A Russian TV programme discussing the impact of prison on Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s writing was broadcast on December 2.

TV Rain assembled a group of experts to consider how and in what way life behind bars had affected Khodorkovsky’s work with the focus of the discussion centred around his nomination for the Russian Union of Journalists’ Golden Pen Award for journalistic achievement. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta nominated its freelance author and columnist Mikhail Khodorkovsky in November 2013, with reference to a series of his articles published by the paper between 2012 – 2013.

Among the guests who joined the journalist Anna Mongait on her ‘Mongait‘ programme,were Vladimir Pereverzin, author of the book ‘Hostage. The  story of a Yukos manager’ and a former manager of the Yukos Company, Olga Romanova, journalist, and head of the human rights NGO Rus Sidyashaya, and Eduard Limonov, a writer who spent some years in captivity himself.

Vladimir Pereverzin observed that what had been required for Khodorkovsky to receive this nomination, among other things, was ‘the Order of Courage’, noting:

“This person has been imprisoned for 10 years – this is an Award certainly for the Order of Courage. His writing is his view on life and on today’s situation in Russia.”

Watch the program in Russian here.