It is such a true privilege to be read as deeply, searchingly and patiently as this; it means a huge amount to me and to everyone connected to this book. Thank you infinitely to @GuardianBooks and @akblakemore: theguardian.com/books/articl…

EVENT ALERT🔔 Don't miss @Han_Smiff and @lara_haworth in conversation at @WstoneIslington on 27th of February at 6.30pm! Grab your tickets now:brnw.ch/21wQvZf @canongatebooks

Georgian people are brave! Rustaveli is full, again! We are beaten, arrested, assaulted but we still come back. Long live free #Georgia! HAPPENING NOW #GeorgiaProtests

“Defiance is the basis of freedom” — Ilia State University professors, teachers, and students are currently gathering to march later toward Rustaveli Avenue. “No to censorship” and “No to fascism” read the banners.

The victims of the Holodomor are remembered today in Ukraine.

Every day, we’re posting a story of a political prisoner in Russia. Today, we’re telling you about Tatyana Laletina, a 21-year-old student and artist from Tomsk, a city in Siberia. In February 2024, she was arrested and charged with treason for transferring money to support Ukraine. The charges are related to transfers of amounts of $10 and $20 to Ukrainian funds in 2022. Tatyana's case gained public attention when it was revealed that she had made small transfers to Ukrainian funds. After her arrest and a search of her property, she was charged with treason, with authorities claiming that her actions were aimed against the security of Russia. However, Tatyana's lawyers and family argue that she was unaware of the political context and that her actions posed no threat to the country. The court sentenced Tatyana to 9 years in prison. She has been in custody for 266 days. Memorial demands the release of Tatyana Laletina and all other political prisoners in Russia. #1Day1PoliticalPrisoner #Russia #SetThemFree #PoliticalPrisoners #Memorial

Every day, we’re posting a story of a political prisoner in Russia. Today, we’re telling you about Anna Alexandrova, a 46-year-old hairdresser with a veterinary education and a divorced mother of a grown son from Saint Petersburg. Anna is accused of "spreading false information about the actions of the Russian army", which could lead to a sentence of up to 10 years. Anna actively posted anti-war materials on social media, expressing opposition to the full-scale war against Ukraine. Among her posts was advice on how to avoid military mobilization, information about political prisoners, including Alexei Navalny, as well as details on the consequences of "spreading fakes" about the Russian army. After the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, Anna used several pseudonyms to spread her posts online. After February 2023, her online activity had ceased. A criminal case was initiated against her based on a supposed "expert evaluation" of her materials conducted at the Saint Petersburg State University. The legal proceedings led to Anna's arrest in November 2023. She has been in detention for 358 days. Memorial demands the release of Anna Alexandrova and all other political prisoners in Russia. Special credit for an illustration for this post to Animators Against War. #1Day1PoliticalPrisoner #Russia #SetThemFree #PoliticalPrisoners #Memorial

“Returning the Names” – Why Those Persecuted for "Sodomy" in the USSR Are Victims of Political Repression A collaborative piece by Sphere and Memorial. On October 29, the "Returning the Names" event took place worldwide, where over 1,800 names of the unjustly convicted and repressed were read aloud. • If you wish to honor the memory of victims of repression this year, you can support the organizers of "Returning the Names" with a donation. You can donate here: october29.ru/support-the-pro…

'Nothing really beats ... encountering language that doesn’t settle into easy clichés but instead reaches out for something totally new' (Han Smith) #GoldsmithsPrize2024 newstatesman.com/culture/boo…

London, UK! Lots of people: reading the names and letters of current political prisoners. The event is taking place in the Yalta Memorial Garden. The garden is dedicated to the memory of people deported to the USSR by its allies following the Yalta Conference. The commemoration of these events caused a protest in British nationalist circles. The monument by Angela Conner was destroyed by vandals a few months after the opening of the garden in 1982. In 1986, a new sculpture designed by the same artist was installed in the garden. Many thanks to all the participants of the event. #возвращениеимен #29октября #october29 Our broadcast: youtube.com/live/8S26zLTPMrk Support "Returning the Names": october29.ru/support-the-pro…

Good morning! There is a little more than an hour left until the start of our “Returning the Names” broadcast. The event will start at the Solovetsky Stone in Moscow, at 12PM Moscow time. Though, people have been coming to the monument since the early morning, laying flowers to commemorate the victims of Soviet terror. One of the participants, whose father was repressed in the 1930s, says, “I live only to see at least one of the [state] criminals go on trial.” Tune in to “Returning the Names” the whole day on our social media. Link to our broadcast: youtube.com/watch?v=8S26zLTP… Support “Returning the Names”: october29.ru/support-the-pro… #october29 #returningthenames

"Composed as a series of portraits, some fragmentary, all multi-faceted and allusory, Smith’s novel is a hallucinatory window into what it means to excavate the past in a world committed to its erasure." (Abigail Shinn, Chair of Judges) Find out more 👉 gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-prize/…

Each day, we’re posting the story of a political prisoner in Russia. Today, we’re telling you about Olga Smirnova, a 56-year-old architect-artist and civil activist from Saint Petersburg, who is a widow, known for her strong stance on human rights and active involvement in the "Peaceful Resistance" movement. Due to her anti-war activism, Olga repeatedly faced pressure from authorities, including home searches and the confiscation of personal belongings. In May 2022, Smirnova was arrested following searches related to publications in the social media group "Democratic Petersburg – Peaceful Resistance," which discussed war crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine. She was charged with spreading "deliberately false information" about the Russian armed forces and sentenced to 6 years in prison, with an additional 3-year ban on managing online resources. Despite the charges, Olga maintains her innocence and insists that her actions reflect her conscious civic stance against the war. Olga says: "This war is a crime against humanity! Our opinions are on our protest banners." She has been in custody for 890 days. Memorial demands the release of Olga Smirnova and all other political prisoners in Russia. #1Day1PoliticalPrisoner #Russia #SetThemFree #PoliticalPrisoners #Memorial

Each day, we’re posting the story of a political prisoner in Russia. Today, we’re telling you about Ksenia Karelina, a 32-year-old cosmetologist from Yekaterinburg, who was accused of treason for transferring $51.8 to the Ukrainian fund "Together for Ukraine" She was born in Russia but has been living in Los Angeles since 2021 after obtaining U.S. citizenship. In January 2024, Ksenia returned to Russia to visit her parents but was detained at the airport due to the money transfer she made on February 24, 2022, on the first day of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine. The investigation claims that her donations were used to support the Ukrainian military, although the fund provides humanitarian aid. Ksenia’s acquaintances say that at the time of her arrest, she was confident that nothing serious would happen to her. But she was summoned to the police, where FSB officers were waiting for her. A court sentenced her to 12 years in a general-regime penal colony, despite the case involving only a single instance of money transfer. Ksenia's defense insists that her donation was intended for humanitarian purposes—to support Ukrainians during the war. Her trial was held behind closed doors, and she has been in custody for 255 days. Memorial demands the release of Ksenia Karelina and all other political prisoners in Russia. #1Day1PoliticalPrisoner #Russia #SetThemFree #PoliticalPrisoners #Memorial

The Goldsmiths Prize is one I have admired for so long: for writing that “breaks the mould” and “extends the possibilities of the novel”. So… It’s all the more startling and exciting to see Portraits on the shortlist - thank you so much @GoldsmithsPrize : )

Each day, we’re posting the story of a political prisoner in Russia. Today, we’re telling you about Polina Yevtushenko from the city of Tolyatti, on the Volga river. She is 26 years old, has an education in translation, and was working for a mobile communication company before her arrest. She has a five-year-old daughter. Polina is facing multiple charges, including for “aiding terrorist activities” and public calls for “terrorism”. Polina was arrested on July 13, 2023, while leaving the kindergarten where she had dropped off her daughter. "Turning around, I saw that more than ten men in civilian clothes were standing near me. They put plastic handcuffs on me and threw me into a car as if I were a sack of potatoes," she later said about her arrest. Soon afterwards, new charges emerged, including for “aiding terrorism”. Polina claims that her posts were taken out of context, as well as conversations where she allegedly incited “violence”. She insists that she merely wanted to convince one of the witnesses to not take part in the full-scale war in Ukraine: "These recordings are edited. The moments that could exonerate me are omitted, it is clear because the conversations simply cut off." The charges against Polina also include posts on social media where she expressed anti-war views. She has been in custody for 438 days. Memorial demands the release of Polina Yevtushenko and all other political prisoners in Russia. #1Day1PoliticalPrisoner #Russia #SetThemFree #PoliticalPrisoners #Memorial

We’re delighted to announce #LondonWritersAwards is back! Open to unagented, unpublished London-based writers of literary, commercial and YA/children’s fiction, the programme runs for 10 months and is completely free. Apps run 25 Sep-31 Oct. More info: spreadtheword.org.uk/project…

"Memorial" announces the autumn enrolment for our educational programme "A Person in History: The (Post)Soviet Experience" designed for students aged 14-16. The programme will run online from 6th October to 1st December, with classes held every Sunday. Participation is free, but admission is competitive. The programme’s title, "A Person in History", reflects our focus on the lives of ordinary people as shaped by 20th-century historical events. This year, we’ll explore diaries and memoirs — either your own family documents or those found in archives and published online. Through these, you’ll learn about the experiences of people in the recent past and gain insight into what a historical source is and how to work with one. To apply: 1. Complete the application form here: forms.gle/azAP4vth26hGLNVj7 2. Write a brief motivation letter Here are the results of our recent graduates of the last enrolment: youtube.com/watch?v=kUaIcvko… 12 people from 12 different countries with different emigration experiences researched stories of forced emigration and compiled it into a story in shadow theatre. Read more details in the picture below. Applications deadline: 20 September #Enterhistory

On the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II We share extracts from a statement by the Memorial International Association. This year, Europe – and not only Europe – will commemorate the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. In the aftermath of the war, it seemed that humanity would never forget this tragedy and would be able to learn from it. For Russians, the phrase "as long as there is no war" became a kind of proverbial incantation for several generations. It seemed that the era of wars and annexations in Europe had come to an end. Today, as the generations that survived the war against Nazism have passed away, immunity to militarism has weakened, if not vanished entirely. With the events of World War II now a part of history, the world is facing the same old threats. A new large-scale war is underway in Europe, and it is being waged by Russia. Russia, which claims to be the successor to the Soviet Union – one of the states that defeated Nazi Germany, established the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal and created the United Nations. Memorial works with historical memory. And it is clear to us that the aggression against Ukraine was made possible because the current Russian authorities have usurped the past. It is no coincidence that the Russian Historical Society (ed. a government-affiliated organization tasked with preserving historical memory and accuracy, which ) is permanently headed by Sergei Naryshkin, Director of the Foreign intelligence agency The Russian president prefaced his aggression against Ukraine with a long "historical" article in which he questioned the very existence of the Ukrainian nation, its language and culture, and its right to independent statehood. This is very similar to the statements made by Nazi leaders about other peoples, and could well be called a theoretical justification for genocide. The question inevitably arises: why were Russian authorities able to usurp history in a country that was relatively free (which Russia was in the 1990s)? We believe that this happened because the most important issues of Soviet and Russian history never became a subject of broad public discussion and remained unprocessed by public consciousness. At the beginning of Putin's rule, these gaps (we are not talking about gaps in historical knowledge, as there are actually almost none left, but about gaps in mass consciousness) made it possible for the authorities to embark on the path of aggressive political manipulation. Read the full declaration on our website: memo.site/statement_ww2

Russian criminal war of aggression against Ukraine brought a lot of grief and destruction. An enormous amount of violations of Ukrainians' human rights have been going on since. Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group @khpg, a Ukrainian human rights organisation, publishes updates on those violations and protects the rights of Ukrainians. Read their articles about some of the people that have been suffering from Russian aggression, abducted by the invaders: Abducted and tortured 56-year-old Ukrainian’s life is in danger after two years of Russian captivity. Yuriy Sadovsky now has grave health problems which will have been exacerbated, if not caused, by the savage torture he endured khpg.org/en/1608813897 Crimean Tatar businessman abducted and imprisoned for supporting blockade of Russian-occupied Crimea 9 years ago. The Russian invaders first flung Nariman Abliazov’s wife into their basement prison soon after their seizure of Henichesk, and have now passed an illegal sentence against Nariman himself khpg.org/en/1608813893 A young Ukrainian electrical engineer, Oleksiy Yefimenko (b. 1996), has been sentenced by a St Petersburg court to seven years’ imprisonment two years after he was abducted from his home in occupied Ukraine. khpg.org/en/1608813890 Ukrainian prisoner of war Oleksandr Ishchenko was killed in Russian prison, probably tortured to death. khpg.org/en/1608813888 In all cases involving Ukrainian political prisoners or civilian hostages, where a person has finally received access to an independent lawyer or been able to speak with their families, they have made it clear that any such ‘confession’ was obtained through savage and agonizing torture, — KHPG reports. According to the head of the OHCHR Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Russia subjects over 95% of Ukrainian POWs to torture, with such torture "the worst she has seen" in her 20 years of monitoring All texts available in English. Photo: Oleksandr Ishchenko, killed in Russian prison.

We can't lose another queer space in London! Help us save the Common Press by donating at the link below. Led by BIPOC, trans folks, and queer women, we have been ranked as one of London’s top 10 independent bookshops by @thebookseller 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🔥 crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-the…