Nacht der unerschossenen Gedichte 2025. Eine Begegnung mit ausgelöschter belarusischer Literatur
With and by Alena Aharelysheva, Yaraslava Ananka, Alhierd Bacharevič, Sveta Ben, Zmicer Che, Julia Cimafiejeva, Uladzimir Hramovich, Tamara Kabiak, KOOB, Inga Lizengevic, Madmapper, Zhenja Oks, Lesia Pcholka, Dmitri Strotzew, Zmicier Vishniou, Nina Weller, Tina Wünschmann, Katsiaryna Yavorskaya, and many more.
During the night of October 29th to 30th 1937, the NKVD shot 132 people in Minsk, among them many intellectuals. Their bodies were buried in a forest in Kurapaty near Minsk. The “Night of the Executed Poets” marks the tragic peak of the crimes against the national Belarusian intellectual community. Only when Belarusian historians and archeologists started to dig at that part of the forest in 1988 was it possible to estimate the true scope of this crime: There were between 30.000 and 250.000 bodies. The “Night of the Unexecuted Poems” addresses the history of Kurapaty between 1937 and 2025.
The event will take place in Belarusian, Yiddish, and German.
Organized by the Initiative of Friends of Belarusian Literature in Berlin and the Belarusian community RAZAM e.V.
Organized by the Initiative of Friends of Belarusian Literature in Berlin and the Belarusian community RAZAM e.V. With the kind support of the Literary Colloquium Berlin, the S. Fischer Foundation, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the University of Freiburg, Leipzig University, the ZfL, and Scholars for Belarus at akno e.V.
Belarus Lectures
The event at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin introduces the “Belarus Lectures.” This interdisciplinary lecture and discussion series offers insights into the historical and current key issues of Belarusian cultural and literary shortly while also exploring the political situation in contemporary Belarusian culture. During the winter semester 2025/26, it will also be offered as a public lecture series and as a university course.
The series is a cooperation between the Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Akademisches Netzwerk Osteuropa (akno e.V.), the University of Freiburg, Leipzig University, and the ZfL. It is funded by the European Union and the Zeit Stiftung Bucerius.
Fig. above: © Tia Hüpenbecker