One year after the occupation of Ukraine began, the aggressor Russia faced a decisive setback that emptied the country of many of its brightest artists and writers. The forced exile of a large contingent of Russian intellectuals may not be the loudest alarm in Vladimir Putin’s psyche, but revealing who these writers are offers a clear map of the country left behind. Public debate in the field of ideas has been stifled, narrowing citizen discourse into a monolithic, censored model. [Ferrer, 2023]
It is hard to measure how many Russian writers have chosen to depart in recent months. Jorge Ferrer, a critic and translator of Cuban origin and the head of the cycle Other Voices, Other Russias, which brought some of the most prominent dissident writers to Barcelona as part of the CCCB program, notes that quantification is nearly impossible. “The flight began soon after the declaration of war, some left within days, others waited two or three months for the climate to become untenable,” he explains. The reality is that many Russian intellectuals adapted to the demands of the regime, yet the best and most prestigious voices have almost all left.” [Ferrer, 2023]
a hundred years ago
Echoes of a century ago, after the Russian revolution and later the Stalinist purges, still ring true. Paris and especially Berlin emerged as hubs of an alternative Russian culture once again, inviting ideas, editors, and new publications. Vladimir Nabokov and Isaak Babel set roots there a hundred years ago in a period of vibrant cultural ferment. Today, Vladimir Sorokin and Ludmila Ulitskaya stand as two of the most enduring names among the exiled. Sorokin had already split his time with Berlin, maintaining an apartment there, while Ulitskaya—honored with literary prizes and a longtime outspoken critic of Putin—had to pack most of her life into a small suitcase days after the invasion. There, she continues her work, far from Moscow, uncertain if a return is possible. [Ferrer, 2023]
Another reluctant Berliner is Maria Stepanova, who has just published a deeply moving book, In Memory of Memory, which also contemplates exile. Born in Moscow in 1972, she fled with her husband, essayist Gleb Morev, when a magazine she led, Colta, was dismissed in the early days of the conflict. She remarked during a visit to Barcelona that contemporary Russian artistic life is effectively halted; the war cannot be called war, but a “special operation.” A living legend to some, Maxim Osipov—despite living outside the core literary circles—remains noted for his medical practice and his cautious, expansive narrative voice. Today he divides his time between Paris and Berlin. [Ferrer, 2023]
reader orphans
Others, like the brilliant science fiction writer and screenwriter Anna Starobinets, chose Tbilisi in Georgia as a new base, joining a community of writers including Andrei Filimonov. The fate of the controversial cartoonist and graphic activist Victoria Lomasko, known for her works The Other Russias and The Last Soviet Artist, who has been a prominent voice on social media, led her to relocate to Brussels after the invasion. The exiled writers confront ongoing instability as they search for new institutions willing to support their work. Ferrer notes that American universities show growing interest in Ukrainian writers, a shift that underscores the diminished natural audience for dissident Russian authors in their homeland. Stepanova, for instance, would not be published in Russia due to new laws, yet she continues writing an LGBTQ-themed novel with resolve. The broader tragedy is the ongoing loss within the intellectual ecosystem, a burden shared by many exiles. [Ferrer, 2023]
Other voices in exile, still shaping the cultural landscape from abroad, remind readers that exile is not a single path but a constellation of routes. The common thread remains a persistent search for space to think aloud, to challenge, and to imagine beyond the boundaries set by an imposing regime. [Ferrer, 2023]