Literary critic Valentin Kurbatov has died

Literary critic Valentin Kurbatov has died at the age of 82, said Sergey Shargunov, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Culture.

As Igor Smolkin, chairman of the board of the Pskov branch of the Writers' Union of Russia, clarified , Kurbatov became ill on the street in Pskov, after which he died.

Valentin Kurbatov was born on September 29, 1939, in 1972 he graduated from the film studies department of VGIK. After that, Kurbatov began to write reviews and articles, published in the magazines "Our Contemporary", "Foreign Literature", the newspapers "Culture", "Literary Review", "Literary Gazette" and others.

Kurbatov was the author of books about Russian writers and prefaces to collected works, and was a member of the jury for the Yasnaya Polyana and National Bestseller literary awards. He was also a member of the Public Chamber, the Presidential Council for Culture and the Writers' Union of Russia. In 2020, the critic received the State Prize in the field of literature and art for his contribution to the preservation and development of the traditions of Russian literature.