On 21 November, we presented the "33 Books" in the temporary café of the Gorki Theater in Berlin. We were joined by Iryna Herasimovich, Zmicier Vishniou and Sylvia Sasse and the book "Reversions". We took the opportunity to provide information not only about our project, but also about the current situation in Belarus. This includes the forced liquidation of publishing houses, which happened mainly in 2021 and 2022, the discrediting of authors and publishers as "extremist"; the expansion of the list of extremist books to include works of classical Belarusian literature, e.g. Vincent Dunin-Marcinkievič; the "removal" of books from libraries and bookstores; politically motivated criminal proceedings against cultural workers for "denigrating the Republic of Belarus"; repression against family members of exiled authors and linguistic discrimination, i.e. the suppression of the Belarusian language from the cultural sphere.
We would like to thank Johannes Kirsten for the invitation and for the great conversations on the sidelines as well as the support of the project from very different sides.