Mikhail Izrailevich Armalinsky (born Peltsman) (Russian: Михаил Израилевич Армалинский) born in Leningrad, USSR on April 23, 1947, is a Russian poet, writer, blogger and publisher of erotica. He caused scandal and outrage within Russian literary circles, following publication in 1986 of a pornographically toned diary, ostensibly by Alexander Pushkin. This led to him being described as "The Pushkin pornographer".[1]
Mikhail Armalinsky lived all his life in Leningrad till his emigration to the United States on November 17, 1976. He received master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Leningrad Electro-Technical Institute (1964–1970) and actively participated in Leningrad literary underground. He published three samizdat books of poetry there.
After emigrating to the US in 1976 and settling in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1977 he worked as engineer and in 1979 started with his father, inventor Israel Peltsman, the machine building company Peltsman Corporation. At the same time Mikhail Armalinsky kept working on his literary works and in 1984 started his own publishing house M.I.P. Company.
Mikhail Armalinsky is the author of many books of poetry, prose, essays (see below Selected publications). In 1986 Mikhail Armalinsky published Secret Journal 1836-1837 by Alexander Pushkin in Russian[2] and then English translation.[3] This book created a scandal in Russia and was published in 25 countries[4]
Excerpts from Secret Journal 1836-1837 were published in Penthouse Forum, February, 1991, p. 50-53, 84, 86.
Response of Russian media to this book is documented in several editions of Parapushkinistika by David Bayevsky,[5] published by Armalinsky's publishing house M.I.P. Company.
Banned in Russia the Secret Journal was first published in 2001 by Moscow publishing house Ladomir[6] that was threatened and prosecuted for publishing "pornographic blasphemy".[7]
In 2006 Secret Journal was staged in Paris, France.[8]
Some attributed the authorship of the Secret Journal to Armalinsky himself. Dr. Lee B. Croft: "The pornographic nature of those notes, clearly of a modern Western stripe, drew apoplectic reaction from the Soviet literary authorities who first encountered them. One legal authority, in a sidebar to an article on this "hoax" in Ogonek magazine,suggested that Armalinsky be castrated for so besmirching the hallowed name of Pushkin. ...his clear feeling of "kinship" with Pushkin and his choice of Pushkin's persona to gain attention for his own literary endeavors, which have, especially since his emigration to the United States in the early 1980s, taken on a pornographic character strikingly similar to the notes he attributes to Pushkin."[9]
Since 1999 Mikhail Armalinsky publishes his blog in Russian named General Erotic (GE) where he publishes his short stories, observations, reviews and essays.
In 1989 a variation on the United States flag designed by Mikhail Armalinsky made the cover of New York City weekly Screw.
On September 22, 2003 Armalinsky sent announcements to the media and about his death to check out what would be a reaction to his death. In two months he "resurrected".[10]