Award-winning Russian novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya recently published a short story in the U.S. magazine the New Yorker and shared some of her thoughts regarding her work with Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

“Khodorkovsky and I are not like-minded people – we have differing views on many subjects – but in the area of Russian-Ukrainian relations, we mostly agree,” Ulitskaya said in the interview, referring to the recent Russia-Ukraine Dialogue Forum held in Kiev sponsored by Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia organisation.

“I believe it [the Forum] was really beneficial, possibly even more so for the Russian side. I expressed my point of view at the meeting, and I am ready to confirm it yet again: the Russians and the Ukrainians are two peoples who have suffered a trauma inflicted by the Soviet power. The Russian trauma is deeper. It is necessary to acknowledge it, go through a post-traumatic period, and, only after that, try to establish a relationship on the basis of mutual respect and equality,” she said. “I believe Khodorkovsky and I share this point of view. However, seeing some symptoms of the return of Soviet Power, this shift seems highly improbable on the state level.”

Ulitskaya also describes first meeting Khodorkovsky in person in Zurich after having corresponded by mail for several years. The novelist says that while traveling across Russia, she often came across footprints of his social activity: “I would see a computer room in a colony for juvenile criminals. I would stumble upon educational seminars for journalists, organized by the Open Russia Foundation, which Khodorkovsky established and financed. And finally, after he had been arrested, I learned about his totally astonishing brainchild—an orphanage named Korallovo, in the Moscow suburbs.”

Lyudmila Ulitskaya authored the short story “The Fugitive” about a Russian dissident that flees to a distant, unoccupied village. She has been awarded numerous literary prizes including the Medici Award in France in 1998, the Penne Literary Prize in Italy in 1998, the Giuseppe Acerbi Award in Italy in 1998; the Man Booker Prize in Russia in 2002 for Kukotsky Case; Novel of the Year Prize in Russia in 2004 for Sincerely Yours, Shurik; Best writer of the Year Ivanushka Prize in Russia in 2004; the Penne Literary Prize in 2006 in Italy, the National Olympia Prize of Russian Academy of Business in 2007 in Russia; the Best Stage Play Award 2006 conferred by Moscow Culture Commitee for The White Elephant Year in 2007 in Russia; the National Literary Prize BIG BOOK in 2007 in Russia for Daniel Stein, Translator and the Grinzane Cavour Literary Award in 2008 in Italy for Sincerely Yours, Shurik.