The Real Life GULAG

Join us for our new speaker series “Russia: In Search of a New Paradigm — Conversations With Yevgenia Albats” to hear Vladimir Kara-Murza speak with our eminent host about his experience of the Russian Gulag.

A Cambridge University-trained historian, Vladimir Kara-Murza, came to Russian political activism as a protégé of the late Boris Nemtsov. Kara-Murza has become known as a promoter of the Magnitsky Act aimed at punishing the corrupted Russian judges, prosecutors, and policemen. In April 2022, he was arrested in Moscow; a year later, in April of 2023, he was sentenced on trump-up charges to 25 years in the Russian maximum-security prison. He spent eleven months in solitary confinement in the Siberian prison and never expected himself to get out alive. By pure miracle and lots of efforts on the side of American and German diplomats, he was released from prison on the biggest prisoners’ swamp ever on August 1, 2024, and deported to Germany. A long-time contributing columnist with the Washington Post, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary while still in prison. Vladimir Kara-Murza comes to Harvard to tell his story.

These are but some of the topics to be discussed in what promises to be an in-depth, informative conversation. Please explore the other planned talks in the series in our Events listing.