Issue 5. Transmedial Practices in Post-Communist Spaces
Roman Leibov
Roman Leibov is an Associate Professor in the Department of Russian literature, Tartu University (Estonia). He was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1963; studied at Tartu University; worked at school; and completed his doctoral thesis on Tiutchev’s Lyrical Fragment: Genre and Context (Ph.D. 2000). His main research interests are Tiutchev’s poetry, Russian literary canon, internet and creative writing. His main project online is Ruthenia.ru; he is the author of an interactive, collaborative, meaningless, and ruthless novel Roman. He writes for Zhurnal.ru (1998 – 2008 гг.), Russian Journal, Polit.ru grani.ru, Openspace.ru, as well as contributes to the poetry project Occasional Poetry (since 2008).
5.7 Levinton ringtone: Artist’s statment
This ringtone is called Levinton. I composed it to celebrate academic achievements of Georgii Akhillovich Levinton, outstanding Russian philologist and folklorist. Based in Saint Petersburg, he is the author of numerous works on Russian literature. The idea of a ringtone came to me when I was involved in preparation of a collection of articles dedicated to Levinton. A few of us gathered together in Moscow 2007 to discuss planned submissions. As it was extremely hot, few innovative ideas were presented, instead we exchanged silly jokes. Someone suggested composing a poem; someone else—making a painting; and I said I would compose a ringtone. This is because the word ‘ringtone’ rhymes with the name of the scholar in Russian. And so it was. On the way to my lodgings in a street named after the Soviet pilot Kokkinaki, whose name sounds ridiculous yet musical, I stopped to enjoy a pint in one of the neighbourhood’s friendly courtyards, and within an hour or so the ringtone was born. I was wise enough not to include the ringtone into the volume—instead I submitted a co-authored article. (Since then I have not composed any other ringtone, and I will not in the future.) Later on the ringtone was lost to a gang of criminals who stole my telephone. At first I did not worry about it much. Later on, however, the mugger was caught (thanks to the telephone). The temporary owner of my telephone—dirty little bastard—deleted all my contacts from the phone but kept Levinton. So now every time I press the little button with a green handset on my phone I interrupt Levinton, this pretty boring primitive and otherwise horrible melody. It, however, reminds me the summer of 2007, intertextual studies, the awful taste of Russian beer Staryi mel’nik iz bochonka, and of the fast pace of frivolous life.
Language of contribution: English
Play the ringtone
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