Writer Venedikt Erofeev’s birthday is marked with flowers at the memorial plaque

Today’s birthday of the Russian writer Venedikt Erofeev is not a round date, but in the early morning two burgundy cloves appeared at the memorial plaque located on the facade of the old building of the Vladimir Pedagogical Institute, where he studied for some time. The popularly known author of the scandalous poem in prose "Moscow-Petushki", today would have turned 74 years old.

Surely, in the Moscow square, where a monument was erected to his heroes - a man holding a small suitcase tightly to himself, and a woman whom he could not get to on the journey described in the work of Venedikt Erofeev, flowers also appeared. Not many literary works belong to the writer’s pen, but each book written by Erofeev has become a notable phenomenon in Russian literature. The play “Walpurgis Night” was staged in many theaters in the country, and the drama theater in Vladimir did not pass it by, where it was shown to the audience for two seasons (1990-1991).

To the poem "Moscow-Petushki" to this day, the attention of directors is not weakening. No wonder this ambiguous work, written by the author in the first person, is considered the most significant in his work. The poem was written by Erofeev at the beginning of the seventieth year, it was published for the first time in Israel in 1973, then it was published in 1977 in a Paris publishing house. Readers of the USSR the book "Moscow-Petushki" in those years was available only in samizdat reprints.

In our country, this work, ironically, appeared in a magazine with a title that is extremely contrary to the lifestyle of the hero Venedikt Erofeev. It was the magazine "Sobriety and Culture", which in December 1988 began to print the poem "Moscow-Petushki", however, without profanity. The book has been translated in many countries.

Ludmila Trautmane