Genrikh Sapgir
Encyclopedia
Genrikh Sapgir was a Russian poet and fiction writer.

Biography

He was born in Biysk to a family of a Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 engineer on a business trip. The family returned to Moscow fairly soon.

"Genrikh Sapgir is the most prominent figure of the writers that came to be associated with the now well-known Lianozovo group (:ru:Лианозовская школа), which also included Vsevolod Nekrasov and Igor Kholin. These Moscow poets sought out new models and positions and exploited the possibilities of inserting common speech directly in their texts. Each of them had a Dostoyevskian eye for everyday Russian life, which made their work immediately accessible."


Since 1959 he published his poetry for children. His other poems appeared only in émigré magazines, such as Continent and Strelets (The Archer).

During the perestroika period

Since 1989 his poetry, short stories, plays and novels have been widely published in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Three volumes of his Collected Poems appeared at the end of 1990s. He represented Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 at numerous international festivals of poetry, his work has been published in translation throughout the world. The English translations of his Psalms by Jim Kates of New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 have been widely anthologised and warmly received. He has also been translated to English by Anatoly Kudryavitsky
Anatoly Kudryavitsky
Anthony Kudryavitsky born in Moscow on 17 August 1954, better known by his pen name Anatoly Kudryavitsky , is a Russian-Irish novelist, poet and literary translator.-Biography:...

 http://sapgir.blogspot.com and Artyom Kotenko & Anthony Weir http://www.beyond-the-pale.co.uk/sapgir.htm Andrew Bromfield published his translations of Sapgir's 'Very Short Stories'. Sapgir was the recipient of various awards including the Pushkin Prize
Pushkin Prize
The Pushkin Prize was established in 1881 by the Russian Academy of Sciences to honor one of the greatest Russian poets Alexander Pushkin . The prize was awarded to the Russian who achieved the highest standard of literary excellence. The prize was discontinued during the Soviet period. It was...

 for poetry.

In 1999 he died of a heart attack in a Moscow trolley-bus on his way to the launch of the anthology of contemporary Russian poetry entitled "Poetry of Silence".

In Sapgir's biography published in 2004, David Shrayer-Petrov called him an "avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 classic".

About Sapgir

  • Smith, A. 'Genrikh Sapgir: Klassik avangarda.' The Slavonic and East European Review
    The Slavonic and East European Review
    The Slavonic and East European Review , the journal of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London, is an international peer-reviewed multidisciplinary academic journal in the fields of social sciences and humanities founded in...

    , Volume 83, Number 4, 1 October 2005, pp. 746–747(2)
  • Kudryavitsky, A. A Night in the Nabokov Hotel: 20 Contemporary Poets from Russia, Introduction, pp. 1–2.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK