Viktor Jerofejew: Die neue Barbarei

In an age of renewed barbarism, as heads of state and government carve up the world like mafiosi, Viktor Yerofeyev paints a garishly dazzling panorama of human and political abysses, in which truth becomes a game and morality an attitude. While Putin appears as “Pontchik”—an oil-fried doughnut with a hole in the middle, a symbol of inflated emptiness—the opposition strikes a martyr’s pose. Yerofeyev’s protagonist sets off for “Heavenly Moscow,” a surreal landscape somewhere between dream, memory, and farce, where history and the present collide. There, Stalin and Rilke, Tsvetaeva and Merkel meet, and the great Russian classics from Pushkin to Tolstoy appear as witnesses to an endless recurrence of violence. In this alchemical blend of autobiography, essay, and allegory, a picture emerges of a country shattering under the weight of its own obsession with myth.*The New Barbarism*is Yerofeyev’s most radical book: a satire, a work of poetry, and a tragicomic declaration of love for a Russia that has lost itself. Through a reading and discussion, we will introduce you to the latest novel and the intellectual world of this Berlin-based Russian author.

Moderated byWladimir Velminski
Reader: Martin Jankowski

The event will take place in German and Russian (with translation)!