author
Irina Scherbakowa
Irina Scherbakowa (English: Irina Shcherbakova), born in Moscow in 1949, is a historian and journalist. She has worked as an editor and translator of German literature. Since the early 1980s, she has conducted interviews with GULAG survivors and, following its founding in 1989, has led the educational work of Memorial, a Russian human rights organisation. In 2021, the Putin regime dissolved the NGO; in 2022, Memorial was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside a Ukrainian and a Belarusian organisation. In the same year, Scherbakowa left her home country and now lives in Berlin and Tel Aviv. She is chair of the board of the exile organisation Zukunft Memorial, founded in Berlin, serves on the board of trustees of the Buchenwald Memorial and is an honorary member of the Centre for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin.
© Doro Zinn
Latest book
Der Schlüssel würde noch passen (The Key Would Still Fit)
Droemer
In her Moscow memoirs, Irina Scherbakowa reflects on the brief years of awakening and freedom during Perestroika. It was during this period that she co–founded Memorial, the human rights organisation dedicated to coming to terms with the legacy of Stalinism. She provides a harrowing account of Russia’s seemingly unstoppable slide into dictatorship. In 2022, Scherbakowa was able to leave for Israel just in time. But giving up is not an option – following its liquidation, Memorial is being re–established in Berlin.
The manuscript for »Der Schlüssel würde noch passen« (The Key Would Still Fit) was written in Russian by Irina Scherbakowa and translated by Jennie Seitz and Ruth Altenhofer for the German-language original edition.
