The poet Vitaly Pukhanov was expelled from the expert council of the Alexander Pushkin Lyceum Prize, which is awarded to young prose writers and poets. This is reported by Literaturnaya Gazeta, without specifying the reasons for the incident. Meanwhile, the laureate of the Lyceum, the writer Igor Savelyev, said on his Facebook page that pro-government writers demanded to remove Pukhanov.
“A group of Z-writers was indignant that Pukhanov remained on the expert council of the award, although [he] is against the war, and they agreed to write appeals to [Russian Book Union President] Sergei Stepashin. Well, why are there "conversions", let's call a spade a spade – denunciations. I used to think that the functionaries did it embarrassingly, on the sly, but the new reality shows that they are not: denunciations are written publicly, proudly, coordinating their actions in the Telegram channel. <…> Of course, we all neighed, “write Stepashin” has become a meme in the spirit of “call DiCaprio”, and today the Lyceum award has reported on the results of workers’ appeals,” Savelyev wrote.
In mid-February, Pukhanov published a satirical text about a certain “girl” on his Telegram channel, in which they saw an allusion to the propaganda poetess Anna Dolgareva. This text outraged, in particular, the literary critic Oleg Demidov, who promised Pukhanov that "for this he will definitely fly."
The Lyceum Prize has existed since 2017, Vitaly Pukhanov has been a member of the Prize's expert council since its inception. Now his place will be taken by the poet and employee of the weekly "RG-Nedelya" Dmitry Shevarov. Georgiy Urushadze, director of the award, resigned in April last year in protest of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.