Vladimir Putin’s War on Russian Culture

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Putin has clamped down harshly on culture and the media, which have been weaponised to serve nationalist ideology. Many of Russia’s leading intellectuals have fled the new oppression. Bridget Kendall MBE (former BBC Moscow Correspondent and until recently Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge) chairs a discussion of the purging of Russian culture with the playwright Mikhail Durnenkov, known for his work with Teatr.doc and the Liubimovka theatre festival, and the journalist and writer Mikhail Zygar’ (founding editor of the Dozhd’ TV channel) – both of whom are now living in exile.

This event supplements the College’s Berlin Lecture series, launched in 1990 to celebrate the 80th birthday of the College’s Founding President, Sir Isaiah Berlin. While the Berlin Lectures cover the history of ideas, this event focuses on another area of great concern to Sir Isaiah, Russian culture. This event is open to all and will not be recorded.

The Berlin Lecture events are made possible thanks to an endowment gift from the Rothschild Foundation.