Khodorkovsky Launches Book “Meine Mitgefangenen” in Germany
On 12 June 2014, Mikhail Khodorkovsky participated in an event in the Literaturhaus in Berlin on the occasion of the publication of his new book “Meine Mitgefangenen” (“My Fellow Prisoners”) which is due to be published on 18 June.
In a conversation during the presentation with Prof Wolfgang Eichwede, deputy president of the German Society on Eastern European Studies, Khodorkovsky elaborated on his experiences in prison and explained that the rules in Russian society and in Russian prisons are very similar: “The prison is a grotesqueness of our society. In principle it’s the same – just shriller.”
He further stated that corruption is the supporting pillar of the Russian system but will eventually lead to an economic disaster. But the exit from this gloomy outlook would lay in the Russian people: “We have to act and must not wait for a rescue from outside.” At the end of the evening Khodorkovsky thanked the German public for its interest in a just and democratic Russia.
Selected chapters from the book were read by renowned and award winning actor Ulrich Noethen. Around 100 guests from politics, literature and media attended the event, among them Nobel literature laureate and former Foreign Minister Markus Meckel.
The book “Meine Mitgefangene” is published by German publishing house Galiani and contains 21 short stories in which Khodorkovsky portrays some of the prisoners he met during his more than 10 years of incarceration in various prison colonies. Some of these stories were published in Russian magazine “The New Times” starting in August 2011 and German Sunday paper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” translated some of them into Germany.
You can find more information on the book on Galiani’s website.
The event was covered in the following German media:
