Osip Brik

Osip Maksimovich Brik (Russian: Осип Максимович Брик), (January 16, 1888–February 22, 1945), Russian avant garde writer and literary critic, was one of the most important members of the Russian formalist school, though he also identified himself as one of the Futurists. Brik was one of the co-founders of the magazine LEF. ("ЛЕФ", Levy front isskustva—Leftist Front for the Arts), which was also an official publication for the group with the same name, and a platform for Russian Constructivist art. Later the magazine was renamed Novyi LEF.

After Stalin's rise to power, the communist regime openly encouraged exclusively socialist realism methods and initiated campaign to stamp out all culture the Communist Party perceived as dangerous. Most avant garde artists and thinkers suffered persecution, and Brik did not escape this fate.

His wife Lilya Brik was the object of Vladimir Mayakovsky's romantic and literary attentions, and his sister-in-law Elsa Triolet was Louis Aragon's wife and a notable French writer.