Father of Purism dead at age 99

 

Dimitri Zabsov, the Father of Purism, died yesterday at age 99.

The Carrom world mourns the passing of a giant. An intellect. A soul unbroken. The man who hinted to us of what was and what was not. 

His legacy encourages optimism and doubt. Indeed, his book "Optimism and Doubt" remains as the Tao Te Ching of Carrom.

Born of humble shoemakers in Bucharest, Zabsov studied wood, segs and resin until, as a young man, he travelled in 1943 to join partisans in Finland in the war against Soviet hordes. 

It was there, in a bunker, that he was introduced to Carrom. The strategies he studied led him to single-handedly destroy four Russian tanks using only rebounds and a bag of tangerines.

After the war, he returned to Romania and worked as a clerk until 1947 when the country fell under the Soviet sphere of influence and implemented Communist rule. He fled to Czechoslovakia for but a year until the country fell under the Soviet sphere of influence and implemented Communist rule. As the Eastern Bloc consolidated, Zabsov moved further west with time spent in Bavaria, Paris, Plymouth and in 1959 settled in Galway in the town of Athenry.  

Lore has it that it was there, on a summer morning in a field where he "watched the small free birds fly" that he recalled the carrom boards in Finland, reflected on his journeys and their meaning and, with the support of new friends Big Joe Baker and Flann O'Brien, formed The Provisional Purists Association. 

As word spread through Ireland of carrom and the PPA, Zabsov was visited at his home by like souls including Andrei Bukachenko of the emergent Paris Purists and by Allen Ginsberg.

Bukachenko

Ginsberg

Through the next decades, Purism grew as a movement. "We care not what happened but rather the manner in which such outcome occured." Purist groups emerged as philosophical adjuncts to carrom crews across Europe. From Galway to Gdansk and beyond. The term Beards became shorthand for and gently dismissive of Purists, but Zabsov embraced this, stating, "Names and titles are but titles and names."

In 1972, Zabsov declined the Nobel Carrom Prize. In 1981 he was inducted into the Board Hall of Fame but did not attend. 

In his later years he learned the mandolin and went on to form The Ballyhoolish Beards and released two albums, "Line" and "Trippy In A Spin" (the latter featuring Craig Armstrong and Bjork).

His family asks for privacy at this time of mourning.

The SCL asks for a minute's silence before the next break.

Dimitri Zabsov. RIP.