»ZEKAMERONE – Geschichten aus dem Gefängnis« mit Maksim Znak

In the organizer's words:

"In a world shrunk to the size of a cell, every detail becomes more important."

In September 2020, the lawyer and Belarusian opposition activist Maksim Znak was arrested in the course of the protest movement in Belarus and sentenced to ten years in a penal colony the following year for allegedly founding a terrorist organization. His short stories "Zekamerone" were written in the first year of his imprisonment in various remand prisons; he recorded them in a notebook that was smuggled outside. As a brilliant observer, Maksim Znak tells of everyday life in the Belarusian prison world, of scenes of resistance and self-assertion as well as of going quietly and loudly insane, pointedly and with subtle irony.

In mid-December 2025, Maxim Znak was released together with Maria Kalesnikava and other political prisoners in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions.
In conversation with the editor of Osteuropa magazine and translator of "Zekamerone", Dr. Volker Weichsel, Maksim Znak talks about the situation in Belarus and reads from his book.
The German passages will be read by actor and narrator Bernt Hahn.

Book presentation and reading
English (conversation)
German and Russian (reading)

The event will be broadcast on the YouTube channel of the Lew Kopelew Forum.

Cooperation partners of the event are the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde e. V. / Zeitschrift Osteuropa / DGO-Zweigstelle Köln-Bonn an der Akademie für europäischen Menschenrechtsschutz der Universität zu Köln and Libertas Belarus.

The book table is organized by "Der andere Buchladen".

The book was published by Suhrkamp Verlag on 18.01.2023.

Box Office (UKB): 5,00 - 15,00 Euro (pupils, students, members: 2,50€)
Registration: https://forms.gle/n9s2hMSPPDBBj64b8

Price information:

Box Office (UKB): 5,00 - 15,00 Euro (pupils, students, members: 2,50€) Registration: https://forms.gle/n9s2hMSPPDBBj64b8 (No card payment possible.)