The New Barbarism – Victor Erofeev in conversation with Irina Busygina
Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str. 60
10117 Berlin
The New Barbarism – Victor Erofeev in conversation with Irina Busygina
Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str. 60
10117 Berlin
Event in English with sections read in German
In collaboration with Matthes & Seitz Berlin
Victor Erofeev’s new novel paints a dazzling panorama of human and political abysses, in which truth becomes a game and morality a pose.
While Putin appears as a ‘ponchik’ – a doughnut with a hole in the middle, symbolising an inflated void – the opposition strikes a martyr’s pose. At the centre is ‘Russian Guilt’, a female allegory of the country and the object of the protagonist’s desire. With her, Erofeev’s alter ego sets off for ‘Heavenly Moscow’, a surreal landscape between dream, memory and farce, where history and the present collapse into one another. At ZOiS, the author will discuss the main themes of the novel and its connections to contemporary Russia with political scientist Irina Busygina.
Admission is free. Please register at events(at)zois-berlin(dot)de.
Viktor Erofeev is regarded as one of the best-known contemporary Russian authors and a critical intellectual. He gained international recognition with his 1989 novel 'The Moscow Beauty', which was translated into 27 languages. Since 2022, he has been living in exile in Berlin.
Irina Busygina is a political scientist with a focus on comparative federalism and decentralisation in authoritarian countries of the post-Soviet space as well as on Russian foreign policy.