Is dialogue possible between writers on either side of a conflict? This is the question that rocked the latest Pen America festival, after the association for the defense of freedom of expression invited dissident Ukrainian and Russian writers to participate at the same time.
Three Ukrainian writers, two of whom are military, were due to go to the “World Voices festival” organized in New York by the association in May, but protested against the presence of Russian writers. One of them, Artem Chapeye, a soldier in the military police, says that appearing alongside Russian writers could be seen as disloyal by his superiors and comrades. “I realize that these people don’t support (Vladimir) Putin’s government, but I have obligations as a soldier,” he told AFP.
Volodymyr Yermolenko, president of the Ukrainian branch of the international association, assures him that he does not believe in the possibility of dialogue in time of war. Difficult to “sit with Russian representatives, while our friends can die under their bullets”, he says.
Faced with the impossibility of finding a compromise, two Russian writers and New Yorker journalist Masha Gessen canceled their participation in the event.
The Russian novelist Anna Nemzer – who fled Russia after the invasion of Ukraine – speaks of a painful solution, but claims to accept the refusal of Ukrainians to dialogue with Russians. “I have this damn passport, and with my language, with the fact that I’ve lived there all my life, I’m part of all this, I can’t escape it,” she laments. She adds: “It’s a trap, it’s unfair, but how can I even use the word ‘unfair’ when we know what injustice is: the bombs raining down.”
Masha Gessen, who emigrated from Moscow as a child, resigned from Pen America’s board in protest. “For me, an organization that defends freedom of expression cannot boycott someone’s speech,” Masha Gessen told Russian exile TV channel Dojd. Pen America director Suzanne Nossel said she regretted the incident, “We should have had a better approach.”
Earlier in the month, a similar dispute erupted in Tartu, Estonia, after two Ukrainian poets refused to attend a literary festival because Linor Goralik, a famous Russian author, was invited.
“War crimes in Ukraine are done in the name of Russian culture,” said Ukrainian poet Olena Huseinova of her refusal to speak at the festival. “If I were a representative of Russian culture, I wouldn’t find the strength to speak, I would be too ashamed,” adds the artist, who fled Kiev in February 2022 with nothing but the clothes she was wearing.
These disagreements illustrate the difficulty for international organizations to display their support for Ukraine while collaborating with Russian dissidents. While many artists have fled Russia, others have stayed, continued to voice their opposition and face harassment, threats and arrests.
After the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Suzanne Nossel called for not boycotting Russian culture indiscriminately. In the Wall Street Journal, she wrote that “cultural dialogues with independent-minded Russians are key to illuminating the current crisis and finding ways to overcome it. »
For Georgy Urushadze, former director of the main Russian literary prize and who fled Russia, it is also his duty to “publish books that capture the sadness of Russian reality”. He insists: “It is important now and it will be important for historians in the future. »
In this context, how to envisage a dialogue between Ukrainian and Russian artists, even after the end of the war? For Volodymyr Yermolenko, president of Pen Ukraine, it will depend on whether “there is a process of repentance, of real repentance”.