In a bizarre case, a Russian man allegedly stabbed to death his friend over a heated literary argument in which he insisted that poetry was a superior genre to prose.
The suspect, a former teacher, was detained in Russia's Urals region after being accused of stabbing to death his friend over the dispute about literary genres, investigators said yesterday.
The 67-year-old victim insisted that "the only real literature is prose," the Sverdlovsk Region's branch of the Investigative Committee was quoted as saying by the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.
The victim's assertion outraged the 53-year-old suspect, who favoured 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.
