Benign Duplicates. Diaries and Photographs From The Archive of N. Kozakov

Benign Duplicates is a limited edition publication, presenting twelve days from the diaries (1962) and photographs (1954–1993) from the archive of Nikolai Kozakov. Under the moniker of publishing House Gluschenkoizdat, Kozakov’s notes and images were processed in various productions including this English edition, an audio drama and a website with the same diary excerpts as used for this booklet.

(…) In writing down his every step, Kozakov remains unknowable, like outer space — the conquest of which he devotes so much attention to in his notes. Who is he? A man of the ‘60s? An intellectual wretch? Your father’s older brother? Anti-Semite? Loser? Poet? Extraterrestrial? The diary is clearly not intended for anyone else to read: Kozakov writes it for himself and remains hermitically sealed within its text, exposing the reader to the principal and tragic impenetrability of “the Other.” Kozakov’s peculiar relationship with reality has no parallel in today’s world. It is like a message in a bottle that he sent not 50, but 500 years ago. (…) — book cover text by Maria Kuvshinova

1962, Soviet Union. On the brink of inevitable coming of communism, Nikolai Kozakov, a truck driver from the Gorky region, steals from the collective farm property, goes to Kazakhstan to work on the gas pipeline construction and is treated for stuttering by hypnosis in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Behind the ostentatious masculinity — he hunts, rides a motorcycle and is constantly drunk — Kozakov hides a secret life of a man with developed taste, a subtle observer, a student of ancient mythology. He writes poetry, takes photographs, pities himself and falls in love, perhaps too often. — Grigor Atanesian, Gluschenkoizdat publishers

Text and headlines are set with Journal (Paratype), and Akzidenz Grotesk is used for the introduction paragraph on the book cover and for captions. A few numerals use Journal Sans.

Edited by K. Gluschenko
Translated from Russian, by B. McGarr and M. Shipley.
200×260 mm, 128 pages, first edition of 10 copies
Order № 184.