Irate Russian teacher kills friend for views on literature

Irate Russian teacher kills friend for views on literature

February 3, 2014 6:58 PM By Cora Van Olson



In case anyone was wondering, Russians are still very serious about their literature. A recent case in point is that of a teacher, who was debating poetry vs. prose with a friend, and became so outraged at that friend’s dismissal of poetry that he pulled out a knife and stabbed him to death.

Last week police in Russia’s Ural mountains tracked down a former teacher, 53, whose name has not been released, accused of stabbing to death an acquaintance, 67, after the man commented during a literary discussion, “the only real literature is prose.” The outraged former teacher, who incidentally, thought that the only real literature is poetry, then allegedly stabbed his friend to death, and went on the run.

Alcohol was reportedly involved. The man, if convicted could face as many as 15 years in prison.

This incident calls to mind another, also in Russia, that occurred in September 2013 in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, in which two men waiting for beer at a kiosk, and apparently discussing philosophy, got into a fight over which of them was the bigger fan of 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

The fight began with words, escalated to fisticuffs and ended with one man, 26, pulling out a WASP air gun and shooting the other several times in the head with rubber bullets. The victim, 28, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening wounds, and police quickly caught up with the crazed philosophy lover and arrested him for “intentional infliction of serious harm.”

We in the U.S. usually assault each other for more mundane reasons, like the South Carolina woman who stabbed her ex because he wouldn’t stop playing the Eagles’ greatest hits