On Tuesday, 19 December 2017, there will be a discussion at Pushkin House (London, WC1A 2TA) of 21st-century Russia’s unexpected cause célèbre, the arrest and prosecution of historian YURY DMITRIEV. The event begins at 7.30 pm. 

The next hearing of Dmitriev’s case at the Petrozavodsk City Court is scheduled for 26-27 December. His latest term of preventative custody ends on 27 January 2018. By then the 60-year-old will have spent more than a year in the Karelian capital’s Detention Centre No 1.

Yury Dmitriev, 1998

• Will Dmitriev be convicted and sentenced to years in a penal colony? That was the intention behind his arrest in December 2016.
• Perhaps the prosecution will be abandoned — the evidence is slender and unconvincing.
• Might Dmitriev be released in January next year? Then, on 28 January 2018, he could celebrate his 61st birthday at home, with family and friends.
• Why this concerted attempt to wreck the reputation of a man who has done more than anyone else in Russia to restore the names of Stalin’s forgotten victims?

These and other issues will be discussed by barrister and Professor of Law Bill Bowring (Birkbeck college, London), historian Dr Andrea Gullotta (University of Glasgow), and John Crowfoot (Dmitriev Affair website), who will chair the meeting.

The evening begins at 7.30 pm and is hosted by the Pushkin Club and Rights in Russia. (Please note there is limited room — it is best to book in advance.)

For more details of the event
and to book