Second Conceptualist Wave (Parschikov, Iskrenko, Arabov, Irten'ev, Bunimovich, Druk, Rubinstein)

          If by XX century, we truly mean a “short century” (1914-1989) beginning from a shot in Saraevo and ending with the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the second conceptualist wave concludes this chapter of the Russian poetry.

          Most of these poets were already in their thirties and forties when they first appeared in public during the Perestroika years (1985-1989), and, some continue their poetic oeuvre in the new Russia (or America). The brightest stars of this generation, Parschikov and Iskrenko, are deceased, the “last decadent” Yuri Arabov (whom author remembers as looking like a very large insect) became accomplished screenwriter and Evgenii Bunimovich launched a successful career in Moscow City politics.

        Another umbrella term used to describe them is “Moscow mytho-poets”, which accurately characterizes their main unifying feature as the troubadours of the collective (sub) consciousness of the Soviet era quickly descending into a popular myth.  

First Conceptualist Wave: Genrikh Sapgir, Igor Kholin, Sosnora, etc.

O. Rabin, Money, 2001.

The poets of the first conceptualist wave approached a union as much as it could be done in the police state of the USSR. Its best-known poets: Genrikh Sapgir and Igor Kholin belonged to semi-formal "Lianozovo" group together with the painter Oskar Rabin (b. 1928) and, at least for some time, novelist, playwright and essayist Benedict Yerofeev who penned the greatest Russian novel of the second half of the XX century, "Moscow to Petushki." Sosnora (b. 1936) was personally and socially close to the St. Petersburg neo-classicist circle (Brodsky, A. Kushner, the Lifshitses, father and son, E. Rein) but, artistically, very different from them.  The FCW poets provided an important link between the pre-war Russian avant-guard and the Second Conceptualist Wave concluding the Soviet period in Russian poetry. (Rubinstein, Parschikov, Kibirov, etc.) One of the distinguishing characteristics of the FCW poets, which joined them with pre-War Oberiuyts, was their co-mingling with contemporary (underground and semi-underground) painters, sculptors, performance organizers, etc.

G. Sapgir has been translated by already mentioned A. Kudryavitsky, who prohibits reproduction of his verse.

Г. Сапгир (1928-1999)













                                                                                                         И. Холин (1920-1999)