Memory of a friend

On the night of July 15 to 16, 2007 in Moscow, in the cardiology department of the 23rd (Yauz) hospital, Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov died.

Mikhail Aizenberg

When a person dies, his main feature, its foundation, immediately manifests itself. And so it seems to me that Dima had this main feature some kind of inner resistance and courage. As far as I know, a heart disease almost constantly keeps a person in a state of some sort of exhaustion. And it is absolutely incredible how he overcame this feeling for so many years, this condition and how quickly he lived, at what speed. His inner clock, they ahead of the clock of all the others, and because of this, we just really did not have time to see and understand everything that he did. And yet, it is very disappointing that the quantitative factor seemed to obscure the rest and did not allow the majority to understand the true scale of Dima, for which the main, as it seems to me, was an incredible cultural and social intuition, which made it in the 70-80s one of the main authors, a cultural hero. He is a genius of genre innovation, he created a lot of genres and made them a fact of culture.

Victor Koval

Our relations with Dmitry Alexandrovich were largely connected, relatively speaking, with acting, theatrical life. Together we performed in the Almanac group, and this is a poetic concert. We performed at different sites in Moscow, Russia, and abroad (Yaroslavl, Puppet Theater, Pushkin Theater, Cambridge - there were so many things). And life-these were dressing rooms-growers, like a football team, after the match, they brought each other, somehow supported each other. And the tour is a feast. Dmitry Alexandrovich, I must say, was in this touring life as in his element, although the composition of our group was quite diverse. Once, when there were few people on our speeches and I was very worried that no one came, he asked me: "And what, Viktor Stanislavovich, is it not indifferent?" - And somehow even put it with his mother. I replied that now, unfortunately, it is not indifferent, because, if I act, I want everything to be fine - the people were good. He said to this: "Yes, Viktor Stanislavovich, a weak man is weak!"

I must say that from the side he looked like such a person - impenetrable, hard, even evil, and I often had to see him in a very lyrical, even sometimes confused, somehow even confused. In my presence, I remember, he once talked on the phone with his wife, and she scolded him terribly for some kind of mistake. When he hung up, he told me: “Well, I released the steam - and immediately it would probably be with my girlfriends now and forget about something and forget instantly. But I’ll remember this all day, and everything will be from my hands to fall.” And it was not at all a joke, it was very vulnerable. And for many, I think he was such a Dmitry Alexandrovich - cast from metal.

I recall the scene in the actor’s house (it was a very long time ago). On New Year's Eve, every literary, artistic public gathered there. And so I went to the toilet, there were a lot of booths - and I hear that one cabin is talking with another. And he recognized Dmitry Alexandrovich and Lev Semenovich Rubinstein in these voices, and they talked about art. It was a rather long dialogue, they read all this on a piece of paper, sitting in the appropriate poses, rustled specially with pieces of paper, i.e. There was some theatricality in reading these texts. And the texts, judging by the content, were announced as a promotion or performance. And I remember, I wanted to join this dialogue. For a long time they read it, after that they went out, washed their hands and exchanged hands with handshake. It was, as I later understood, such a small performance for those who are lucky at that time to be in the toilet. Then I told Dmitry Alexandrovich that he was standing, listening and also wanted to take part, and it was for me to object, the conversation was about art, and it was intentionally scientific to emphasize the situation. Dmitry Alexandrovich then told me that I did not turn on in vain, everything was done and so that the audience was involved, so that the conversation was expanding, so that the conversation was useful. And I answered him: "You were so cracking, Dmitry Alexandrovich as a machine gun, that I did not have the opportunity to insert a word." And he is for this: "A conversation for you, Viktor Stanislavovich, was doubly useful, learn to think faster."

Pushkin from the ship of our time, of course, was not going to blame. Just Prigov always had a stable bewilderment, why it is necessary to write poetry in the style of Pushkin, Akhmatova, Zabolotsky. He asked such a question, but I do not think that he gave this bewilderment some kind of revolutionary meaning for himself, he just wanted to master some other style. Well, for example, this well -known hanging line is the last line that leads to another plane. I always have what he did, treated with a huge food.

I recall that once it was a seminar for someone in the apartment, and there was Dmitry Alexandrovich, Lev Rubinstein, Victor Erofeev, Sheinker, Sorokin lay somewhere in the corner on the couch. This term was discussed - conceptualism. Everyone (and Dmitry Aleksandrovich himself) then came to the conclusion that this is some terrible term and henceforth needs to replace it with the words "well, this is what we are talking about" or "this is what we do not want to talk about." And then this term went into the people and, apparently, became generally perplexed. But this is still a very symbol, although if someone wants to be a conceptualist, in general, no one bothers him.

Leo Rubinstein

Prigov was one of the brightest modern poets, at least noticeable, memorable, who created his own, recognizable poetic system. But it seems to me that his general cultural role in a sense is wider, since he combined the many, in my opinion, equally brilliantly sustained professions, because he is in no means the artist, in the unusual degree of a performer and, so to speak, a showman. This was all perfectly combined with him, nothing interfered with anything, one another complemented. And when they ask me who he is by profession, I always say: he is by profession - Prigov. Dmitry Alexandrovich created a certain, in a sense, a new, very synthetic or even syncretic type of modern author, artist.

Evgeny Saburov

The death of Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov is a big loss, mournful news. This is very sad. Especially if you take into account that Dima, unlike us, did not drink, did not smoke and played sports, then this, of course, is very unexpected and terrible. But, probably, our feelings, feelings closely knew him, are not quite what the reader needs. As a poet Dima, in my opinion, performed a very important and very difficult function in modern Russian literature. What is called conceptualism today or somehow differently is the avant-garde course that originated somewhere in the 50-60s and is associated with the names of Kholin, Satunovsky and, above all, Vsevolod Nikolaevich Nekrasov, which, of course, is a living classic. But this current was unknown to the reader, there was no bridge, there was no intermediary who would bring this way of thinking, this image of a verse, the sound of living speech - all that these poets carried. This role was taken by the Prigov and Rubinstein and, I must say, they coped with it very successfully. They became popular, they have become noticeable, and now all this has forever entered Russian poetry. This role is extremely difficult and is usually not given to poets-prisoners, they have completely different abilities. This is the role of Fet, which Tyutchev made not only the fact of Russian literature, but also the fact of Russian culture, which brought people incomprehensible and very poorly read to people, brought to our people. I think that Prigov will read, Prigov will still be a cheerful fact of Russian poetry. And he won his place, and this place is very rather big.

For many years we have been connected by the closest relationship. I was happy to follow everything that he was doing, and received great joy from this. I am sure that this joy to people will bring his poems further. When we met him (and this was a very long time), he just seriously began to engage in poetry, but basically he and the artist Orlov were engaged in art projects. In recent years, he again returned to art activity. This, like all that Dima did, was fun, interesting, talented and, in any case, I hope, somehow woke up people from sleep, to which we are all so weighing.

Talked Mila Saburova

Dmitry Prigov will be buried in the Donskoy cemetery. The funeral service will be held on July 19 at 10:00 in the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi (Small Tolmachevsky Lane, 9), and the wake in the Bilingva club.