Vadim Zhuk spoke about the life and death of Lev Rubinstein, his novels on cards

“This is a manner of expressing one’s inner world, a show-off that has become literature”

On January 14, the poet, publicist, public figure, leader of Moscow conceptualism Lev Rubinstein died. He was 76 years old. On January 8, he was walking along a pedestrian crossing near his home when he was hit by a car. Lev Semenovich was hospitalized with a traumatic brain injury. The condition was serious, but hope remained. Lev Rubinstein died in the intensive care unit of the Institute. Sklifosovsky, without regaining consciousness.

Lev Rubinstein was born on February 19, 1947 in Moscow, graduated from the philological faculty of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, and worked as a librarian, which later influenced the choice of his original style. He wrote down his works on library cards, collecting a rich card index. Together with Dmitry Prigov and Vsevolod Nekrasov, Lev Rubinstein became the founder of Moscow conceptualism. He began to engage in literary activity back in the 1960s, writing “Signs of the Times”, “Causal Time”, “The Whole Year. My calendar.” His books have been awarded the Andrei Bely and Nose awards.

We talked with Lev Semenovich’s colleague and friend, poet, playwright, and director Vadim Zhuk.

– You’ve probably known each other for a long time?

– We haven’t known each other for very long, but very well. I’m a recent Muscovite. Living in Leningrad, he was more interested in theater. When we met Lyova, we naturally became friends. The concept of “conceptualism” does not warm me, does not give anything new, does not expand my understanding of art and life, but what he did was surprisingly human. It was named by God knows what kind of nasty word, but reading his cards and especially hearing him read them himself was fascinating. Suddenly life appeared, and several novels were placed on the cards. His formulas were extremely succinct and unusually simple. It seemed that anyone could do something like this, but just try. Later it became a technique, but at first it looked like unusual literature, when a phrase, one word, intonation entailed a huge train of royal meanings, which included a mouse, pages, and the Tower.

Leva was my friend and interlocutor, and in recent years they have fallen out of my life more often than teeth. There are a limited number of them left. It was possible to talk to Leva in a fun and non-offensive way. Our stock of knowledge is approximately the same. He may have more in one direction, I have more in the other. This gave us the opportunity to have meaningful conversations when we met almost by chance in the city, or during his special visits to our dacha. And we had so many meaningless conversations – it’s impossible to retell. Leva’s departure is another and very serious loss for one human life. All of us living today have lost such interlocutors as Francois Villon, Vyazemsky, as well as the circle of the Satyricon magazine. Losing contemporaries is especially scary, offensive, and irreparable.

– How and what has Lev Semenovich lived lately?

– Literature. He was a quite ambitious man. I don’t say vain, but ambitious. He lived by the release of books, his reviews, his memories, which he turned into literature. Each of us has memories. Is it possible that fewer people than him remember how they ate in the 1950s, how they walked in the 60s and went to college in the 70s… But only he made it into literature, writing the book “The Whole Year.” His memories replaced his writing of novels. They require a qualified reader, capable of stitching together from individual phrases, passages, visual images the time that Leva so generously and interestingly presented to us, starting from objects, ending with meetings and grinding facts of history. This is what he lived for, in my opinion. He, of course, still lived with rejection of dishonest and aggressive reality, and was a wonderful fighter and drummer.

– Why did he still write on cards? Did they emphasize the value of every word worthy of being recorded separately?

– This is a show-off that has become literature, an invention. Artists also come up with a new style of writing. No one had ever written like this before. For example, Munch came up with his own way of applying paint. Or Kandinsky with his abstract paintings – it’s so interesting. Lev Rubinstein’s cards are a way of expressing your inner world. At first, perhaps, it was perceived as foppishness and nonsense, but he made something new out of his librarian profession. It dawned on him at some point, and he came up with these cards, a technique that became literature. This will last us a long time. Life and death take our people away. They are knocked out of positions, they are hit by cars. We are tired of counting losses. Lev Rubinstein forever remained an intelligent, worthy and very honest person.