侵攻批判のロシア詩人、車にはねられ死亡　７６歳

【ロシアＡＦＰ＝時事】ロシアの詩人レフ・ルビンシテイン氏（７６）が、首都モスクワで車にはねられた後に死亡したと、娘が１４日、明らかにした。旧ソ連の地下文学界で中心的な存在だった同氏は近年、ウラジーミル・プーチン大統領に抗議していた。（写真は、ロシア・モスクワで取材に応じる詩人のレフ・ルビンシテイン氏。ＡＦＰＴＶの映像より〈資料写真〉）
　ルビンシテイン氏は、ロシアの芸術運動「コンセプチュアリズム」の創始者の一人に数えられ、１９７０～８０年代に社会主義リアリズムの公式教義をやゆした前衛芸術家だった。
　同氏は８日、車にはねられて重傷を負い、入院していた。
　モスクワ交通当局は、道を渡っていたルビンシテイン氏に対し、「運転手はスピードを落とさなかった」と説明した。これまでに入っている情報によると、この運転手は直近の１２か月で１９件の交通違反を犯していたという。
　２０２２年のウクライナ侵攻開始後、ルビンシテイン氏は他の著名作家と連名で出した公開書簡で、「言語道断の戦争」とロシア大統領府の「うそ」を非難していた。
　ロシア人権団体「メモリアル」はＸ（旧ツイッター）に、同氏を追悼する長文を投稿。「今日のロシアには、自由な市民や詩人には居場所がない」と記した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/01/16-16:48）

Russian poet Lev Rubinstein, a key figure of the Soviet underground literary scene who later protested against President Vladimir Putin, has died days after being hit by a car, his daughter said Sunday.
Rubinstein is considered as one of the founders of the Russian conceptualist movement, a literary avant-garde that mocked the official doctrine of socialist realism in the 1970s-1980s.
My dad, Lev Rubinstein, died today, his daughter Maria wrote on a LiveJournal blog picked up by Russian media.
The 76-year-old was hit by a car in Moscow on January 8 and hospitalised in a serious condition.
The Moscow department of transport said the driver did not slow down as Rubinstein was crossing the street.
According to preliminary information, the driver who hit Rubinstein had been involved in 19 traffic violations in 12 months, the department said.
Human rights organisation Memorial didn't mince its words.
Today's Russia leaves no room for free citizens and poets, it wrote in a long homage to the writer. It doesn't see them on pedestrian crossings.
When Putin launched his full-scale assault on Ukraine in 2022, Rubinstein had signed with other renowned writers an open letter denouncing a criminal war and the lies from the Kremlin.
- 'Bitterly symbolic' -
Born in Moscow in 1947, Rubinstein went on to create his own genre, between poetry and theatre, by writing short sentences on perforated cards and reading the note-card poems on stage.
His daily work as a librarian and the bureaucracy of the Soviet era inspired his performances, which combined absurd comedy and improvisation.
In its tribute, Memorial said Rubinstein had a perception of ordinary life which was sharp, poetic, astute and ironic, he was himself a way of perceiving the world.
After the USSR collapsed, Rubinstein shot to prominence and saw his work widely published by leading Russian publishing houses.
He was invited to international poetry festivals and his works were translated into many languages.
Rubinstein also worked as a journalist.
He was openly hostile to Putin's government and regularly protested against the Kremlin's intensifying repression and human rights violations.
He denounced the war in Chechnya, the 2014 annexation of Crimea and took part in opposition demonstrations, before taking aim at the invasion of Ukraine.
Rubinstein had not been arrested or prosecuted during the conflict in Ukraine, Memorial said, even as the Kremlin's repression reached new heights.
But his tragic death in January 2024, just on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the catastrophe seems bitterly symbolic, Memorial continued.
Our tense desperation and hope, the powerlessness and fear of the past days, the coma and muteness of Lev Rubinstein -- this is us today, it added.
Russian authorities have launched an investigation into the accident, the transport department said.