Dmitry Kuzmin
Encyclopedia
Biography
Dmitry Kuzmin was born in MoscowMoscow
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...
, son of the architect Vladimir Legoshin and the literary critic Edwarda Kuzmina; among his grandparents were the critic Boris Kuzmin and the prominent literary translator Nora Gal
Nora Gal
Nora Gal , full name Eleonora Yakovlevna Galperina was a Soviet translator, literary critic, and translation theorist.She was born on April 27, 1912 in Odessa. Her father was a medical doctor. As a child, she moved to Moscow with her family. After several unsuccessful attempts she was admitted to...
. In 1985-87 he was enrolled in philology at the Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
, but was expelled from it. He graduated with a Bachelor degree in philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
from the Moscow State Pedagogical University
Moscow State Pedagogical University
The Moscow State Pedagogical University, previously known as the Moscow University for Women, the Second Moscow State University, the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute and the Moscow State V. I...
in 1993. For a brief period of time he was employed as a teacher of literature in a Moscow secondary school. In 2005, he got a PhD for his thesis on one-line poems
Monostich
A monostich is a poem which consists of a single line.The following is an example:A monostich could be also titled; due to the brevity of the form, the title is invariably as important a part of the poem as the verse itself:...
. He lives in Moscow.
Activities
Kuzmin started his literary career in 1988 by organizing a group of poets who now are known as the "Vavilon" circle of poets/writers (which means BabylonBabylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
). He and his friends started publishing an independent book series called “ The Library of Young Literature”. In 1993 he founded the ARGO-RISK Press (Russian: АРГО-РИСК), an independent poetry press. In 1996 he published the first issue of the gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
almanac called RISK. In 1997 he created the e-library Vavilon.ru, ca. 180 Russian writers enlisted. Kuzmin declared that the main purpose of the site was to resist the huge wave of “commercial literature”, which began flooding the Russian market for the first time since the 1920s. In 2007, he founded LitKarta, a reference site that provides information on ca. 1300 members of the Russian literary community. Yet in 1997 he was mentioned as "a leading figure in Moscow literary life"; ten years later he is treated as "the most prolific curator of Russian poetry in the early 21st century" and "the most advanced content-provider and promoter of the contemporary Russian poetry tendencies".
Kuzmin organised quite a number of poetry readings and festivals, "non-commercial", as he referred to them. He claims that he has published about 300 books by other writers - as he puts it, "these are small modest publications, but they aren’t chapbooks — they are complete, full-fledged collections". He won a few awards for promotion of the works by young writers (including the Andrei Bely Prize
Andrei Bely Prize
The Andrei Bely Prize is the oldest independent literary prize awarded in Russia. It was established in 1978 by the staff of Hours, the largest samizdat literary journal in Leningrad, to recognize excellence in three categories: prose, poetry, and theory...
in 2002; then he served for this award as its Committee member). Since 2006 he has been editing the literary magazine called Vozdukh, "the newest undertaking of the effervescent young poet, critic and publisher" as Canadian slavist Allan Reid put it. In 2007, the assembly of the editors of leading Russian literary magazines voted against including Vozdukh in "Zhurnalny Zal", the Internet Library of Russian Literary Magazines, this decision was claimed controversial and unfair by some Russian authors including Boris Dubin
Boris Dubin
Boris Vladimirovich Dubin is a Russian sociologist, and a translator for English, French, Spanish, Latin American and Polish literature. Dubin is the head of department of sociopolitical researches at the Levada Center and the assistant to Lev Gudkov, editor-in-chief of the sociological journal...
and Alexei Tsvetkov
Alexei Tsvetkov
Alexei Petrovich Tsvetkov is a Russian poet and essayist. Not to be confused with Alexei Vyacheslavovich Tsvetkov , a younger journalist, an editor of Limonka newspaper.-Biography:Alexei Tsvetkov grew up in Zaporizhia and briefly studied chemistry at the Odessa...
. Kuzmin is also a member of the Advisory Board for St. Petersburg Review
St. Petersburg Review
St. Petersburg Review is an American literary magazine whose mission is to provide a forum for cultural and literary exchange reflective of current social, political, and literary landscapes....
.
Kuzmin actively promotes gay culture and fights homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
. Kuzmin's poems (including explicitly gay) and essays appeared in some Russian literary magazines. In 2008 he published a collection of his poems and translations. Some translations of his poems into English (A Public Space
A Public Space
A Public Space is a quarterly English-language literary magazine based in Brooklyn, New York. First published in April 2006. A Public Space publishes fiction, poetry, essays and art...
, Habitus
Habitus: A Diaspora Journal
Habitus: A Diaspora Journal is a semiannual magazine of international literature and culture.The magazine's mission statement begins: "Habitus is a Jewish magazine that takes the whole world seriously...
, Aufgabe e. a.), French (Europe
Europe (magazine)
- History :Created by Romain Rolland and a group of French writers, the literary magazine Europe began on 15 February 1923. It is still published by Éditions Rieder....
magazine), Italian, and Slovenian are published.
As editor
- The almanac: RISK (In Russian:1996-2000)
- The haiku almanac: Triton (In Russian:2000-2004)
- Short Texts: An Anthology of One-Line Poems (In Russian:2000)
- Ulysses Released: Contemporary Russian Poets Abroad (In Russian:2004)
- Nine Measurements: An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Poetry (In Russian:2004)
- Contemporary Russian Poetry (In Slovenian:2010)
As co-editor
- Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States Dalkey Archive Press, 2004.
- An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets University Of Iowa Press, 2005.
As publisher
- The Series: “Library of Young Russian Writers” (In Russian:1993-1998)
- The Series: “Generations” (In Russian:2004–present)
- The Series: “Vozdukh” (In Russian:2004–present)
- The Poetry Journal Vozdukh (In Russian:2006–present)
English Translations of His Poems
Some of his poems have been translated into English and have appeared in the following publications:- Essay in Poetics: Journal of Neo-Formalist Circle. Newcastle, Keel University, 1994. / Tr. Robert Reid
- Out of the Blue: Russia's Hidden Gay Literature. An Anthology. Edited by Kevin Moss. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1996. / Tr. Vitaly Chernetsky
- Crossing Centuries: The New Wave in Russian Poetry. Jersey City, Talisman House Publishers, 2000. / Tr. Vitaly Chernetsky