Hope For Russia: Somebody, Somehow, Sometime?

Since Russia started a war on Ukraine in February 2022, almost all critics of the Putin regime have left the country – or have been imprisoned. The timid protests at the beginning of the war have long since fallen silent; no opposition seems to pose a threat to the Putin regime, at least not a democratic one. Is there nevertheless hope that Russia will one day find its way to democracy and the rule of law? What hope would that be? Can literature and language play a role? And what would the West’s contribution have to look like? The exiled Russian writers Dmitry Glukhovsky and Mikhail Shishkin, the historian and co-founder of the human rights organisation Memorial, Irina Sherbakova, and the German Minister of State for Culture, Claudia Roth, will talk about this. The panel will be hostes by Deniz Yücel, co-speaker of PEN Berlin and journalist at Die Welt.

For this event, people with hearing aids or cochlear implants can borrow portable induction loops that connect to the translation system receivers. Translation will be provided into English and German. The induction slings are available at the particular stage without prior registration.