International conference on Russian-language literature in emigration

Date

Thursday 30 October 2025 - Friday 31 October 2025

Address

P.J. Veth
Nonnensteeg 1-3
2311 VJ Leiden

Room

1.01

The Russian Studies programme is organising the international conference Russophone Literature of the Fifth Wave: Problems, Challenges, and New Opportunities. Researchers from various countries will examine the impact of the fifth wave of Russian emigration – caused by the war in Ukraine – on the production and distribution of Russian-language literature outside Russia.

The conference will discuss topics such as:

· Anti-war poetry and prose

· Emigration, displacement and guilt

· New literary infrastructures abroad

· Publication and distribution of literature in exile

A special round-table discussion with émigré Russian-language publishers is also on the programme. The working languages of the conference are English and Russian.

Programme

Paper: 20 minutes
Panel: three speakers, followed by Q&A

09.00 - 10.45 Panel 1 Anti-war Poetry

Chair: Dorine Schellens
Otto Boele (University of Leiden) - Welcome and opening remarks
Ilya Skokleenko (KU Leuven) - Resistance and Opposition Arts Review: Russophone Anti-War Poetry
Alexandra Smith (University of Edinburgh) - Reimagining Ethics and Aesthetics: Vera Pavlova’s Anti-War poetry (2022-2024)
Josephine Von Zitzewitz (Independant scholar) - War, Women Poets and Poetic Form

10.45 – 11.15 Break
 

11.15 – 13.00 Panel 2 Navigating Exile, Navigating History

Chair: Lioudmila Fedorova
Pieter Boulogne (KU Leuven) - A Poète Maudit Between Two Fires: Igor Bobyrev’s Metro and Mobilisation as Contemporary Tamizdat
Christian Zehnder (University of Bamberg) - Maria Stepanova’s Poetics of the Prelingual and the Fifth Wave of Emigration
Ilya Kalinin (Humboldt University of Berlin) - “Brave New World of Letters: “Russian Literature” as anti-, dis, u- and other topoi

13.00 – 14.15 Lunch

14.15 – 15.45 Round table: Russian Publishing Today

Dina Gusejnova (London School of Economics and Political Science) - chair
Vladimir Kharitonov (Freedom Letters/ Free University)
Polina Lavrova (Laurus Publishing)
Maxim Osipov (The Fifth Wave)

15.45 – 16.15 Break

16.15 – 18.00 Panel 3 The Fifth Wave in Context

Chair: Otto Boele
Michael Lavery (University of Maryland) - After Russia: First-Wave Poetry and the Fifth Wave
Dorine Schellens (University of Leiden) and Dina Gusejnova (London School of Economics and Political Science) - Locating the 'Other Russia'. On Literary Exile Studies and its Limits
Ilya Kukulin (Stanford University) - Parallel Exiles. Contemporary Émigré Poetry from Belarus and Russia: A Comparative Analysis (online)

18.00 - Dinner at participants’ own expenses

19.30 - 21.30 Evening program: поэтический вечер Academy Building, Telders Auditorium

Лена Берсон, Сергей Гандлевский, Юлий Гуголев, Ирина Евса

October 31 Lipsius Building 1.48

9.00 - 10.45 Panel 4 Languages and Discourses of the Fifth Wave

Chair: Maia Kucherskaia
Nikolai Plotnikov (Ruhr University Bochum) - Philosophical
Discourses about the War Outside of Russia
Kristine Yushkova (Daugavpils University) - Эмигрантская русская культура пятой волны в Латвии
Andrei Arkhangelsky (independent author and critic, Berlin) – Политический язык российской эмиграции (на основе митингов в Берлине)

10.45 – 11.15 Break

11.15 – 13.00 Panel 5 Fifth Wave Prose

Chair: Ben Dhooge
Oshank Hashemi (Ghent University/ Leiden University) «По ту сторону национальной принадлежности: анимализация родины и фигуры изгнанника в рассказе Марии Степановой „Фокус“ (2024)»
Lioudmila Fedorova (Georgetown University) - Fiction, Autofiction, and Nonfiction in the Literature of Russia’s Fifth Wave
Maia Kucherskaia (Henan University) - Reinventing the Self: Hybrid Identity and Survival Strategies in Russophone «Relocant» Prose

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.45 Panel 6 Russophone Dissent and Displacement

Chair: Pieter Boulogne

Julia Nemirovskaya (University of Oregon) - Kopilka of Dissent: Émigré Poets and the Language of Protest
Anna Namestnikov (Ghent University ) and Ben Dhooge (Ghent University) - (Becoming) Wounded Prose: Russian émigré literature after February 2022
Johan Öberg (translator and critic, Gothenburg) - Framing and reframing, legitimation strategies and critical encounter. The fate of russophone poetry in Swedish translations since 2022.

15.45 – 18.00 Excursion (boat ride Leiden canals)

18.30 Farewell dinner

This conference is made possible by the generous support of:
Wilhelmina Jansenfonds
Leids Universitair Fonds
Stichting Klank en Woord
Russian literature and Culture at the Department of Eastern European Languages and Cultures (Ghent University)
Cerise – Eureast Platform (Ghent University)
Department of Russian Studies (University of Leiden)

More information: Otto Boele ([e-mail]) and Dorine Schellens ([e-mail])

• languages, cultures and worldviews