Mikhail Zygar is Russian born author, political journalist and historian. He authored investigative studies such as »All the Kremlin’s Men« (2016), »The Empire Must Die« (2017), and »War and Punishment. The Story of Ukrainian Resistance against Russian Empire« (2023). He was the founding editor-in-chief of Dozhd, Russia’s only independent news
Irina Rastorgueva, born in 1983 in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, studied philology at Sakhalin State University and worked as a cultural journalist for various Russian magazines and radio stations. From 2006 to 2015, she taught journalism at Sakhalin State University and published numerous scholarly articles on 20th-century literature and journalism theory and
Russian writer, poet, and essayist Maria Stepanova was born in Moscow in 1972. She studied at the Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow and first made her debut as a poet. Her poems have appeared in renowned journals as well as in individual editions while her theoretical texts have
Olga Martynova was born near Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in 1962. She grew up in Leningrad, where she studied Russian language and literature and co-founded the poetry group Kamera Chranenia [tr: Luggage Storage] in the 1980s. She moved to Germany with her husband, the writer Oleg Yuriev, in 1991. She writes
born in Zestafoni, now Georgia, in 1965 as Grigori Chkhartishvili. He has been publishing historical crime novels under his pseudonym since 1998 and quickly became one of the most widely read authors in Russia. His books have been translated into more than forty languages. As an opponent of the current
born in Moscow in 1967, is a Russian-American journalist and author. In 1981 she moved to the USA with her family, returned to Moscow in 1991, and was forced to leave again in 2013 due to her active involvement in the LGBT movement. Gessen has written biographies on Vladimir Putin,
Marianna Salzmann, born in Volgograd, studied theatrical writing at Berlin’s University of the Arts. In 2009, her play »geistern folgen« (tr. Pursuing ghosts) premiered at the Landesgericht in Hanover. The writer, who is co-editor of cultural and societal magazine »freitext«, received the 2012 Kleist Award For »Muttermale Fenster Blau« (tr.
born in Moscow in 1988, studied German philology and history in Berlin and earned her doctorate in Münster. She was awarded, among others, the Berlin Senate’s work stipend, the GWK Prize for Literature, as well as scholarships of the Brecht House, the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, the master class of the
Wladimir Kaminer was born in 1967 in Moscow. After studying to be a sound engineer for theatre and radio, he studied dramaturgy at the Moscow Institute of Theatre. In 1990, he moved to East Berlin in what was at that point still the GDR. After being assigned a place in
Victoria Lomasko, born in 1978 in Serpukhov, Russia, graduated from the Moscow State University of Printing Arts (MGUP) in 2003, specializing in graphic art and book design. Residing in Moscow until 2022, she is now in exile. Known for her graphic reportage , her exhibitions have made significant contributions. Moving
Vladimir Sorokin was born in 1955 in Bykovo near Moscow. Following his studies in Engineering at the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas he worked for a year at the newspaper »Smena«, began working with painting and graphics, and participated in numerous exhibitions, as well as illustrating roughly 50 books.
Vladimir Vertlib was born in 1966 into a Russian-Jewish family in Leningrad (USSR, today St. Petersburg). His parents were members of an illegal Zionist organisation. In 1971, the family emigrated, travelling across Israel, the Netherlands, the USA and Italy until they settled in Austria in 1981. Vertilb studied Economics in
