Yegor Letov

Letov died of heart failure in his sleep on 19 February 2008 at his home in Omsk. He was 43 years old.

Letov was always a controversial figure. While some considered him as a genius, others completely rejected him. Famous musical critic Artemy Troitsky spoke of Letov as a poseur, misanthrope and very pretentious person, whose musical abilities were "very mediocre" (this, though, might be a reaction to Letov's attack on Troitsky in 1990 at the Alexander Bashlachev memorial concert, where he publicly accused Troitsky in "conversion of whole Soviet rock into shit"). Poet Elena Fanailova stated that Letov was "really fucked up and really free artist, whose main and only mission was to experience limits of his own freedom" and "certainly large, significant author, who created his own world – which, though, works only in the context of the post-Soviet civilization". Most contemporary critics consider Letov an important person in the post-Soviet culture and one of the best Russian poets of the late 20th century, although disputes about this status are still common; while the importance of his legacy is not denied, controversy remains regarding his radical political statements. As for Letov himself, he repeatedly stated that his personal views and opinions, or even his person, should be of no interest to anyone, and that his art is the only thing that matters:

In 1985, the dissident philosophy expressed in Letov's lyrics, as well as his popularity throughout the USSR, resulted in a KGB-initiated internment for three months in a mental hospital, where Letov was forced to take anti-psychotic drugs. On his release, he defiantly wrote a song about Lenin "rotting in his mausoleum".

Two years later, in 1984, Letov left the technical school and returned to Omsk. At this time, he had already started writing poetry and short stories and decided to try music. Letov mostly listened to Rock in Opposition and free jazz in the early '80s, and his first recordings were amateurish garage rock using suitcases instead of drums. Later, Letov characterized these recordings as "talentless curiosity", "baby talk", and "shame and reproach". Soon he found fellow musicians and companions in Omsk, who listened to the same type of music, which was unpopular and little known in the USSR, especially in Siberia, and they started the garage rock band Posev (Russian: Посев, lit. 'sowing, crop, seeds'). The most important of these companions was Konstantin Ryabinov (better known as Kuzya UO or Kuzma), a musician and poet, who was Letov's comrade-in-arms in Grazhdanskaya Oborona up to the late 90s, and a close friend. Posev became Grazhdanskaya Oborona in November 1984.

Letov was a polarizing figure in the Soviet Union. He was controversial in the mid-to-late 1980s when he satirized the Soviet system and developed a gritty Siberian punk sound. After the fall of the Soviet Union, during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, Letov developed a fan base among nationalists and communists due to his strong opposition of Yeltsin's government. Letov was one of the founders and the first member of the National Bolshevik Party. He ceased contact with the party around 1999 and distanced himself from politics. In his 2007 interview with Rolling Stone Russia, Letov stated: "In fact, I have always been an anarchist—and I still am. But now I'm more into ecological aspects of contemporary anarchism, eco-anarchism, that's what I've been moving toward recently". In 1997, Letov married Natalia Chumakova, the bass guitarist of Grazhdanskaya Oborona.

In the late 1980s, Letov was close with Yanka Dyagileva, though it's not clear whether they were partners or not. He was married to Anna Volkova in the 1990s and to Natalia Chumakova from 1998 until his death. Letov had no children, as he and Chumakova both had childfree views.

Igor Fedorovich "Yegor" Letov (Russian: И́горь Фёдорович "Его́р" Ле́тов, IPA: [ˈiɡərʲ ˈfʲɵdərəvʲɪtɕ jɪˈɡor ˈlʲetəf]; 10 September 1964 – 19 February 2008) was a Russian poet, musician, singer-songwriter, audio engineer and conceptual artist, best known as the founder and leader of the post-punk/psychedelic rock band Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Russian: Гражданская Оборона, lit. 'Civil Defense'). He was also the founder of the conceptual art avant-garde project Kommunizm and psychedelic rock outfit Egor i Opizdenevshie. Letov collaborated with singer-songwriter Yanka Dyagileva and other Siberian underground artists as a record engineer and producer.

In an interview, Letov expressed that his favorite poets were Alexander Vvedensky (1904–1941), one of the OBERIU writers, and the Russian Futurist poets, such as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Aleksei Kruchenykh. At the beginning of his interest in poetry he was influenced by the Austrian poet Erich Fried. He also expressed his interest in Conceptualism, and spoke of his own work in punk music and in creating a public image as a work of conceptual performance art. Letov's favorite writers, who considerably affected his world view and writing style, were Andrei Platonov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry Miller, Bruno Schulz, Flann O'Brien, Leonid Andreev, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Kōbō Abe, and Kenzaburō Ōe. His worldview was also inspired by Existentialist philosophy, traditions of Russian Cosmism, and Latin American magic realism (Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez).