Unksova, Kari Vasilievna

She was born on October 21, 1941 in the suburbs of Alma-Ata. Parents - geologists Vasily Alexandrovich Unksov and Taisiya Nikolaevna Ivanova worked in Kazakhstan before the war. They returned to Leningrad in 1945. Laureates of the Stalin Prize of the first degree of 1952 for the discovery and exploration of minerals ^[1] .

In 1965 she graduated from the geological faculty of Leningrad State University . She studied at the graduate school of the Mining Institute . Literary critic Alexander Pavlovich Kvyatkovsky , author of "Poetic Dictionary", draws attention to her youthful poems. Kari was well acquainted with the unofficial poetic life of Leningrad, met with Joseph Brodsky , was friends with Alexei Khvostenko and Henri Volokhonsky .

Since 1971, Kari has made creative and friendly ties in the Russian-language literary environment of Tallinn . She listened to the lectures of Yuri Lotman in Tartu , translated Estonian poets, including Maria Under . There she wrote a series of Tallinn diaries. In Tallinn, in the Estonian Writers' Union , Kari's only official recital was held.

Since 1973, Kari has been trying to get publications in Moscow . Boris Slutsky gives her a recommendation in the magazine “ Change ”, in 1974 the magazine publishes poetry and declares her the laureate of the year. Very warmly speaks about her David Samoilov . She reads a lot in the workshops of artists, with friends, in the "salon" of Lyudmila Kuznetsova. The large room in which the hostess arranged exhibitions of unrecognized artists of Moscow and Leningrad was in a communal apartment on Bolshaya Sadovaya , house 10 ( 302 bis ), on the ground floor in entrance 6, on the 5th floor is now the Bulgakov Museum . After Kuznetsova participated in the Bulldozer Exhibition, the salon became especially popular, there were foreign diplomats in it, the police increased vigilance.

In February 1975, an exhibition of Leningrad artists took place there, which ended in a police siege. Kari was actively involved in organizing and maintaining contacts with the Leningrad nonconformists ; she herself collected a collection of paintings, brought paintings to Moscow to participate in exhibitions. Student friendship connected her with the artist Eugene Rukhin . His memory and the tragic death during the fire in the workshop are devoted to the “New Lyric Cycle” and the cycle “Simple Poems”, the poem “Past days disgraced”.

July 4, 1978 in Leningrad, Kari with young musician friends participated in a mass youth procession in connection with the cancellation of the concert of Carlos Santana .

On August 28, 1979 at the Mikhailovsky Castle, the concert of the Aquarium group was canceled, the visitors were detained. Kari Unksova, Viktor Rezunkov, Andrei Izyumsky , the leader of the Russians group Zhora Ordanovsky and others were in the bullpen . There it was decided to write an appeal to the Leningrad City Executive Committee with an appeal, in order to avoid mass protests of youth, to open a rock club in the city. The rock club was established in 1981.

In 1979, the first Samizdat feminist magazine “ Woman and Russia ” was published in Leningrad, in the creation and distribution of which Kari took part ^[2] . The magazine was quickly seized by the KGB , but it ended up in the West and was immediately translated into French, then Portuguese, Japanese and other languages. Some authors of the magazine were expelled from the country, and surveillance was established for all others. In the same 1979, Kari Unksova, together with the artist Gleb Bogomolov, signed an appeal to the world public with an appeal to protect the Collection Rescue Fund of the collection of George Mikhailov .

In November 1980, Kari was summoned to the police station and sentenced to 15 days “for beating up combatants and insulting them with obscene words” ^[2] . Then she was summoned to the OVIR and offered to apply for relatives to travel to Israel ^[2] .

She had no relatives in Israel; the OVIR organized a fake call ^[2] . Pending permission, life in Leningrad became unbearable due to surveillance, searches, provocations, and threats. Kari hid in Tallinn, from there she moved to Moscow, from Moscow to Tbilisi . The family remained in Leningrad, and Kari returned.

In early May, they were summoned to the OVIR and said that permission had been obtained that she, her husband and two children could prepare for their departure ^[2] .

In the evening of June 3, Kari went out to see sister Marina before the tram, both of them were hit by a car ^[2] . Kari died, her sister was in the hospital for a long time. No judicial investigation has been conducted. Husband Smirnov A. L. with children was not allowed to leave ^[2] . Daughter Lada at that moment was 17 years old, son Alexei - 8.

In 1982, Kari Unksova prepared in the samizdat almanac "Our Personal Responsibility (UFO)." It included, in addition to her own poems, the poems of the poet A. Izyumsky , artist A. Sobolev and V. Rezunkov ^[2] .

“Everything written, except for translations, Kari systematized in the form of six volumes shortly before her death.

The first volume includes youthful works and the small number of poems that was written from 1965 to 1971.

The second volume (1971-1975) - “The Appian Way ”, includes not only poems, but also plays, poems, and a number of works whose genre is not traditional and difficult to define.

The third volume - “ Krishnamurti's Songs” - is a presentation of a specially structured prose closely related to poetry, 33 conversations of Krishnamurti, with poetic inserts.

The fourth volume (1976-1978) begins with the “Letters of Thomas Mann ” and contains a series of cycles: “Ocean”, “New Lyric Cycle”, “Mercy”, “Abandoned Arches”, as well as the prosaic “Autobiography”.

The fifth volume, “The Scenario” (1976-1981), was conceived as a collective work, a kind of realized “ The Bead Game ”, where each author had to play not only his role, but all the others. All that remained of this plan was a mystifying introduction, and Kari did all the work herself.

The sixth volume - “Russia in the Summer” (1982-1983) - ends with a sharp tone in the call to realize responsibility for what is happening. “Five smiles of the intelligentsia” - this poem was destined to become a kind of testament of Kari ”

- A. L. Smirnov. From a report in the club to them. Dostoevsky. November 1985

After the death of Kari, friends and students published in a samizdat a book of approximately 50 copies, including 2, 4, 5, and 6 volumes, exactly as Kari composed.

In 1985, a collection of Kari was published in Tel Aviv , composed of poems taken by emigrants.

• Smena Magazine, No. 24, December 1974
• Kari Unksova. Favorites. 238 pp. Tel Aviv, ed. Lira, 1985
• Magazine "Capital", No. 48 (54), 1991. Kari Unksova, Autobiographical prose. Fragment 2. ^[2]
• Consent Magazine, No. 4-5, 1992
• Arion Magazine No. 1, 1994.
• June 4, 1998, Memorial Society. An evening in memory of Kari Unksova.
• In 2001-2002, the Rainbow magazine (Tallinn) published memories of Kari Tatyana Zazhitskaya.
• “The past days are a disgraceful succession ...”: Artist Evgeny Rukhin and his time. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House. N.I. Novikova, 2005.
• “Kari. Poetry. Prose". November 2009, DEAN Publishing House, St. Petersburg. Compiled, editor, author of memoirs - M.V. Unksova. 528 p.

• Unksova, Kari Vasilievna in the electronic archive of the Andrei Bely Center
• Look: The Sixties // Kari Unksova // And the last I lay a stone
• Unofficial poetry. Anthology. Peter 70s. Kari Unksova
• Zinziver number 2. Kari Unksova
• Halftones - you are the only one ::: The poem on enclosed space
• Tail tail
• Kari Unksova, Dissident Poet
• Kari Unksova 1941-1983