Organizer: Olga Andreevskikh (olga.andreevskikh@tuni.fi)
The session seeks to discuss the various discursive ways in which artists, civil rights activists, scholars, and journalists have been restructuring and reconceptualising their everyday lives and professional practices following their migration from the Russian Federation (RF). The scope of the papers will cover both the pre-2022 migration which happened as a result of the growing infringements of human rights in the RF, as well as the new, unprecedented wave of migration that took place after Russia’s aggressive full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and after a new wave of governmental repressions against the Russian media, academia, political opposition, and LGBTQ communities.
The panel will focus on the experiences of asylum seekers who had to escape the RF in the fear of being persecuted on the grounds of their anti-war and anti-Putin views or on the grounds of their sexual and gender identity, as well as on the challenges faced by people who were able to leave the RF in their professional capacity. Through the interdisciplinary discussions of the transformation that artistic practices, activist agendas, and knowledge-production undergo during the period of forced migration, the panel will aim to identify what can serve as sources of hope and strength for anti-war, anti-Putin Russian nationals in search for an alternative future.