Kirill Medvedev


Kirill Medvedev is a Soviet and Russian activist, musician, translator and author who notably gave up the copyright to all his works in 2004. He is a key member of the musical group "Arkadiy Kots."

Early life and education

Kirill Medvedev was born on June 19, 1975, in Moscow. His father Feliks was a well-known post-Soviet journalist and writer. From 1992 to 1995 he studied in the history department at the Moscow State University.

Career

Medvedev published two collections of poetry in his mid twenties: Everything is Bad and Incursion; these were dismissed by some critics as they were autobiographical free verse, which is unusual among Russian poets. He also translated Charles Bukowski into Russian.
In 2003, he renounced his copyright in his "Manifesto on Copyright". Literary scholar Annette Gilbert has interpreted Medvedev’s manifesto and his turning away from the established literary world as a continuation of the resistance of Russian authors against a state-regulated publishing system and samizdat.
In 2007, Medvedev founded the Free Marxist Press, which publishes the works of Ernest Mandel, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Herbert Marcuse, Terry Eagleton, and Russian authors.
In 2012, It’s No Good: poems/essays/actions a collection of poems, essays, and actions were published in English for the first time, by n+1 / Ugly Duckling Presse. In it he described his perspective in and among the mainstream poets, the inextricable "link between politics and culture," and how refusal of copyright or recognition for his works is part of a fundamental role of art to challenge existing power systems.

Musician

Medvedev has been performing vocals and guitar in the Arkadiy Kots Band, a riot-folk band based in Moscow which formed in 2010. The band draws its name from the Russian socialist poet Arkady Kots who translated The Internationale into Russian.

Activism

In the early 2000s Medvedev joined a small socialist party called Vpered.
In 2017, Medvedev announced he was running in the municipal elections, 2017|municipal elections] in the Meshchansky District. On 12 September 2017, he announced on the party's Facebook page that he received about 11% of the vote and was not elected.

Personal life

In 2015 Medvedev said, that for several years he "was a stay-at-home father; more recently I have worked as a delivery man for several companies as well as a freelance book editor".

Works in english translation

Books
Kirill Medvedev. "It's No Good." Translated by Keith Gessen, Mark Krotov, Cory Merrill, Bela Shayevich.