Apparent Idiot Considered Russia’s Greatest Poet

Maxim Maximovitch Sazonov, a posthumously discovered Cold War Russian poet, was obsessed with rubber and apples.

One overlooked, undoubtedly tragic, consequence of the Cold War was the isolation of Eastern European artists and philosophers. Suppressed, imprisoned or even executed, some of these creative geniuses were prevented from publicizing works which did not toe the communist line. Sometimes Soviet leaders even executed artists who did not satisfy their demands. Stalin, for example, shot the portrait painter Bogdogovich for depicting the dictator with crude, yellowing teeth.

Since the end of the Cold War, however, Western researchers have been unearthing the works of many Eastern European artists, casting light on their rich, underground activity.

Towering over his oppressed contemporaries stands Maxim Maximovitch Sazonov, philosopher and poet, whose bleak vision of an absurd world may eventually earn him a posthumous reputation as one of the strongest poets in Russian history.

Sazonov: Early Life

Sazonov’s nihilistic vision of the world seems inevitable considering his impoverished upbringing. Born in 1930 in Leningrad, Sazonov lived his entire life behind the iron curtain. He was a sickly child: small, red-headed, with only one eyebrow — a…