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verse, Rudnev concludes that they are composed by a charming simpleton “of Little Brain” who celebrated Cottleston Pie. Pooh as a personage—same as the Kolobok, popular in Soviet culture—seems to fit Prigov’s assumed persona. When Iampol śkii discusses the collection entitled “Echolalia . . . and Other Moments,” he refers to Jacques Derrida’s Voice and Phenomena: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology (1967). But in fact, echolalia/ glossolalia are border-states of verse (like Humm or Tiddely-Pom). In the circumstances of the 1980s–90s, Prigov tried to compromise the traditional role of Russian Poet as the Prophet/Teacher. The last ones who projected themselves into this position were the “Sixties’ Poets” (shestidesyatniki), who failed in the eyes of conceptualists. That is why was Prigov opposed to this ceremonial avatar—Pooh-the-little-fellow. Another of Derrida’s observations seems more relevant in Prigov’s case: on the “discourse which borrows from a heritage the resources necessary for the deconstruction of that heritage itself” (Derrida, Writing and Difference, 282). That is, Prigov’s major task (sverkhzadacha) was to deconstruct the Soviet ideological heritage. He accepted the influence of German performance artist Joseph Beuys (30). The latter’s activities are often interpreted as “Shamanic rituals” as he recognized/redeemed the guilt of ordinary Germans (the little people!) for Nazi atrocities. One wonders, did Prigov secretly wish to redeem the crimes of the Soviet communist regime; to “ritually purge” totalitarian clichés from Russian consciousness?