He is one of the bravest Russian voices of freedom — a writer whose books have changed the way the world speaks about the legacy of the Soviet Union and modern Russia.

Sergei Lebedev — an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and Russian dissident whose works have been translated into more than 20 languages — will speak at the Sybir Memorial Museum on 1 June 2026, delivering a lecture on the power of unresolved history.

“Crime Without Punishment: How the Soviet Past Shapes Modern Russia”

Date: June 1, 2026
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Venue: The Sybir Memorial Museum

Admission is free.
The lecture will be delivered in English.

For years, his writing has shaped the global debate on totalitarianism, memory — or rather historical oblivion — and responsibility. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the author openly condemned the Kremlin’s actions, becoming one of the most outspoken Russian critics of war and authoritarianism.

The international press has repeatedly highlighted the uniqueness of his voice. The prestigious The New York Review of Books wrote that, since the days of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russia has not produced a writer so intensely focused on his country’s history and its imprint on the collective consciousness. Many literary scholars also regard him as a serious contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

During the lecture, Sergei Lebedev will speak about memory, repression, and the unspoken crimes of the Soviet era, as well as the ways in which an unresolved past continues to shape contemporary Russia.

We warmly invite you to this unique meeting with a writer whose voice — both literary and moral — carries global significance today.