Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the Russian media has been engaged in a war of disinformation and propaganda which aims to construct an alternative reality. Within this context, Russian-language literature remains a crucial tool for understanding the causes and consequences of Russia’s aggressive war in Ukraine, by moving the focus from the impersonal space of geopolitics to an area of people's lived experiences. At the same time, many Russian-language writers and journalists actively oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and are labelled as “foreign agents”, have their books banned, and, in some cases, face prosecution.

Please join us for a panel discussion with authors Anna Berseneva, Katerina Gordeeva and Vladimir Sotnikov, led by Dr Irina Kuznetsova and Dr Natasha Rulyova (The University of Birmingham). They will discuss the representation of women’s experiences of the war and displacement, the impact of imperialism and colonialism on ordinary people, depictions of grief, loss and multigenerational trauma connected to the legacy of the Soviet Union, and the responsibility facing authors writing in the Russian language in the current context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

After the discussion, each author will present their latest book:

Anna Berseneva’s Рейнское золотое (The Rhine Gold) (Litsvet, 2023) marks the culmination of a trilogy comprising Сети Вероники (Veronika’s Nets) and Песчаная Роза (The Sand Rose). The trilogy narrates the experiences of women from Belarus and Russia, navigating pivotal events of the 20th and 21st centuries. Рейнское золотое was published in Russian in Germany and is banned in Russia. An extract of the book has been translated by Isobel Palmer for this event and is available for attendees. 

Katerina Gordeeva’s newly published Унеси ты мое горе (Meduza, 2024) presents testimonies of the victims of Russia's war in Ukraine, who often miraculously survived and escaped the war zone. It will be published this June in translation by Lisa Hayden as Take My Grief Away (Penguin, 2024).

Vladimir Sotnikov’s Она (Ea) (RUGRAM, 2022) concludes a trilogy comprising Улыбка Эммы (Emma’s Smile) and Холочье. Чернобыльская сага (Kholochye: Chornobyl Saga). The trilogy is situated in a Belarusian village ravaged by the Chornobyl disaster, reflecting on despair and the struggle against oppressive regimes. Она was published in Russian, and an extract has been translated by Isobel Palmer for this event and is available for attendees.

The schedule of the event will be as follows:

6–6:40pm – panel discussion

6:40-6:50pm – coffee break

6:50-7:30pm – book presentations

7:30-8:15pm – Q&A

This event is co-organised by Dr Irina Kuznetsova and Dr Natasha Rulyova, The University of Birmingham, and supported with funding provided by the Institute of Advanced Studies/IGI at the same university. 

The event will take place in English with consecutive interpretation.

Anna Berseneva is a writer, scriptwriter and literary critic. She graduated from the Department of Journalism at the Belarusian State University, and later from the Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow where she later worked as Associate Professor. Since 2022, she has worked as Professor at the Free University established in Europe by political immigrants from Russia. To date, she has published more than 40 books in the genre of psychological novels. The total circulation of her books in Russia is about 5 million copies. In 2022, she was subjected to political persecution in Russia for publications on socio-political topics and was declared a “foreign agent”. Berseneva is a member of PEN-International. She lives in Germany.

Katerina Gordeeva is an award-winning independent Russian journalist. Before 2012, she worked as a TV reporter for the federal television channel NTV reporting from the frontlines of Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq as a war correspondent. She later resigned from the channel due to a disagreement with the channel's programming agenda. In 2014, Katerina left Moscow out of protest against Russia's annexation of Crimea and seizure of part of Eastern Ukraine. In 2020, she created her own YouTube channel, which today has over 1.6 million subscribers. To make her documentary film Humans At War, Katerina Gordeeva travelled to dozens of refugee shelters in Europe and Russia. She collected first-person accounts by interviewing people with opposing views on the war and discussing how the war had changed their lives. She is a five-time winner of the Redcollegia Award. Gordeeva was also awarded the Anna Politkovskaya International Journalism Prize in August in 2022. In September 2022, the Russian government named Gordeeva a “foreign agent”.

Vladimir Sotnikov is a writer and a screenwriter. He was born into a family of rural teachers in Soviet Belarus. He graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow. He publishes short stories and novels, and his novels were serialised in literary journals such as Yunost, Oktyabr, Znamya, Kontinent and Yasnaya Polyana. He is also known as the author of numerous children's adventure stories. He currently lives in Germany.

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