On Wednesday afternoon, the Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies hosted Anna Narinskaya, a Russian journalist and activist, at Weiser Hall for “Poetic Voice from a Russian Prison: Zhenya Berkovich and her Striking Protest.” The lecture focused on Zhenya Berkovich, a Russian director and playwright sentenced to prison in 2024 by the Russian government on charges of “justifying terrorism” in the country.
Alongside playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, Narinskaya co-produced “Finist the Bright Falcon,” a documentary style play describing Berkovich’s initial arrest in 2023. The play, based on a modern retelling of a Russian folktale, depicts Russian women choosing to leave for Syria to marry Islamic State militants after meeting them online. First performed in 2021, the play received two Golden Mask awards, the most prestigious theatre prize in Russia, in 2022.
In her presentation, Narinskaya said Berkovich gained popularity during the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Just starting maybe half a year before the beginning of the full-scale invasion, she started regularly writing poetry and posting it on Facebook,” Narinskaya said. “And this poetry became … incredibly popular, which is not very often the case with poetry. I was, at that point, in Moscow, and I would go to the underground and sit in cars, and people would always read Zhenya’s poem from his or her phone.”
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Narinskaya said Berkovich’s arrest was politically motivated and an attempt by the Russian government to send a message to other artists.
“That’s the showcase, that she is in prison,” Narinskaya said. “The government wanted to show the people in theatre and broader people in the arts in Russia that you can’t contradict the authorities, even in a metaphorical way. So, your narrative should always be in sync with what the government is saying.”
Narinskaya said Russian repression under Russian President Vladimir Putin caused people to feel alienated and turn to art.
“You don’t understand how lonely it could be,” Narinskaya said. “You’re kind of on your own, because you look, and everybody is very happy, everybody trusts Putin, and everybody is saying that everything he does is okay. So people of this state of mind look to art to reflect their feelings — and that’s very important.”
Furthermore, Narinskaya explained that art provided catharsis for Russians that is otherwise inaccessible.
“I’ve been told by many people, including foreigners, that the response that art was having, including poetry but theatre as well, in pre-big war Russia — it was no comparison with any other country,” Narinskaya said. “People would come to the theater and cry because they would see something kind of metaphorically representing their despair.”
In an interview with The Daily, CREES Director Elizabeth King emphasized poetry’s longstanding role as a form of resistance in Russian history. “I think the significance of poetry and literature — Russian poetry, Russian literature — the significance of that tied with politics and repressive society historically has been there in Russia and the Soviet Union,” King said. “And the significance of poets, of writers and of artists and their relationship — or rather, resistance — to regimes is quite powerful.”
Narinskaya also discussed writing letters to prisoners, which Rackham student Tyler Berndt wrote he appreciated in an email to The Daily.
“Russian political prisoners are often kept in solitary confinement, and in these situations letters from the outside world are their only connection,” Berndt wrote. “For those who study this region, we are often racking our brains trying to think of ways to help those who have been subject to unjust imprisonment, and writing letters is a small but practical way to make a difference.”
Narinskaya reiterated to The Daily the importance of Berkovich’s work and her refusal to stop advocating for what she believed.
“When we look at how the world changes and look at the politics all over the world, I think we need people like Zhenya everywhere,” Narinskaya wrote. “People who will not bend. People who will not say what the government says, who have guts to protest in horrible circumstances, people who disagree, people who challenge the politics of those in power. I don’t think that we have, anywhere in the world, enough of these people.”
Daily Staff Reporter Caleb Obico can be reached at cobico@umich.edu.
