Lev Rubinstein

Lev Semyonovich Rubinstein (; 19 February 1947 – 14 January 2024) was a Russian essayist, journalist, poet, and social activist. He was a founder and member of Moscow Conceptualism.

Biography Born on 19 February 1947 in Moscow to Jewish parents, Rubinstein studied philology at Moscow Pedagogical Institute for Correspondence Studies (now: Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities). After graduating, he worked as a librarian and bibliographer with his alma mater, where he encountered the catalog cards that would inspire his "notecard poems". In the 1970s and 1980s, Rubinstein became a major writer in the underground Soviet literary scene, particularly for his association with Moscow Conceptualism. In his later career, Rubinstein transitioned to journalism and social activism, writing for Itogi and the Weekly Journal. He won the Andrei Bely Prize for scholarship in the humanities in 1999. Rubinstein was married to Irina Golovinskaya and had one daughter, Maria. and died of his injuries six days later at the age of 76. The driver of the car was subsequently convicted to a suspended prison term of one year and eight months and banned from driving for two-and-a-half years.

Work Rubinstein was known for his "notecard poems", wherein each stanza is represented on a separate notecard. These notecards highlight the text as both an object and a unit of expression. To read the poem, the reader must interact with the text on a physical level. Although each stanza is discrete and numbered, the cards must nonetheless be read in their prescribed order.

Rubinstein's poems incorporate several forms of literary expression. They move between verse and prose, sometimes adopting the form of a play or even containing cues for the audience.