The oldest independent literary award of the Russian Federation ceases to exist

The oldest independent literary award in Russia – the Andrei Bely Award – ceases to exist after the death of its founders.

Borys Ostanin, a writer from St. Petersburg, a self-publishing and underground figure in Soviet times, died recently. Together with Boris Ivanov in 1978, he created the independent and uncensored Andrey Bely award. It went through a number of transformations, it existed until recently – more than 40 years. Its laureates in different years were famous writers and humanities scholars. The award was highly valued, although its material content from Soviet times remained one ruble, a bottle of vodka and an apple.

Boris Ivanov died earlier. With the death of Ostanin, the remains of the founders of the Andrey Bely Center are no longer alive. “Formally, after the death of Boris Ivanov and Boris Ostanin, the Andrey Bely Award cannot exist,” Zylberburg writes. “If not informally, then the authority of the Prize was created in the years when its founders, desperate to exist in conditions of silence, became organizers and leaders of the Leningrad Samizdat, in their underground magazines, which were read far outside Leningrad, they published writers and poets not recognized by the Soviet power… New time deserves new despair and new courage, which should result in new awards, and the Andrey Bely Award, I believe, is ending its existence,” she wrote further.

Not all commentators on Facebook agreed with this decision, although they did not dispute its legality. There are proposals to re-establish the award, such as the award in memory of Boris Ostanin.