November 5 1940 years
Born in Moscow Dmitry Prigov — poet, artist, sculptor. One of the founders of conceptualism.
The question of good taste is a very painful one.
Moreover, our people are extremely impressionable.
He had German roots. His father was an engineer, his mother a pianist.
After school, he worked as a mechanic at a factory. In 1966, he graduated from the Moscow School of Industrial Art. He worked for almost ten years at the Moscow Architectural Department. Having become close with underground artists, he devoted himself to creativity—poetry, painting, and music. He called himself a "cultural figure."
At the age of 16, he wrote his first poems, but for 30 years he was not published in his homeland – he was mainly published in émigré publications.
I was engrossed in reading poetry Boris Pasternak и Anna Akhmatova, trying to imitate them. Over time, he developed his own unique style—for example, he liked to end his poems with a short line, which was jokingly called "Prigov's little tail."
Water is leaking from the tap
Clean, transparent and thick
And more than a hundred other qualities
What follows from this?
And it follows: we must live
And sew sundresses from chintz
And you don't want to, tell me
To go to jail for one's beliefs
But you must
He drew inspiration from Soviet reality. One of the recognizable word forms in his poetry, "militiaman," was inspired by life in a Moscow residential area. Belyaevo, in a house near the University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Everything in this world is not accidental:
The killer is sent to kill
A policeman - to enforce laws
But if he kills in uniform
It's not the states that he undermines, it's the laws.
But the secret laws of the universe
Metaphysically he deserves punishment
(The Apotheosis of a Policeman)
In 1986, after a street protest, he was forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital. He was released only thanks to publicity and support.
In 1987, his paintings were exhibited for the first time in the Union. Soon after, he joined the Moscow "KLAVA" (Avant-Garde Club).
In 1990, his poetry was published in the USSR for the first time – a collection entitled “Tears of the Heraldic Soul” was published.
Just wash the dishes
Look, there's a new one lying there.
What kind of freedom is there?
I wish I could live here until old age.
True, you don't have to wash it.
Yes, different people come here
They say: the dishes are dirty -
Where is there any freedom here?
He set himself the goal of writing 24 poems by the year 2000, which he successfully accomplished, but was condemned for this by some critics (“you have to bake poems like mushrooms”).
In total, he wrote more than 35 thousand poems.
A woman kicked me on the subway.
Well, pushing there is no problem
Here she clearly went too far.
The stick and the whole thing was crossed
In the rank of unnecessary personal relationships
Naturally, I kicked back.
But he immediately asked for forgiveness -
It's just that I was a superior person.
He wrote song lyrics and performed with the rock band "NTO Recept." He also founded the parody rock band "Central Russian Upland," where he became famous for his signature "kikimora cry."
In 1996, he called for an end to the war in Chechnya.
Prigov's most popular autobiographical works are "Live in Moscow" and "Only My Japan." His third novel was intended to be a confessional, but the author never completed it.
Shortly before his death, he planned to take part in a performance by the Voina group – he was supposed to sit in a closet and read his poems while being carried up the stairs to the 22nd floor.
He died in 2007 in hospital after a heart attack. He was 66.