Dmitri Strozev
Dmitri Strozev (in Russian Дмитрий Строцев) was born in Minsk in 1963 and is one of the major voices of Russian-language poetry in Belarus. He began publishing his neo-futuristic poems, which follow on from such texts as the absurd grotesques of the OBERIU writers Daniil Charms and Alexander Vvedensky. In the Perestroika years, Strozev was active in the Belorusskijklimat (Belarusian Climate) group of artists which was known for their cross-genre action art, performances, environments and installations. Since the 1980s, Strozev has shifted the principles of his poetics a few times, most recently and especially radically after 2012, when he dampened his poetic virtuosity in favour of documentary observation and turned to predominantly social and political subjects. Strozevs current output of poems have been described by his fellow-poet Andrei Khadanovich, who is also taking part in this year’s VERSschmuggel/reVERSible, as “one of the most appropriate responses to the political events that shook Belarus in the Summer and Autumn of 2020”. Strozev, he goes on, transports the whole range of emotions, “from sublime and at the same time naive euphoria at the sight of the self-empowerment of the defenceless, peaceful demonstrators to the bitter sarcasm that the powerless anger at the cruelty and cynicism of the inhuman regime turned into”. Strozev is the author of 16 collections of poetry, director of the publishing project Novye Mechi, editor of the Almanach and the poetry series Minskaja škola (Minsk School). He is a member of the Belarusian writers’ association and PEN.
Publications (Selection):
Šag (The Step). Novye Mechi, 2015.
Gazeta (The Newspaper). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2012.
Butylkisveta (Bottles of Light). Centr sovremennoj literatury, 2009.
Ostrov Ce (Island C). Novye Mechi, 2002.
Vinograd (Grapes). Vinograd, 1997.
38. Kovčeg, 1990.
Awards:
2020: Norwegian Authors’ Union’s Freedom of Speech Award
2008: Russkaya Premiya (Russian Prize) for the Promotion of Russian-Language Writers from Abroad
