MOSCOW, January 29 (RIA Novosti) – Poetry can kill, after all.
A former teacher was detained in Russia’s Urals after being accused of stabbing an acquaintance to death in a dispute about literary genres, investigators said Wednesday.
The 67-year-old victim insisted that “the only real literature is prose,” the Sverdlovsk Region’s branch of the Investigative Committee said.
The victim’s assertion outraged the 53-year-old suspect, who favored poetry, and the dispute ended with the ex-teacher stabbing his friend to death, investigators said.
Both of the men were purportedly drunk at the time.
The incident took place last week, but the suspect fled the scene and was not tracked down until days later.
The man, whose name has been withheld, was placed under arrest and charged with murder, punishable with up to 15 years in prison.
This is not the first time high-brow disputes have led to bloodshed in Russia. In September, a man was shot in a line for beer in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don after enraging a fellow beer drinker with his views about the work of Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant.