Russian Graves Speaking and Soldiers Calling Home

Two recently published and entirely different books deal with Russia’s latest war: Sandarmoch – When Graves Speak (Sandarmoch – När gravarna talar) by Russian Sergei Lebedev and Call Home (Ringa hem) by Swedish Ida Börjel. The first is a longer essay and the second a collection of poetry.

Sergej Lebedev is an award-winning Russian writer, poet and journalist whose books have been translated to over twenty different languages. The New York Review of Books called him the “best author of the younger generation of Russian writers.” Three of his novels and two books of essays have been translated into Swedish. They all describe, in different ways, how Russia’s history influences contemporary Russian society, politics and culture.

The novel Vid glömskans rand presents the years from the Revolution to the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. The recently published People of August (Augustimänniskor) takes as its point of departure the beginning of 1991 with the coup against Gorbachev. Lebedev has also written a thriller inspired by contemporary Russian poison assassinations.

In his first essay, Lebedev investigates how the Russian Army’s assaults in Butja, Izium, Cherson, Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities are related to the trial against historians who have had the courage to map mass graves caused by Stalin’s terror in the 1930s.

Lebedev describes how Russian colonialism is a heritage from the Tsar’s imperialistic ambitions that has been passed on through the Soviet Union to today’s Russian Federation.

Here he will engage in a conversation with Ida Börjel, award-winning poet, translator and researcher in literature. Her latest book Call Home (Ringa hem) consists of a series of documentary poems where Börjel interprets cellphone calls by Russian soldiers at the front, bugged by the Ukrainian secret service. She has also written a collection of poetry prefaced by Sergei Lebedev.

Language: English
Friday 24 march, 19.15
Uppsala Stadsteater