading representatives of artistic postmodernism. Born in Moscow, they have been working together since 1965. Graduated from the Moscow Art-Industrial (formerly Stroganov) School in 1967. In 1972 they formulated the concept of sots-art (based on the model of American pop art)--sots-art is close to conceptualism, utilizing ideological signs and objects of mass socialist culture. In 1977 immigrated to Israel, in 1978 moved to the United States. They currently live in New York and Jersey City ( New Jersey). Particularly well known for their series of
paintings "Nostalgic Socialist Realism" (Stalin and the Muses, The Birth of the Socialist Realism, A View of Kremlin from Manhattan and others). Authors of many conceptual projects including "Trans State" ( 1976), "Komar and Melamid Incorporated. The Buying and Selling of Souls" ( 1978, 1986), the art project "The People's Choice" (a collection of paintings based on the results of sociological polls carried out in Russia, the U.S., and other countries, 1993/95). Books include Death Poems: Manifesto of Eclecticism (Barbara Farber Gallery, 1988), Monumental Propaganda. Instigated by Komar and Melamid, ed. by Dore Ashton ( A Traveling Exhibition. Independent Curators Inc., New York, 1994).
Korkiia Viktor (b. 1948)--poet, playwright, journalist. Worked as an editor at Iunost' (Youth) magazine. His style is close to ironic poetry and the "Moscow Time" group. Collection of poems includes Free Time ( Moscow, 1988), and the play Black Man, or I, Poor Soso Dzhugashvili ( 1989).
Korolev Anatoly--prose writer. Author of a historical-fantasy essaynovella, Gogol's Head ( 1992), and the metaphysical and erotic novel Eron ( 1994).
Krivulin Viktor (b. 1944)--poet, novelist, essayist. Lives in St. Petersburg. Graduated from Leningrad University in philology, specialized in Italian and Russian literatures. Leading representative of the Leningrad artistic underground. From 1976 to 1981 published (together with his former wife Tatiana Goricheva, and Boris Groys) the samizdat journal 37; in 1980 (together with Sergei Dediulin) Severnaia pochta, dedicated to poetic theory. One of the founders of Club-81, a rallying point for the non-conformist Leningrad intelligentsia. His poetry echoes the traditions of the Russian Silver Age. Collections include Rhythm ( Paris, 1981), Poems (vv. 1-2, Paris, 1987/88). His novel Frisk waspublished in 1990.
Kropivnitsky Evgenii ( 1893- 1979)--poet, artist. Born in Moscow, after 1924 lived near Moscow. Graduated from the Stroganov Art School ( 1911). In the 1910s was close to the artists of the "Blue Rose" and "Jack of Clubs" circle. Early poetry is marked by abstract decadent themes. At the end of the 1930s he turned to neoprimitivist poetics, "infantile" perception of the Soviet way of life, partly consonant with Oberiu poetics. Founder of the "Lianozov" school ( Moscow, mid- 1950s through the mid- 1960s), which included the poets Igor Kholin , Genrikh Sapgir, Vsevolod Nekrasov, Yan Satunovsky. Author of the poetry collection To Smile Sadly ( Paris, 1976).
Kuraev Mikhail (b. 1939)--novelist. Survived the siege of Leningrad as a child. Graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Film Art and worked as a script writer at Lenfilm Studio. Began to publish at the time of perestroika. Author of the novellas Captain Dickshtein, The Night Guard, Montachka's Mirror, Tender Pains of Friendship, and Blockade, in which he retraces dramatic events of Soviet history, utilizing phantasmal and ironic clusters of images.
Kuritsyn Viacheslav (b. 1965)--critic, writer. A leading proponent of Russian postmodernism. Author of numerous essays which in themselves exemplify postmodern patterns of playful and selfironic discourse. Author of A Book on Postmodernism ( Ekaterinburg, 1992), Love and Sight ( 1996), Journalism, 1993-97 ( 1998). His essays on contemporary literature have appeared in Novy mir, Znamia, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, and elsewhere. His early prose is collected in the book The Slums of Tomsk ( 1990).
Kutik Ilya (b. 1960)--poet. Born in Lvov, graduated from the Moscow Literary Institute, Ph.D. in Russian Literature from Stockholm University. Author of the collections Pentathlon of the Senses ( Moscow, 1990), The Bow of Odysseus ( 1993), Ode on Visiting the Belosaraisk Spit on the Sea of Azov ( New York, 1995, bilingual edition). His poetics is built on the presentation of tangible and sensible phenomena (presentism) and a combination of archaic and technical vocabularies. Moved to Lund ( Sweden) in 1990, where he worked for the BBC. Since 1994 he has lived in the U.S. and currently teaches at Northwestern University. Leans towards the genre of the ode, a postmodern reflection on the eighteenth-century classicist heritage.
Kuzminsky Konstantin (b. 1940)--poet, activist in the Russian literary and artistic underground. Studied biology and history of theater in Leningrad. Prepared the first samizdat collections of poems by Joseph Brodsky, Genrich Sapgir, Viktor Sosnora. In 1975 emigrated to the U.S. Compiled the Blue Lagoon Anthology of Modern Russian Poetry ( nine volumes), a monumental collection of avant-garde and postmodern poetry from 1960 through the 1980s, which includes biographical information about the poets, their letters, manifestos and other documents. His own verse and prose are collected in the book The Three. Not Opening Lips ( Los Angeles, 1981).
Kuznetsov Sergei (b. 1966)--critic and translator. Lives in Moscow. Writes about postmodernism in Russian and foreign literature. Articles: "On the Edge of Postmodernism" ( 1993), "Postmodernism in Russia" ( 1995), "Postmodernism and the Fall of the" Empire" ( 1995). Maintained "Monocle," one of the first electronic sites of cultural chronicle on the Russian Internet (since 1997).
Latynin Leonid (b. 1938)--novelist, poet. Born in Privolzhsk, graduated from Moscow State University. Poetical collections: Autumn Hours ( 1983), Ritual. Poems of 1965-1991 and many others. Novels The Face-Maker and the Muse ( 1989), Sleeper at Harvest Time ( 1994) written in incantatory, magical style, invoking myths and archetypes of Russian history.
Lavrin Alexander (b. 1958)--writer. Lives in Moscow. As a poet he is close to Arseny Tarkovky, for whom he worked as a secretary. Worked in the poetry section at the literary magazine Iunost'. Compiled and edited several "new wave" literary collections, including the miscellany Zerkala( "Mirrors," 1989). Author of novellas, short stories and encyclopedic books about the phenomenon of death in its culturalhistorical dimensions ( 1001 Deaths, Moscow, 1991, and others).
Leiderman Yury (b. 1963)--conceptual artist. From 1987 to 1991 participated in the group "Medical Hermeneutics" together with S. Anufriyev and P. Peppershtein (see entries). His prose is collected in The Names of the Electrons ( St. Petersburg, 1997).
Levkin Andrei (b. 1954)--novelist, essayist. Born and lives in Riga. Graduated from Moscow State University in Mechanics and Mathematics. One of the editors of the influential magazine Rodnik ( The Spring, Riga) which was one of the first periodicals to publish postmodern authors in the USSR. Author of collections of experimental prose Ancient Arithmetic ( 1986) and Quiet Events ( 1991).
Limonov (real name Savenko), Eduard (b. 1943)--writer. Lived in Kharkov and Moscow, moved to the West in 1974. Lived in New York and Paris, now lives in Moscow. Poet, novelist, social critic, political activist with an extreme nationalist orientation. Belonged to the "Concrete" group (see Bakhchanian). Postmodern devices are particularly prominent in his early work: the collection of Poems Three ( 1981), Russian ( 1974), prose We--the National Hero ( 1974, published in Apollo-77).
Lipovetsky (real name Leiderman), Mark (b. 1964)--literary critic, scholar. Lives in Ekaterinburg and the United States. Periodically teaches literature in American universities. Has published a collection of essays, The Hard Work of Freedom ( 1991), and a monograph, The Poetics of the Literary Fairy Tale ( 1992). Since 1989 has written many articles on postmodernism, among them "Elimination of Death: The Specific Character of Russian Postmodernism" ( 1995).
The main field of his expertise is Russian postmodernist prose, especially the works of Venedikt Erofeev, Bitov, Sokolov, Tolstaia, Sorokin, Popov. Defended the first doctoral dissertation in Russia on Russian postmodernism ( 1996). A large part of this dissertation was published as a book, Russian Postmodernism: Essays of Historical Poetics ( Ekaterinburg, 1997).
Losev Lev (b. 1937)--poet, critic. Lived in Leningrad, served as an editor at Pioneer magazine, wrote plays for children's theaters. Emigrated to the U.S. at the end of the 1970s. Professor at Dartmouth college. Author of the monograph On the Beneficence of Censorship ( 1984), and articles on Solzhenitsin, Brodsky and others. Since 1974 has written poems in the lyric, ironic, and nostalgic mode, close to the poetry of Brodsky and Gandlevesky. Collections of poems: Miraculous Landing ( 1985), Secret Adviser, New Information on Carl and Clara. Third Book of Poems ( 1996).
Lotman Yury ( 1922-1993)--prominent literary theoretician and cultural scholar, founder and leader of the Tartu semiotic school. His later works, written in part under the influence of the ideas of the scientist Ilya Prigogine, investigate the informational value of chance and freedom and their role in cultural history. They are of immense importance to the theoretical foundation of Russian postmodernism. Last books: Culture and Explosion ( 1992), Collected Works, in three volumes ( 1992).
Makanin Vladimir (b. 1937)--prose writer. Born in Orenburg province. Trained as a mathematician. Lives in Moscow. One of the most prominent Russian novelists. In the early 1990s his work became marked by postmodern narrative ambivalence. His texts are to be read simultaneously at naturalist and symbolic levels. His mature work is characterized by mythologizing Soviet reality, utilizing the cinematic devices of montage and discontinuity. Author of "Manhole" ( 1992), "Baize-Covered Table with Decanter" ( 1993 Booker Prize), and "The Captive of the Caucasus" ( 1995). His English books include Escape Hatch and The Long Road Ahead., trans. M. A. Szporluk, 1996; The Loss, trans. B. Lindsey. Evanston , 1998.
Mamardashvili Merab ( 1930- 1990)--philosopher. Born in Gori ( Georgia). Graduated form Moscow State University in philosophy ( 1953). Worked for the journal Problems of the World and Socialism ( Prague). From 1968 to 1974 was co-editor of the leading philosophical journal Questions of Philosophy. In the 1980s he was a. senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of Georgia (Tbilisi). Author of Symbol and Culture (a metaphysical discourse on consciousness, symbolism and language) ( 1982, coauthored with A. M. Piatigorsky), Classical and Non-Classical Ideals of Rationalism ( 1984), How I Understand Philosophy ( 1990), Cartesian Reflections ( 1981, published in 1993), and others. One of the leading thinkers of his generation. His books represent mainly transcripts of lectures, oral philosophical performances, demonstrating the very origin and process of conceptual thinking. Developed his version of post-classical rationalism, close to Husserl phenomenology and poststructuralist work with the "texts" of consciousness. Influenced the new, postmodern generation of Russian philosophers ( V. Podoroga, M. Ryklin and others).
Mamayev Konstantin (b. 1935)--sculptor, novelist, and essayist. Lives in Ekaterinburg. Makes wooden object-fetishes (combs, boxes, frames). Author of essays "The First," "Gift of the Foreign Shores" (on Nabokov), a conceptualist play Work of the Scissors, and others. His major work is the essay-novel, Wooden Paradise (published in 1995 with a foreword by A. Bitov).
Mamleev Yury (b. 1931)--novelist, essayist. Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Forestry, was a high school mathematics teacher. One of the organizers of and participants in Moscow's Philosophical-Mystical Club ( 1960s-1970s). Founder of the metaphysical "infernal-demonic" school in Russian prose. Emigrated to the U.S. in 1974, moved to Paris in 1983. Currently lives in Moscow. Author of the novels Shakers and Moscow Gambit, collections of short stories The Other Side of Gauguin, Living Death, New City of Kitezh, The Eternal House. Developed an esoteric system of "Russian national metaphysics" based on the concepts of absolute "I" and "nothingness."
Mararnzin Vladimir (b. 1934)--writer and film maker. Prominent Leningrad samizdat prose writer. Has lived in Paris since 1975. In the USSR he published a series of children's books and several scenarios and teleplays. Actively participated in samizdat. Persecuted by the authorities, was arrested for the compilation of a five volume edition of the poetry of Joseph Brodsky. Since 1978 has published an avant-garde journal Echo (in Paris, with A. Khvostenko). Author of the novellas The Story of lvan Petrovich's Marriage ( 1964) and Blonde of Either Colour ( 1975), collections of short stories Funnier Than Before ( 1979) and Push and Pull ( "Tianitolkai," 1981). Connections can be traced between Maramzin's grotesque, comic narrative and the legacy of A. Platonov and M. Zoshchenko. His deliberately eclectic style, postmodernist skaz, is based on aesthetic assimilation of Soviet everyday speech. In later years Maramzin has ceased to produce literary work.
Marsovich, Ruslan (born early 1960s-died in the 1990s)--prose writer. Author of the novella Prism-Film, representing "rearguard" aesthetics.
Melamid Alexander--see Komar Vitaly and Melamid Alexander.
Mesyats Vadim (b. 1964)--writer. Born in Tomsk, has lived in Russia and the United States, holds a Ph.D. in physics and mathematics. Nostalgic-fantastic, absurdist work includes the prose volumes The Wind from the Confectionery Plant ( 1993) and When We'll Become Merry and Light ( 1994), and the book of poems Calendar of the Reminiscent ( 1992). Experiments with long, plot-based poetry in Cry on the Racketeer ( 1995), Exit to Sea ( 1996) [in English: A Guest in the Homeland: Selected Writings. New Jersey, 1997 ].
Mikhalkov Nikita (b. 1945)--film director, actor, scriptwriter. Son of the writer Sergei Mikhalkov. Graduated from the All Union State Institute of Cinematography. Made his cinematic acting debut in 1961, directorial debut in 1971. His films were among the first to define the postmodern means of representation of the Soviet reality, challenging both official "socialist realist" and avant-garde aesthetics. His films combine the aesthetics of mass entertainment and serious moral message. Films: Slave of Love, Unfinished Piece for the Mechanical Piano ( 1977), Five Evenings ( 1979), A Few Days from Oblomov's Life ( 1980), Relatives ( 1982), Dark Eyes ( 1987), Urga ( 1992), and Burnt by the Sun ( 1994).
Miloslavsky Yury (b. 1946)--prose writer. Born in Kharkov. Has lived in the West since 1973, first in Israel, then in the United States ( Ann Arbor and New York). Although he began as a poet, Miloslavsky became famous for his scandalous roman ... clef on dissidents, Fortified Cities ( 1980). Miloslavsky short stories have been particularly successful in his artfully estranged and fragmented depiction of the violent life at the bottom of society: collections City Romances ( 1979), The Noise of the Horsemen and the Shooters ( 1984). In 1995 published a collection of short stories in English, with a foreword by Brodsky.
Mit'ki--artistic group in St. Petersburg ( Dmitry Shagin, Vladimir Shinkarev , Alexander Florensky, Olga Florenskaya, and others).
Named after Dmitry Shagin, whose literary portrait (comically interpreted by V. Shinkarev) became a prototype for the playful, self-parodic conduct and specific "Mit'kin" way of life, manners, clothing style, and vocabulary. Besides multiple exhibitions ( St. Petersburg, Paris, New York) this group has participated in various projects, including the Mit'ki-Newspaper ( V. Golubev, editor), the films City ( 1988) and Mit'ki in Europe ( 1989), and an animated motion picture, Mit'ki Want to Defeat Nobody ( 1992).
Monastyrsky (Sumnin), Andrei (b. 1949)--organizer and theoretician of the Moscow conceptualist movement, poet, novelist. Graduated from Moscow State University in philology ( 1980). Leader of the group "Collective Actions," which conducted dozens of conceptualist happenings and performances in Moscow and the surrounding area. Many of these events were captured on tape, photograph, and in text. Author of the book Nothing Is Happening and series of albums illustrating the activity of the group ( Collective Actions: Trips and Reproductions [ Moscow, 1982 ], and several volumes of Journeys out of the City).
Narbikova Valeriia (b. 1958)--prose writer. Graduated from the Moscow Literary Institute. Lives in Moscow. Author of numerous novellas: The Plane of the First Person. And the Second ( 1989), The Equilibrium of Day Light and Evening Stars ( 1990), Hell as Yes-Yes as Hell ( 1991), Okolo Ekolo (Around Ecology, 1992). Her volume Selected Writings, or Whisper of the Noise ( 1994) provoked debate in the press as an example of a work simultaneously feminist and explicitly erotic, and of metaphorically encrypted experimental prose.
Nekrasov Vsevolod (b. 1934)--poet, one of the founders of conceptualism (late 1950s). Graduated from the Moscow Pedagogic Institute, Department of History and Philology. Lives in Moscow. Member of "Lianozov" group (from 1956 until the mid-1960s), together with Genrich Sapgir, Igor Kholin, the artists Oskar Rabin and the Kropivnitsky family). Member of the "Concrete" group. Published in the West beginning in 1964. Experiments of visual and concrete poetry. Books published in Russia: Poems from Journal ( Moscow, 1989); Package ( Moscow, 1996).
Novikov Vladimir (b. 1948)--critic. Born in Omsk, lives in Moscow. Articles on contemporary Russian literature. Books: Dialogue ( 1986), New Vision, a Book about Yury Tynianov ( 1988, co-authored with V. Kaverin), A Book on Parody ( 1989), The Writer Vladimir Vysotsky ( 1991). Founder of the literary club "Postmodern," which operated at the Moscow Literary Institute in the early 1990s.
Novikov Denis (b. 1967)--poet. In his ostentatiously "quiet poems" he explores private topics trying "to save poetry" from social issues. Collection Poems in January ( 1995, introduction by I. Brodsky).
Oganov Ivan--writer. Lived in Georgia (Kakhetiia) for a significant period of time. His books, written in the "folk farce" genre, are reminiscent of Sergei Paradzhanov films. Novel: Our Garden Is Empty ( 1992).
Oster Grigory--children's writer and poet, author of enormously popular half-comic, half-serious postmodern school textbooks: Harmful Advice, Exercise Book, Mathematics Manual for Grades 2-6 ( 1994), Physics ( 1994) and many others.
Papernyi Vladimir (b. 1944)--art critic, architect. Graduated from the Moscow Art-Industrial (formerly Stroganov) School. His influential book Culture Number 'Two' (published in 1985) describes the struggle between avant-garde and socialist monumentalism in Soviet architecture from the postmodern standpoint. In 1981 emigrated to the United States, lives in Los Angeles, runs a designer firm.
Paramonov Boris (b. 1937)--essayist, philosopher. Graduated from Leningrad University (Department of History); later lectured there in philosophy. Emigrated in 1977. Lives in New York, works for radio "Liberty," where he is in charge of the "Russian Questions" program. Author of many articles criticizing utopian and avantgardist principles of Russian culture from the perspective of postmodern pluralism and "Protestant ethics." Author of the books Portrait of a Jew (about Ilya Ehrenburg) and The End of Style.
Parshchikov Aleksei (b. 1954)--poet, essayist. Studied at Kiev Academy of Farm Industry, graduated from the Moscow Literary Institute ( 1981), M.A. in Russian Literature, Stanford ( 1993). Author of poetic collections The Figures of Intuition ( Moscow, 1989), Cyrillic Light ( Moscow, 1995), and others. Many poems are translated into English. Leading representative of presentist poetics. Lived in the United States and Switzerland from 1991 to 1994. Currently divides his time between Moscow and Cologne ( Germany).
Pelevin Viktor (b. 1962)--prose writer. Lives in Moscow. Graduated from Moscow Institute of Power. Worked as engineer and journalist. One of the leading representatives of postmodern prose. His narratives are often constructed on the principle of the computer games and are subjected to dream logic. Author of the novels Omon Ra, The Yellow Arrow, From the Life of Insects, Chapaev and Emptiness, and numerous short stories. Winner of minor Booker Prize for the collections of short stories The Blue Lantern ( 1993). Chapaev and Emptiness ( 1996) is a Zen interpretation of twentiethcentury Soviet history. [In English: The Yellow Arrow ( 1996), Omon Ra ( 1997), The Blue Lantern: Selected Stories ( 1997). All published in N.Y. and translated by Andrew Bromfield.]
Peppershtein Pavel (b. 1966)--poet, artist and theoretician of conceptualism. Son of conceptual artist Viktor Pivovarov and the poet Irina Pivovarova. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Prague). Founding member (together with S. Anufriev and Yu. Leiderman) of the group "Medical Hermeneutics" ( 1987), which represents the younger generation of Moscow conceptualism and develops its social-mystical philosophy through such concepts as "nome," "inspection," and "empty canon." Exhibitions: "Military Life of Little Pictures" ( Cologne, 1991), "Switzerland + Medicine" ( Zurich, 1992), "Lateral Space of the Sacred in the USSR" ( Vienna, 1992), and others. Book: The Diet of an Old Man ( Moscow, 1998).
Petrushevskaia Liudmila (b. 1938)--prose writer, playwright. Graduated from Moscow State University in journalism. Worked as a radio journalist and television editor. Literary debut in 1963. Author of many plays that were produced in various theaters around the world. Collections of plays Twentieth-Century Plays ( 1988) and Three Young Ladies in Blue ( 1989). Her prose is characterized by an interest in extreme, "border" situations of ordinary life (alcoholism, prostitution, violence, ugliness, and madness). Authenticity of day-to-day experience is combined with psychological dramatism and surrealist fantasy. Collections of stories and novellas include Everlasting Love ( 1989) and Along the Road of God Eros ( 1993). Among her most famous works: the play Cinzano, the novella Time: Night, the stories "My Circle" and "The New Robinsons," and a script for Yury Norshtein famous cartoon The Tale of Tales.
Pietsukh Viacheslav (b. 1946)--novelist. A representative of the "new wave" in late Soviet prose. Graduated from Moscow State Pedagogy Institute ( 1970), worked as a high school teacher. Lives in Moscow. Author of Alphabet ( 1983), Merry Times ( 1989), New Moscow Philosophy, Enchanted Country, Cycles ( 1991), and others in which he delves into the paradoxes of Russian history and national character.
In the 1990s he has been editor-in-chief of the magazine "Druzhba Narodov" (Friendship of Peoples).
Podoroga Valery (b. 1946)--philosopher, senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In charge of the Laboratory of Post-Classical Research and chairman of the editorial board of the series "Ad Marginem" ( Moscow), which since 1992 has been publishing books by Russian and French structuralist and poststructuralist thinkers. Author of works on Andrei Platonov , Sergei Eisenstein, and the philosophies of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, all written from a phenomenological perspective (inspired by Merleau-Ponty) and exploring the corporeal and gestural dimensions of text, the strategies of reading and communication. Books: Metaphysics of Landscape ( Moscow, 1993; expanded edition: Expression and Meaning, 1996), Phenomenology of the Body ( Moscow, 1995).
Pomerantsev Igor (b. 1948)--poet, novelist, critic, and broadcast journalist (for the BBC and Radio Liberty). Moved to England in 1978, to Prague in 1995. Author of the collections of experimental prose Aubades and Serenades ( London), Buck's Dogs, poems, essays, and radio plays.
Pomeshchik Vladimir ( Alexander Migunov)--writer. Lives in the United States. His short stories in a mildly surrealist genre often develop the theme of "escape into childhood." Collection of short stories The Battlefields of the Lost Battles ( 1993, introduction by Sasha Sokolov).
Popov Evgeny (b. 1946)--novelist. Graduated from Krasnoyarsk University, in geology. Lives in Moscow. Early short stories published in Novy mir. In 1979 expelled from the Writers' Union for his participation in "Metropol" almanac ( U.S., 1979), re-instated in 1988. Author of short-story collections The Joy of Russia ( Ann Arbor, 1981), I am Waiting for Untreacherous Love ( 1989), novels The Beauty of Life ( 1989), The Soul of a Patriot, or Various Epistles to Ferfichkin ( 1994). His prose abounds in black humor, parodic montage of quotes, the merging of folkloric narrative patterns and journalistic jargon, revealing the deep folk roots of contemporary absurdist aesthetics.
Popov Valery (b. 1939)--screen and fiction writer, one of the leading representatives of the Leningrad school of fiction ( S. Dovlatov, V. Maramzin , B. Vakhtin, and others). Lives in St. Petersburg. First published in 1969 (the collection of stories More Southern than Before). Author of many short stories written in grotesque romantic and optimistic surrealist genre: collections include Life Has Worked Out ( 1981) and The Feast of Drivel ( 1991). His latest works, depicting surreal post-Soviet life, such as Days in the Harem ( 1994) and She-rascal ( 1996), utilize elements of the "picaresque" novel.
Prigov Dmitry Aleksandrovich (b. 1940)--poet, sculptor, artist, essayist, a leading representative of conceptualism. Graduated from Moscow Art-Industrial (formerly Stroganov) School, in sculpture ( 1966). Worked as an architect and sculptor; his works are displayed at various major museums. Graphic cycle "Bestiary." Began writing poetry in 1971. Author of more than fifteen thousand poems arranged in numerous thematic collections, such as Moscow and the Muscovites, Reagan's Image in Soviet Literature, Feminine Poems, which circulated in samizdat and were performed. Many collections are written from the point of view of imaginary "typical" characters (such as "female poet" or "Chinese poet"). Long poem All Russia's Makhrot ( 1984). First book officially published in the USSR in 1990, Tears of the Heraldic Soul. Other collections include Fifty Drops of Blood ( 1993), Verse Appearing after Its Death ( 1995), Militiaman and Others ( 1996). Some of them are illustrated by the author. Critical prose and literary manifestos in: A Collection of Forewarnings about Various Things ( 1996). Author of many conceptualist projects and genres, including "screamers" (krichalki), which feature violent shouting rather than reciting poetry. His art involves a mixture of traditional genres: visual, textual, performative. His critical essays elaborate the aesthetics of conceptualism and introduce new categories, such as "persona's poetry," "new sincerity," and "shimmering aesthetics." One of the most popular Moscow poets of the 1980s and 1990s. Prigov has succeeded in creating a public image of himself similar to that of an actor, including a distance between the real person and his creations. Winner of the Pushkin Prize from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences ( 1992).
Radov Egor--prose writer. Lives in Moscow. Author of the experimental postmodern novels The Snake Sucker ( 1992) and Yakutiia ( 1993) as well as short stories collected in the book Art Is Intoxication ( 1994). Often explores the motifs of drug addiction and hallucination.
Rein Evgeny (b. 1935)--poet. Grew up in Leningrad, lives in Moscow. Together with J. Brodsky, A. Naiman, and D. Bobyshev, belonged to the Akhmatova circle. Collections of poetry include Shore Line ( 1989), Darkness of the Mirrors ( 1990), Day Which Could Not BeChanged Changed ( 1991). In his later works, for example in the poem Maltias Falkone, he utilizes the technique of "inarticulate speech."
Rovner Arkady (b. 1940)--writer, essayist. Lived in Moscow, emigrated to New York in 1974. Belongs to the Moscow metaphysical school of writing founded by Yury Mamleev. Published a RussianEnglish philosophical and literary journal Gnosis. Author of a collection of short stories Visitors from the Province ( 1975). His novel about personal development Kalalatsy ( 1980) has as its central topic the metaphysics of Bohemian life. Currently divides his time between Moscow and New York.
Rubinshtein Lev (b. 1947)--writer-conceptualist. Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Pedagogy, in philology. Worked as a librarian, currently edits the cultural page for the mass-circulation weekly Itogi. Began writing in 1974, partly under the influence of the literary production of the avant-garde composer John Cage. Virtually his only genre is the "catalogue," comprised of brief poetic and prosaic fragments, quotes, and rejoinders, which are written on separate note cards. His works include: The Appearance of the Hero, Small Night Serenade, Mother Washed Window-Frame ( Moscow, Renaissance, 1992), and Regular Writing ( St. Petersburg, 1996). A member of the group "Heart-to-Heart Conversation," he often performs his writings publicly, together with Prigov and Kibirov.
Ryklin Mikhail (b. 1948)--philosopher. Works in the Institute of Philosophy at the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1991 and 1992 worked under the supervision of Jacques Derrida at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. In his works he combines two areas of interest: French poststructuralist theory and postSoviet conceptualist practice; he also examines the particular relation between the visual and verbal dimensions in Soviet culture. Author of Terrologics ( Tartu-Moscow, 1992).
Sadur Nina (b. 1950)--playwright and prose writer. Grew up in Novosibirsk. Author of metaphorical lyrical novellas The South ( 1992), Orchard ( 1994), and Diamond Valley ( 1994), the short story series "Witch's Tears" and "Special People," and the plays The Swallow, The Mongrel, Pannochka and others.
Salimon Vladimir (b. 1952)--poet. Graduated from the Moscow State Pedagogy Institute ( 1974). Close to the lyrical irony trend in contemporary poetry. Collections of poems published in Moscow and Petersburg: Little Town ( 1981), Street Fraternity ( 1989), The Week of Passions ( 1989), Joyless Sun ( 1994). Editor-in-chief of one of the leading postmodernist journals Golden Age, published in the 1990s in Moscow and supported by the French Ministry of Culture.
Sapgir Genrikh (b. 1928)--poet, prose writer. Member of the artisticliterary "Lianozov" group ( 1956 through the mid-1960s), one of the first associations for alternative, post-totalitarian art. Author of many books of poetry for children. Close to conceptualism. Books include Sonnets on Cuffs ( Paris, 1978), Soap from a Moron: Contemporary Lubok (Mylo iz Debila) ( Moscow, Paris, 1990), Selected Poems ( Moscow, 1993), Flying and Sleeping ( Moscow, 1997).
Sedakova Olga (b. 1949)--poet, translator, essayist. A leading representative of metarealism. In 1973 graduated from Moscow State University in philology. Ph.D., specializing in Slavic folklore. Has written poetry since the late 1960s. Typescript the collections of poems Wild Dogrose and Old Songs circulated widely in samizdat. First book publication: Gates, Windows, Arches ( Paris, 1986). First publication in the USSR in the magazine Druzhba Narodov (# 6, 1989). Collections of poetry: Chinese Journey. Steles and Inscriptions. Old Songs ( Moscow, 1990), Poems ( Moscow, 1994). Her poetry is marked by a high lyrical style, richness of religious and mythological themes, complex imagery (metamorphoses, metaboles, and symbols), intertextual echoes from ancient and medieval poetry. Her prose is mostly about poetry and poets.
Shaburov Alexander (b. 1965)--artist, writer, publisher. Lives in Ekaterinburg. Author of a series of parodic photo-montages and collages: Shaburov Sasha Christ, Beauty Will Save the World, and Ivan the Toad--Russian Superman. Founder of the "Ural Society of Holmes" and the newspaper Elementary Watson. He also compiled, published, illustrated, and edited (together with Viacheslav Kuritsyn ) the apocryphal and parodic miscellany, Adventures of the Great Detective Sherlock Holmes (v. 1, 1990; v. 2, 1992).
Shakhnazarov Karen (b. 1952)--film director. Graduated from All Union State Institute of Cinematography. Since 1987 has been the leader of the creative association "Start," at the Mosfilm studio. Feature films: Zero City ( 1989, winner of the "Golden Hugo" at the Chicago International Film Festival), The Tzar Killer ( 1991), Dreams ( 1993), The American Daughter ( 1995). One of the leading representatives of postmodern grotesque and conceptualist poetics in cinema.
Sharov Vladimir (b. 1952)--novelist. Son of the writer Alexander Sharov . Lives in Moscow. Graduated from Voronezh University, in
history. Author of the novels Treading in the Tracks (Sled v sled) ( 1988), Rehearsals ( 1990), And Should Not I Pity ...? ( 1995), regarded by many critics as one of the key works of contemporary Russian prose, and The Old Girl ( 1998). The novel Before and During, published in Novy mir in 1993, caused heated critical discussion as an example of a postmodern narrative with multiplying mirrorplots that deconstruct Russian-Soviet history through a series of absurdist metaphors.
Shemiakin Mikhail (b. 1943)--artist, sculptor. A leading representative of post-avant-garde art. Expelled from Leningrad Art School in 1959. Emigrated to France in 1971, to the United States in 1980. Compiled and published Apollo-77, which for the first time published a representative collection of unofficial Soviet art and literature. Exhibitions in the major museums of Paris, New York, Moscow and St. Petersburg. A creative style close to metarealism.
Sherstiuk Sergei ( 1951-1998)--artist, graduated from Moscow State University, specializing in art theory and history ( 1979). Worked in conceptual photo and hyperrealist styles, subsequently in neosymbolist style, close to metarealism. Exhibitions in Russia and abroad.
Shevelev Igor (some publications also under the pseudonym of I. Gerb )--journalist and novelist, author of the novel Sushkov (an alternative title Sacrifice of the Horse), one of the first works of postmodern ("rear-guard") prose of the 1980s initially spread in samizdat.
Shipenko Alexei (b. 1961)--playwright. Exploring metaphysical subjects he works within the tradition of Artaud's "theater of cruelty" ( "Archeology," and especially "Shambhala"). His plays have been staged in Moscow.
Shishkin Mikhail--prose writer, lives in Moscow. Author of a muchtalked-of horror short-story "The Teacher of Calligraphy"; also a novella The Blind Musician and a pseudo-historical novel-pastiche, One Night Awaits Us All ( 1993).
Shnitke (Schnitke), Alfred ( 1934-1998)--composer. Born in the city of Engels ( Russia). Graduated from the Moscow Conservatory ( 1958), postgraduate degree in 1961. One of the leading representatives of Soviet musical postmodernism, utilizing polystylistics (in this case, combining various strata of classical and modern music). Author of numerous concertos, symphonies, two operas, a ballet, film scores. In the 1960s and 1970s his works went virtually unperformed in the USSR. In the 1990s lived in Germany and lectured at the Hamburg Conservatory.
Shul'man Eduard (b. 1936)--prose writer. Graduated from the Moscow Literary Institute. Lives in Moscow. In Russia his works were not published before the 1990s. Author of the novel Polezhaev, many novellas (including Nearest and Dearest), and cycles of short stories, most of them dedicated to Russian history, in particular, the erotic mores of the era of serfdom ("Obscene Stories from the Life of Russian People"). His poetics are close to conceptualism and are based on his engagement with the themes and stylistic devices of other Russian and Soviet authors (such as Chekhov, Babel, Zoshchenko).
Shvarts Elena (b. 1948)--poet. Lives in St. Petersburg. Graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Theater. Her collections of poems circulated in samizdat in the 1970s. Author of numerous collections of poetry, including Dancing David ( Russia, U.S., 1985), Poems ( Paris, Beseda, 1987), The Works and Life of the Nun Lavinia ( U.S., 1988), Corners of the World (Leningrad, 1989), Poems (Leningrad, 1990), and Bird Song ( St. Petersburg, 1995). Michael Molnar has published a volume of translations of Shvarts work, Paradise ( London, 1993). Her poetry is rich in historical and religious imagery and incorporates the poetics of metarealism and intertextualism.
Shvartsman Mikhail--artist. Lives in Moscow. Did not exhibit his work until 1993. Developed extremely esoteric style of "hieratic" art, combining elements of abstraction and symbolism which, in some ways, is close to the poetics of metarealism. His first book publication: Paintings. Drawings ( Moscow, New York, 1994).
Sinyavsky Andrei ( 1925- 1997)--literary critic, essayist, novelist, cultural critic. Many works published under the pen name Abram Terts . His essay "On Socialist Realism" ( 1959) was the first attempt at a postmodern interpretation of totalitarian art as stylistically eclectic and susceptible to self-parody, which later came true in conceptualism and sots-art. His own fiction and autobiographical and critical prose also demonstrate a broad range of postmodern devices though Sinyavsky himself does not resort to this term and those Western theories that support it. Author of the books Fantastic Stories ( 1961), Unguarded Thoughts ( 1966), A Voice from the Choir ( 1973), Strolls with Pushkin ( 1975), In the Shadow of Gogol ( 1975), "Fallen Leaves"by V. V. Rozanov ( 1982), Ivan the Fool. A Study of Russian Folk Faith ( 1991). Novels Good Night ( 1984) and Cat's House (pub. 1998), novellas Liubimov and The Trial Begins. Worked as a senior researcher at the Institute of World Literature in Moscow until he was arrested in 1965 together with Yuly Daniel for the publication of literary works abroad. Imprisoned until 1971 at the Mordovia political prisoners camp. Moved to Paris in 1973, where he taught Russian literature at the Sorbonne. Together with his wife Maria Rozanova, published a literary magazine Syntaksis, which played an important role in the consolidation of pluralist trends in Russian thought and (post) avant-gardist (postmodernist) trends in Russian literature.
Slapovsky Aleksei (b. 1958)--novelist. Lives in Saratov. In charge of the department of fiction at Volga, a literary journal that won the 1994 minor Booker Prize as the best Russian provincial literary journal. Author of the novels I am not I ( 1992), The First Second Coming ( 1993), novellas Dusty Winter ( 1993), Dream ( 1994). His prolific writings provoked critical discussions of the phenomenon of postmodernist prose.
Sokolov Sasha (b. 1943)--novelist. Studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages and at the Department of Journalism at Moscow State University. Emigrated from the USSR in 1975, Canadian citizen. Worked as a sports coach. Author of the novels School for Fools ( 1976, the only work of contemporary Russian prose praised by Vladimir Nabokov), Between Dog and Wolf ( 1980), Palisandriia ( 1984), and a collection of essays, Waiting for the Nobel ( Petersburg, 1993). His elaborate prose style exemplifies postmodernist work with language and has heavily influenced Russian prose.
Sokurov Alexander (b. 1951)--film director. Graduated from Gorky University in department of history, and the All Union State Institute of Cinematography. A leading representative of postmodernism in cinema. His films, close to metarealist poetics, develop the tradition of associative and metaphorical cinematography of Andrei Tarkovsky. Feature films: Lonely Voice of a Man (based on the works of Andrei Platonov), Mournful Loss of Feelings (based on the play by Bernard Shaw), The Days of the Eclipse, Save and Preserve (based on Madame Bovary by Flaubert); documentaries: Moscow Elegy (on Andrei Tarkovsky) and Soviet Elegy (on Boris Yeltsin).
Soprovsky Alexander ( 1951- 1991)--poet, essayist. Graduated from Moscow State University in history. In the 1980s headed the artistic club "Moscow Time" (with Sergei Gandlevsky and others), and participated in discussions of new poetic and cultural trends. His own style is close to classical lyricism.
Sorokin Vladimir (b. 1955)--writer. Born in Bykovo (near Moscow). Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Non-Organic Chemistry
and the Moscow Oil and Gas Institute. Began to write at age fifteen. Worked in the area of book graphics. Participated in many conceptualist exhibitions. Leading representative of conceptualism and sots-art in prose. Author of novels The Norm, The Queue (English translation, 1988), Marina's Thirtieth Love, Four Stout Hearts, Roman, the novella A Month in Dachau, short stories and plays translated into many European languages. In his work Sorokin reproduces verbal and ideological clichés of socialist realism in combination with surrealist and absurdist imagery, leaning towards sexual pathology, necro-realism, cannibalism and excremental poetics. First book published in Russia: Selected Stories ( Moscow, 1992). Recently made his debut as a scriptwriter: "Moscow" (in Kinostsenarii, co-authored with Alexander Zel'dovich, 1997).
Sosnora Viktor (b. 1936)--prominent poet and prose writer. Lives in St. Petersburg. Published many books of poetry stylistically very complex and partly inspired by traditions of Russian avant-garde (Khlebnikov) and medieval literature: Horsemen ( 1969), Crystal ( 1977) and others. His prose is mostly devoted to fantastic refraction of Russian history: Nikolai ( 1992), and a surreal "postmortem" diary The Tower ( 1993).
Starik B. U. Kashkin (pseudonym of Evgeny Makhonin)--has had various occupations: engineer, photographer, artist, street sweeper. Lives in Ekaterinburg. Author of minimalist texts performed to the accompaniment of tambourine and balalaika. Continues the tradition of Russian folk jesters (skomorokhi). Has produced several hand-made art books.
Stratanovsky Sergei (b. 1944)--poet. Leading figure in the Leningrad underground culture of the 1970s and 1980s. Co-editor of the samizdat literary journals Chasy and Obvodnyi kanal. Works at the St. Petersburg Public Library. Author of the collection Poems ( 1993).
Strizhov Dmitry--artist and poet. Lives in New York. Active in the theater, partly in collaboration with American and Russian avantgarde and postmodern authors. Collection of poetry Early Water and Earth ( 1992).
Strugatsky Arkady ( 1925- 1995) and Boris (b. 1933)--prominent science fiction writers. Their main theme is the transformation of utopia into anti-utopia. Paradoxically, their best works, such as the novel A Snail on the Slope ( 1966-68), contributed to the deconstruction of Soviet science fiction. In their 1970s novellas One billion Years before the End of the World, Picnic at the Road Side, and others, they utilized a wide variety of genres and complex narrative devices. Their philosophical and metaphysical version of science fiction influenced various authors of the next generation, including B. Grebenshchikov and V. Pelevin.
Sukhotin Mikhail (b. 1957)--poet, translator. Represents the "younger" generation of conceptualism. His work utilizes "macaronic" style by intermingling Russian and European languages.
Tarkovsky Andrei ( 1932- 1986)--prominent Russian film director. From 1982 lived in Western Europe. His films Solaris ( 1973), The Mirror ( 1975), Stalker ( 1980), Sacrifice ( 1986), and others developed the genre of theological fantasy, which deeply influenced postmodern cinema.
Tolstaia Tatiana (b. 1951)--prose writer. Granddaughter of prominent Soviet writer Alexei N. Tolstoy ( 1882- 1945). Graduated from Leningrad State University in classics. Literary debut in 1983. Author of short lyrical-psychological stories, with a distinctive romantic hue and rich intertextual fabric. Collections of stories: On the Golden Porch and Other Stories ( 1989), Sleepwalker in a Fog ( 1992), and To Love or Not to Love ( 1997). Living in the United States since 1989, she teaches Russian literature and creative writing at various universities, has published reviews and essays, but virtually no new fiction.
Tsvetkov Alexei (b. 1948)--poet, novelist. Studied at Moscow State University. One of the founders of the "Moscow Time" group. In 1975 emigrated to the United States. Since 1990 has lived in Munich and Prague. Worked at radio stations Voice of America and Radio Liberty. Author of numerous collections of poetry, including A Collection of Plays for Solo Living ( 1987), The State of Sleep ( 1982), and Eden ( 1985, Ann Arbor, Michigan). Work in progress: a long novel about ancient Rome entitled Merely Voice (fragments published in 1992).
Tarkin Andrei (b. 1962)--poet. Studied at Moscow Aviation Institute and Moscow State University. His poetry is built around everyday clichés, banalities, and represents the trend of "foolish," ironic neoprimitivism.
Ulanovskaia Bela--prose writer. Developed a rare variety of "village" postmodernism. Her short stories are written with intensity and brevity, unexpectedly reminiscent of Japanese poetry. Published collection The Autumn Adventure of the Frogs ( 1992).
Vail Peter (b. 1949)--critic, essayist. Graduated from Moscow Polygraphic Institute. Resided in Riga. In 1977 emigrated to the United States. From 1980 to 1983 published (collectively with S. Dovlatov and A. Genis) the newspaper The New American. Lived in New York, moved to Prague in 1994, and works at Radio Liberty. Coauthored with Alexander Genis Contemporary Russian Prose ( 1982), Paradise Lost. Immigration: An Attempt at a Self-Portrait ( 1983), Russian Cuisine in Exile ( 1987), The Sixties. The World of the Soviet Man ( 1988), Native Tongue ( 1990), and Americana ( 1991). One of the first critics to explore postmodern tendencies in the new Russian prose--a representative of the "new journalism," blending facts, myths, and hypotheses into a postmodern broth.
Vainshtein Olga (b. 1959)--literary scholar. Lives in Moscow. Writes about French poststructuralist thought and styles of Russian fashions.
Vakhtin Boris ( 1930- 1981)--novelist, sinologist, translator from the Chinese. Member of Gorozhane (City Dwellers), a group of Leningrad writers ( I. Efimov, V. Maramzin, S. Dovlatov). Author of fantastic short stories and novellas in which he often reflects on Petersburg traditions. Novella Sheepskin Coat (published in the "Metropol" almanac).
Vernikov Alexander (b. 1962)--novelist, translator. Lives in Ekaterinburg. Works with the archetypes of the Soviet unconscious. Often turns to a genre of the everyday joke, which then grows into a mystical parable. Novellas Ziablitsev, the Artist; Nothing Is Forgotten, No One Is Forgotten: A Writer's Diary; and a collection of stories, The House in the Wind ( 1991).
Volchek Dmitry (b. 1964)--poet, publisher, translator. Has lived in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Munich, Prague. Has worked for Radio Liberty since 1988. Author of collections of neomannerist poetry The Talking Tulip ( 1992), Midday Demon ( 1995), and the novel Code of the Downfall ( 1995). Founder and editor of Mitin Journal.
Volf Sergei (b. 1935)--poet. Lives in St. Petersburg. His poems are full of ironic and estranging devices that follow the Leningrad 1930s poetic tradition characterized as "Oberiu Stoicism." Book: Little Gods ( 1993).
Volokhov Mikhail (b. 1955)--playwright. Author of absurdist plays written with rich usage of a tabooed lexicon. Educated as an engineer, was a boxer. Lives in Paris. Plays: Playing Blind-Men's-Bluff (produced in Paris in 1989), 48 Degrees of Solar Latitude, She-Companion, and Immaculate Conception (all published in 1995).
Voronel', Nina--playwright, translator. Graduated from Moscow State University in physics and the Moscow Literary Institute. Has lived
in Israel since 1974. Her plays have been produced in New York. Her work is marked by a playfully comic presentation of Soviet reality and lower-class life. Her play On a Houseboat was published in Apollo-77.
Yakimchouk Nikolai--writer and publisher. Lives in St. Petersburg. Postmodern prose and sots-art poetry: "My Stalin" ( 1991), "Half-Russia. Half-China" ( 1993). Publishes collections of experimental books Petersburg's Solo.
Yampolsky Mikhail (b. 1948)--theoretician of literature and cinema. Lived in Moscow. Teaches at New York University. Member of "Ad Marginem" publishing group, with V. Podoroga, M. Ryklin, and others. Author of more than two hundred essays on the serniotics of European culture of the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Influenced by poststructural philosophy, particularly French. Among his many works on the poetics of film are scrupulous studies of Alexander Sokurov's films. Books In Memory of Tiresias: Intertextuality and Cinema ( 1993), Demon and Labyrinth (Diagrams, Deformations, and Mimesis) ( 1996).
Yankelevsky Vladimir (b. 1938)--artist. Graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute. Participated in the artistic movement known as "Moscow metaphysics," which is close to metarealism. His works are exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art ( New York), the Ludwig Collection ( Germany), and other large world museums.
Yarkevich Igor (b. 1962)--prose writer. Comic, self-deprecating mode of writing, use of obscene language and grotesque situations in his collection of novellas and short stories How I Did Them and How They Did Me ( 1992); absurdist-idiotic critical essays, "Two Literatures" ( 1995).
Yuriev Oleg (b. 1959)--poet, prose writer, and playwright. Born and raised in Leningrad, emigrated to Germany in 1990. Has published plays based on Jewish themes: Miriam ( 1984), and Little Pogrom in the Buffet at the Station ( 1984) (published in a collection of contemporary plays Eight Not So Good Plays [ 1990 ]). Short stories: "Strolls under the Full Moon" ( 1993) and "The Ox of Frankfurt" ( Moscow, 1996). His works combine tragedy with absurdity and black humor.
Zhdanov Ivan (b. 1948)--poet. Born in the Altai ( Siberia), eleventh child of a peasant family. Worked as a locksmith. Graduated from Barnaul Pedagogic Institute. Moved to Moscow in the late 1970s. Extremely complex associative verses in the vein of metarealism.
Author of the collections Portrait ( Moscow, 1982, the first book of a "new wave" poet ever to be published in the USSR), and The Inconvertible Sky ( Moscow, 1990; English, trans. John High and Patrick Henry, 1997).
Zinik Zinovy (b. 1945)--novelist, essayist, radio-journalist. Studied at Moscow State University. Emigrated in 1975. Lives in London, working for the BBC. Author of novels The Mushroom-Picker, A Niche in the Pantheon, Russian Service, The Lord and the Gamekeeper ( 1991), and others.
Zholkovsky Alexander (b. 1937)--literary scholar and linguist, a representative of the Tartu-Moscow linguistic school. Articles on literature in "Wandering Dreams" ( 1992, 1994). In the early 1990s began to write postmodern "philological" prose: the collection of stories Illegible (NRZB).
Zinoviev Alexander (b. 1922)--logician, novelist, social critic. Worked as a researcher at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy from 1954 to 1977. Moved to Germany ( Munich) in 1978. His first and best novel, The Yawning Heights ( 1976), was written in an ostentatiously postmodern eclectic genre combining sociological research, satire, grotesque, vulgar naturalism, allegory, and lyrical poetry.
Selected Magazines, Journals and Miscellanies
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