Reading & talk with Dr. Irina Scherbakowa
Irina Scherbakowa is one of the most important Russian opposition activists and co-founder of the human rights organization Memorial, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. On April 9, the award-winning historian and journalist will present her Moscow memoirs, published in German for the first time in November, at the State Library from 6 pm. Admission is free.
In her new book "Der Schlüssel würde noch passen", the renowned author Irina Scherbakowa tells of the brief years of perestroika. She reports on everyday life and the political upheaval in Moscow and the countryside at the beginning of the 1990s. She describes the unaccustomed freedom and how people learned to deal with it more badly than well. Her impressive memories of Moscow are closely interwoven with the history of Russia in the 20th century, Russia's seemingly unstoppable slide into dictatorship and her lifelong fight against state terror and for remembrance.
The event is being held in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation MV, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern State Commissioner for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship and the State Center for Political Education MV. It is part of the supporting program for the travelling exhibition "The Other Russia. MEMORIAL: The struggle for historical truth and democracy", which can be visited until April 30, 2026 at the state's Documentation Center for the Victims of Dictatorships in Germany.
The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Günther Uecker State Library dates back to the Ducal Government Library founded in 1779 and, as a critical infrastructure, preserves important historical holdings as well as a large collection of works from and about Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has legally tasked the state library in Schwerin with collecting, cataloging and archiving the state's current printed works for the future. According to the state law and ordinance on the delivery of printed works, all printed products published in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern must be delivered to the state library free of charge within one month of publication. Titles about Mecklenburg-Vorpommern that are published outside the state are acquired by the State Library. The State Library is a department of the State Office for Culture and Monument Preservation. The old building at its location on Johannes-Stelling-Straße is now part of Schwerin's UNESCO World Heritage ensemble.
