Symposium 2023: independent contemporary Russian-language publishers and bookstores in exile
Over the past 20-25 years, Russian-language literature has developed in a relatively free space, resulting in a new generation of independent writers. Since February 24, 2022 and the passing of a law that criminalizes mentioning LGBT+ topics, many of these authors are no longer able to publish their works in Russia. Numerous writers have left Russia in the last year and a half and are now faced with the challenge of finding new publishers and ways to reach their emigrated readers, including in Austria.
September 2, 2023
The program of the symposium was:
- Paradigm shift: from the search for national identity in literature of the 2000s to the decolonial prose of the 2020s with Evgenia Vlasenko (Tbilisi)
- Private initiatives as starting points for the formation of a Russian-language book area with Polina Boyarkina (Saint Petersburg)
- Independent publishers: ways to survive outside the language environment with Evgeniy Kogan (Tel Aviv)
- A bookstore in Berlin and its role in creating a community that understands its place and attitude and can take steps to change it with Natalia Smirnova (Berlín)
- Russian-language books in Armenia → language and context with Grigiry Karelsky (Yerevan)
- How does an independent bookstore form a community and what can you do with it Anna Aleshkovskaya (Lisbon)
- An independent bookstore as a social center for the Russian-speaking diaspora in Vienna with Sasha Skorykh (Vienna)
- Literary nomadism: About the implementation of a multicultural art and literature project. Navigating through difficulties and celebrating diversity: the story of “Notre Locus” with Vlada Rau (Londres)
- The journey from the publisher into the hands of the reader. Distribution of Russian-language books in Europe, North America and Central Asia with Danila Stratovich (Prague)
