The lecture on Boris Poplavsky brings back to attention a poet who was called the Russian Rimbaud and the Orpheus of Montparnasse. It is a conversation about Parisian emigration, literary fame, myths surrounding a short life, and that rare poetry where surrealism merges with musicality, inner freedom, and a tragic sense of time. The name Boris Poplavsky rarely resonates as loudly as the names of other poets of the Russian emigration, and that is why the conversation about him is particularly captivating. His biography intertwines 1920s Paris, the freedom of artistic exploration, poverty, literary ambitions, a posthumous legend, and a sense of doom that today reads almost like part of a grand myth. But behind the outwardly striking image lies a figure much more complex - a poet with a keen ear, unusual imagery, and his own place in the history of Russian literature. The lecture will help to understand why Poplavsky was called a Russian surrealist and how justified the comparisons with Arthur Rimbaud are. The discussion will focus on his poems, his place in the literature of the Russian diaspora, the connection between poetry and the Parisian cultural environment, and how the image of the author was formed as almost a rock star long before this cliché appeared. For the listeners, it will be an opportunity to see how literary reputation is born and why some names eventually enter the broader canon while others remain in a zone of half-oblivion, despite the strength of their gift. Particular interest lies in the questions that take the conversation beyond a typical biographical lecture. What do Poplavsky, Lou Reed, David Lynch, and Boris Ryzhy have in common? What did the everyday Paris of a young emigrant living on a modest allowance look like? And which version of the poet's mysterious death seems the most plausible when referring to the French newspapers of that time? Such lines make the meeting especially lively: literature here connects with urban history, cultural context, and an almost detective plot. The lecturer Alexander Nikiforov is a writer, philologist-journalist, and author of the poetry collection "80 Confessions."