Yekaterinburg-based poet, who had been persecuted in political cases, has died

Yegor Beloglazov, a poet from Yekaterinburg, who was prosecuted in political cases, has died. His wife Vera wrote about it, and the publication was picked up by the local media outlet It’s my city.

Yegor Beloglazov passed away in hospital yesterday, 18 December. He had a registered disability due to bronchial asthma, which he had suffered from since childhood. The poet was forced to breathe using an oxygen concentrator and could not be disconnected from it for more than an hour at a time.

Beloglazov was prosecuted over three posts on VKontakte. He was charged under articles related to insulting the feelings of believers and rehabilitation of Nazism.

One publication featured an image of Christ and the Virgin Mary in anime style, and beneath it, the poet compared the New Testament to fan fiction based on the Old Testament.

In another post, there was a demotivator featuring an image of an explosion and the “Buratino” flamethrower system, with a caption comparing the explosion to the Holy Fire descending at Easter.

The third was a screenshot of someone else’s tweet suggesting that the war in Ukraine would only end if Vladimir Putin was at the front and died.

Aleksei Starostin, an associate professor at the Department of Theology at the Ural State Mining University, who conducted an expert review at the request of the FSB, found the comparison of religious stories to fan fiction and anime characters unacceptable. He also considered the Putin post as rehabilitation of Nazism.

Due to his disability, Beloglazov worked remotely—his main source of income was tutoring. After police seized his devices during a search, the poet lost his students.