Sergei Bondarenko is the author of the book “Lost in Memory. The Memorial Society and the Struggle for the Past in Russia,” and an employee of the Memorial Society.

Joshua Yaffa is a New Yorker journalist, a fellow at Bard College Berlin, and the author of Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia, which won the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

September 9, 18: 00

Prenzlauer Allee 227–228, 10405 Berlin

Bibliothek am Wasserturm, Assembly Hall

Over the course of almost four decades, the Memorial Society has come a long way from being surrounded by Lubyanka and projects to open KGB archives to being liquidated by a Russian court and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

Activists and supporters of the movement came up with various Memorials for themselves, calling them either a new political party or a “monument.” They were supposed to forever record the new status quo — the Stalinist past is dead, it will never return.

In 2025, we return to these projects and hopes as an unfulfilled promise, and talk about what has and has not happened to society and history over the years, what Memorial has done – and perhaps should have done – but failed to do and suffered defeat. And what should it do now?

The important themes and problems that Memorial took on to resolve have not disappeared even today:
How to make the history of state terror visible?
How to learn to work with the memory of him?
And what to do when, along with the changing times, we have to apply many of the principles we have developed to protect ourselves?

Come to this important conversation!

Entrance to the meeting is free!
Registration required via this link: https://fienta.com/de/nevypolnennoe-obeshchanie-razgovor-s-sergeem-bondarenko-i-dzhoshua-yaffoy

The meeting is organized for you by the online bookstore "Muravei" https://murawei.de/
and the Berlin Fair of Russian-language Literature "Berlin Bebelplatz" https://bookfair-berlin.de/

At the meeting you will be able to buy Sergei Bondarenko’s book “Lost in Memory…”, which has just been reissued by the Muravei Bookstore Publishing House.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Bibliothek am Wasserturm for their cooperation!