WED, 1 SEP — 6 PM
Michail Kuraev | Nadežda Ažgichina | Svetlana Vasilenko
Prominent Russian authors reflect on relations between Russia and Germany
On 22 June 1941, Hitler’s Germany launched an assault on the Soviet Union. The unprecedented campaign of destruction took the lives of over 27 million Soviet citizens. In collaboration with creative artists from St Petersburg and Moscow, the DEUTSCH-RUSSISCHE FREUNDSCHAFTSGESELLSCHAFT THÜRINGEN is holding readings and discussions covering issues of remembrance culture in Germany and Russia, with the aim of creating space to talk about current problems relating to Germano-Russian relations. Writer and screenwriter Michail Kuraev, one of the last survivors of the siege of Leningrad, will read from Blok-Ada. Through her story entitled Mum and the Victory Parade, Svetlana Vasilenko, chair of the UNION OF RUSSIAN WRITERS, remembers the lifetime achievements of her mother’s generation. In The Tearful Heart, Nadežda Ažgichina, director of PEN Moscow, reflects upon the lives of three generations of women in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.
FR, 3. SEP — 19.30 UHR
Matthias Platzeck, Ministerpräsident a. D., Vors. des Deutsch-Russischen Forums e. V.
Germany’s responsibility for peace in Europe
“The core issue, on which the fate of Europe stands or falls, is the question of security,” writes Matthias Platzeck, former minister-president, in his book Wir brauchen eine neue Ostpolitik that discusses the tense relations between Russia and the West, and the multitude of missed opportunities for a security policy encompassing the whole of Europe. He calls for dialogue on equal footing, without sugarcoating the increasingly autocratic trajectory of Putin‘s government. In his view, both universal respect for one another and concrete knowledge of each other’s history, culture, strengths and traumas are prerequisites for this.Mindful of Nazi Germany‘s invasion of the Soviet Union, which has its 80th anniversary this year, Platzeck emphasises Germany‘s responsibility to ensure peace in Europe through a new Ostpolitik designed to foster trust.
LESUNG Kuraev | Ažgichina | Vasilenko —
MIT Elke Wieditz | Bernd Lange (Rezitation)Sophia Schumann (Klavier) | Magdalena Kleinjung (Violine)
KOOPERATION — KUNSTFEST WEIMAR | DEUTSCH-RUSSISCHE-FREUNDSCHAFTS- GESELLSCHAFT in THÜRINGEN E. V. / WEIMAR | FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG LANDESBÜRO THÜRINGEN | ROSA-LUXEMBURG-STIFTUNG THÜRINGEN E. V.
