Presented By: Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
CREES Noon Lecture. Poetic Voice from a Russian Prison: Zhenya Berkovich and her Striking Protest
Anna Narinskaya, Russian Journalist, playwright, art curator, and activist
On April 10, 2023, experimental director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petrichuk were arrested in Russia on charges of “justifying terrorism.” Russian authorities accused them of spreading terrorist propaganda through their play "Finist, the Bright Falcon," which through a documentary-style performance attempts to understand what motivated the choices of Russian women, who met ISIS militants online and traveled to Syria to marry them.
Despite the play’s success and numerous awards, Berkovich and Petrichuk were sentenced to six years in a penal colony. While still in pretrial detention, Berkovich wrote a cheerful children's book called “Pets,” in which the characters are animals that inhabit the prison: crows, rats, and even cockroaches. From the penal colony, she continues to send poems and texts filled with observations and hope to the outside world.
In this lecture, journalist and playwright Anna Narinskaya will talk about what Zhenya Berkovich's voice means in today's Russia and beyond.
Anna Narinskaya is a Russian journalist, playwright, art curator, and activist. In Russia, she worked for newspapers Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta, curated exhibitions at the Pushkin Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Jewish Museum, and collaborated with the Gogol Center. In 2018, she was one of the organizers of the “March of Mothers” protesting against the persecution of teenagers in Putin's Russia. In 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she emigrated to Germany, where she writes for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and collaborates with the Gorki Theater.
Her latest projects include the play "My Beloved Country," based on the bestselling book by Elena Kostyuchenko, and the exhibition "No Such People Here," which tells the story of the oppression of LGBTQ+ people in Chechnya.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at marinjd@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Despite the play’s success and numerous awards, Berkovich and Petrichuk were sentenced to six years in a penal colony. While still in pretrial detention, Berkovich wrote a cheerful children's book called “Pets,” in which the characters are animals that inhabit the prison: crows, rats, and even cockroaches. From the penal colony, she continues to send poems and texts filled with observations and hope to the outside world.
In this lecture, journalist and playwright Anna Narinskaya will talk about what Zhenya Berkovich's voice means in today's Russia and beyond.
Anna Narinskaya is a Russian journalist, playwright, art curator, and activist. In Russia, she worked for newspapers Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta, curated exhibitions at the Pushkin Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Jewish Museum, and collaborated with the Gogol Center. In 2018, she was one of the organizers of the “March of Mothers” protesting against the persecution of teenagers in Putin's Russia. In 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she emigrated to Germany, where she writes for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and collaborates with the Gorki Theater.
Her latest projects include the play "My Beloved Country," based on the bestselling book by Elena Kostyuchenko, and the exhibition "No Such People Here," which tells the story of the oppression of LGBTQ+ people in Chechnya.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at marinjd@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
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