Join us on Thursday, 30 November for a conversation with Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov, the leading specialists on the history and practices of the secret services in Russia. The event will be moderated by Grigor Atanesian (BBC World Service) and together they will discuss the changes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought about in the more clandestine activities of the Russian state.

In the context of Mykola Ridnyi’s solo exhibition The Battle over Mazepa, Pushkin House is excited to welcome the prominent contemporary philosopher and cultural theorist Keti Chukhrov, ScD, who, over two days, is going to share her thoughts on decolonial and anti-imperialist agendas; first giving a lecture on Thursday, November 16, and after facilitating a workshop on Friday, November 17. You can attend one or both events.

Pushkin House and Natasha Rulyova are pleased to invite you to an online interview with the award-winning Uzbek author Hamid Ismailov. This will be the next event in our series of conversations with authors of Russophone literature. The event will be held in English.

Join us on Friday, 13 October for a lunchtime artist talk with Mykola Ridnyi in conversation with Prof Susanne Strätling, moderated by Dr Maria Chehonadskih. The speakers will discuss Ridnyi’s artistic practice, his new exhibition The Battle Over Mazepa on view at Pushkin House, as well as those cultural complexities that we need to address regarding shared histories during the Russian war in Ukraine.

Join us for an evening with writers and artists Emily and Alice Haworth-Booth, Christopher Rainbow and William Goldsmith, chaired by Clementine Cecil.

Emily and Alice Haworth-Booth are co-authors of Protest! How People Have Come Together to Change the World (Pavilion 2021); Christopher Rainbow and William Goldsmith are co-authors of Russia 2018, A World Cup Journal (Sputnikat Press, 2022). Using graphic novels and books they document, process and protest in difficult times.

Pushkin House and Natasha Rulyova are pleased to invite you to an online interview with the award-winning Russophone Avar author Alisa Ganieva. This will be the second event of the series of conversations with authors of Russophone literature. The event will be held in English.

Join us on Tuesday, 20 June for an artist talk by Katya Muromtseva, whose current exhibition Women in Black Against the War is on show at Pushkin House until 29 July. She will discuss her most recent series of portraits of activists and political prisoners as well her artistic practice in general.Katya explored political themes in her work long before the full-scale Russian invasion started. In her videos, watercolours and installations she reflects on historical memory, collective action, political representation and nostalgia. She has always experimented with various exhibition formats and explored the conditions in which culture is produced and presented.

Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya (1821–1889) was one of Russia’s greatest nineteenth-century novelists, yet today she is virtually unknown. In celebration of her 200th jubilee, scholars and translators are working to restore her legacy and to return her to her rightful place in the canon. The event will feature readings by translators from four new translations, just some of Khvoshchinskaya’s dozen novels and two dozen tales written in her nearly fifty-year career.

Osip Mandelstam’s second collection of poems, Tristia, astonished Russian readers in 1922 with its daring verse forms and meditations on revolution, exile, death and rebirth. Thomas de Waal’s new translation gives English-language reader the chance to experience the entire collection for the first time in a new bilingual edition, published by Arc Publications.

Join the author to launch the book and celebrate the culmination of a three-decades-old project.

Join Maxim Osipov in conversation with Robert Chandler about his new book, Kilometer 101, a collection of 11 short stories and non-fiction essays written over 15 years which demonstrate Osipov’s penetrating insight, fearless realism and stoic humanism in his approach to life in modern Russia.

Join us on Friday, 24th March for a conversation about art, activism, and forest ecologies of the Russian North, stimulated by the film, A Forest Tale, by Ruth Maclennan, currently on show at Pushkin House. A Forest Tale was filmed in Arkhangelsk region at the end of 2021 during an artist residency organised in collaboration with Ekaterina Sharova and the Arctic Art Institute. We will also be joined by writer and historian Charles Emmerson.

Join us for a conversation with designer and entrepreneur Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper and Anton Derlyatka, co-founder and CEO of Sweatcoin, a hugely successful Web 3.0 startup. They will be discussing how the world is changing and what is the real potential of news-making technologies, decentralised networks and artificial intelligence.

Pushkin House invites you to the joint celebration of Zinovy Zinik’s collection of short stories No Cause for Alarm (2022) and the winter issue of the Index on Censorship magazine with one of Zinik’s stories in it. 

The publication of Zinovy Zinik’s collection of short stories in Russia coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. The idea of launching the newly published book in Moscow has become unthinkable. “I feel again in a state of being ‘locked out’, like I felt four decades ago when I arrived in London to work for the BBC World Service”, says Zinik in his interview to Martin Bright, Editor at Large of the Index on Censorship. One of the consequences of the harrowing war in Ukraine was a new wave of mass migration of the Russian intelligentsia to Europe and beyond.

A tribute to the curator and gallerist Anya Stonelake (1973-2022 ). Anya belonged to the generation that emerged during perestroyka when the Russian art scene was changing completely. Her White Space Gallery in London was the first stop for anyone interested in the post-Soviet art. She worked on performance art, site-specific projects, Russian video art and post-Soviet photography. Thanks to her tireless efforts works by Russian artists can now be found in many London museums.

On Thursday 19 January, Pushkin House invites you to listen to a panel of experts who will discuss the economic sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia. Designed to penalise any contribution to Russia’s war machine, these sanctions have crippled Russian industrial production and damaged the commercial and financial sectors, but have not yet put an end to the war. How do the experts regard the current situation? The speakers include Maximilian Hess, Elina Ribakova and Nicholas Trickett, and the conversation will be moderated by Dasha Afanasieva.

Pushkin House is partnering with Zima Club to organise an event for the Russian-speaking audience.

We bring together Owen Matthews, the author of Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine, and political journalist Masha Slonim. They will discuss the current state of the global conflict, the events that preceded it, the mood among Russian elites, as well as the issues of the potential further escalation of the warfare and the possibility of negotiations.

Pushkin House and Centrala invite you to a regular networking event for Central and Eastern European Creatives, supported by funding from Culture Central.

The CEE Creatives Network exists to support the Central and Eastern European migrant creatives currently working in the UK arts and culture sector. Through the structure of a centralised database, this network brings together creative peers to self-promote, collaborate, and share opportunities – whether working in art, music, production, or any range of disciplines.

Join us on Thursday 20 October for an artist talk by Pavel Otdelnov. Otdelnov will share the story behind his exhibition Acting Out created specifically for the historical premises of Pushkin House. Initially conceived as a reflection on the complex legacies of the the Cold War and the arms race, the project has naturally evolved in the wake of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, representing ambivalent sentiment towards resentful sensibilities, political confrontations and toxic nostalgia.

The Pushkin House Bookshop and Prototype Publishing present the launch of Deceit, the lost debut novel by Russian émigré author Yuri Felsen, published for the first time in English. Together translator, editor and regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement Bryan Karentnyk, translator and specialist in Russian literature Josephine von Zitzewitz and journalist, broadcaster and the Fiction and Politics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement Toby Lichtig will explore Felsen’s ground-breaking debut novel and the life of this exceptional modernist author which was tragically cut short. In-person and online event.

Join Index on Censorship and Pushkin House for a night discussing freedom of expression in Russia as part of the launch of the latest issue of the Index on Censorship magazine. The panel will feature Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, as well as Ben Noble, Associate Professor in Russian Politics at UCL. The conversation will be chaired by Index on Censorship magazine Editor-In-Chief Jemimah Steinfeld. In-person and online event.

Pushkin House invites you to a discussion about how the past can be understood in the context of the war in Ukraine and what anti-imperial futures can be imagined. Author Boris Akunin and journalist and writer Viv Groskop will join the director of Pushkin House, Elena Sudakova, to assess if there is hope in the form of anti-war movements; how cultural workers can respond to the hideous crimes committed in their name; and how Russians have to change in order to put an end to the war and prevent this from ever happening again. In-person and online event.

Join Pushkin House for a discussion with Lucy Ward about her new book The Empress and the English Doctor, charting Catherine the Great’s attempts to bring new science, inoculation, to Russia with the help of Quaker physician Thomas Dimsdale. A timely tale of science, a deadly virus, and the struggle between fear and innovation.

Join Pushkin Club and Sir Tony Brenton for a talk entitled “Shakespeare the Russian” and readings of Russian poetry from the 19th and 20th centuries which was inspired by Shakespeare or Shakespearian themes. Sir Tony is the former UK Ambassador to Russia (2004-2008), was an Economic and Scientific Counsellor in Moscow (1994-1998), and is the author of several publications on Russian culture.

In his talk he will explore the meaning, importance and the attractiveness of Shakespeare for Russians and Russian culture. Have the Russians created their “own” Shakespeare? What is the link between Shakespeare’s heritage, Russian history and Russian culture?

Colonial wars are associated with the conquest of space—through the names of cities and rivers, through strategic coordinates, through percentages of territory captured or defended. Still, contemporary invasions spread out in time no less than space. In her performance, Anna Engelhardt explores the unique temporality of the Russian war machine.

Although the Russian military claims to use high-tech weaponry that ushers in a future of remotely controlled digital battles, these weapons often malfunction in the material world. These weapons are obsolete as soon as they are deployed – yet Russian colonial violence persists and these intergenerational wars subject their targets to repeated cycles of fear and violence. Engelhardt considers how to further the hardwired obsolescence of the Russian war machine.

On Tuesday 26 April join us at Pushkin House for a panel discussion about the state of media in Russia and contemporary Russian propaganda.

Since the full-scale Russian military invasion started on 24 February 2022, the Russian authorities have managed to completely desolate the domestic media landscape. While Russia had never been high on the list of countries supporting freedom of speech, in the past weeks its government has managed to shut down almost all independent voices. Many Russian and foreign journalists have had to leave the country, and those who remained have to operate under the branding of ‘foreign agents’. All of this has created a distorted vision of reality for many Russian citizens as the Russian propaganda machine remains, unfortunately, highly effective.

Pushkin House invites you to an open conversation with Manu Luksch & Mukul Patel, creators of a new artist-guided walk – HEAR/HERE TO SEE – that shines light on the increasing prevalence of automated decision making systems in urban space and daily life. The 1.5km route narrates the buildings and public spaces around London’s Westminster through a conversation about the algorithms that can be encountered there, from the bell tower of the Abbey to street traffic lights, and from law courts to the Home Office. They will be joined by Dr Seeta Gangadharan, the founder of Our Data Bodies and Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Pushkin House is hosting a panel discussion exploring recent anti-war protests across Russia, during which over 15,000 people have been detained, fined or arrested. While most opposition leaders are either in prison or have been pushed out of the country, a number of grassroots initiatives are flourishing, including notably the Feminist Anti-War Resistance which has amassed over 25,000 supporters on its social media accounts.

TOK Curators have decided to cancel event. Here is their statement:

‘The practice of TOK Curators has always included multiple projects aimed at collaborations and dialogue with cultural practitioners from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia and other neighboring countries in the wider European region.

We condemn the invasion of the Russian forces in Ukraine, this war must be stopped! We are against the reproduction of political division, violence and ideological imperialism! We stand in solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues and all the people of Ukraine and all those who protest this war.’

In light of the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the ongoing international political crisis, Pushkin House is organising a panel discussion for experts to explore various aspects of the situation.

While international sanctions are being imposed on Russia, scholars, journalists and commentators are trying to answer the most urgent questions.

Pushkin House is proud to present a discussion with Desire International’s two artists, Yevgeniy Fiks and Ian Ginsburg. They will be joined by Denis Stolyarov, assistant curator at Pushkin House, and Yara Bubnova, Director of the Sofia National Gallery, which will receive parts of the exhibition once it leaves Pushkin House.

Desire International is a two-artist exhibition by the contemporary artists Yevgeniy Fiks and Ian Ginsburg exploring the utopianism of queer sensuality and imagination. This event will provide the opportunity for the artists to discuss their inspirations, motivations and visions behind the exhibition, and for the two curators to discuss the exhibition’s significance beyond Pushkin House and the UK.