‘Political Girl – Life and Fate in Russia’ Maria Alyokhina
The Black Box
Thursday 29 January, 8.00pm
£10.00/£8.00 (concession)
Buy TicketsWhat do you do when your country becomes a repressive authoritarian state?
A breath-taking, compulsively readable story about how a regular person can stand up for their rights against an oppressive regime.
2014: Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics. Russia invades Crimea. Putin is re-elected president. Several political prisoners are amnestied and released early from prison.
Maria Alyokhina is among them. She had spent two years in a penal colony after performing the punk prayer ‘Virgin Mary, Banish Putin’ with her friends in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. They had warned the rest of the world of the dangers of authoritarianism but the Russia she finds when she gets out of prison is even more oppressive.
What can you do, she asks, when your country has been seized by all-powerful men who are waging war against another country and their own citizens?
As Maria recounts her brave and colourful protests, we are drawn straight into the world of grassroots opposition and witness the absurd measures the Russian state takes to contain protest. And when the full-scale war against Ukraine starts and the Russian opposition is repeatedly silenced, Maria and her activist friends continue to resist despite the high stakes.
They fight increasingly absurd cycles of detention and house arrest: sometimes with the smallest acts such as going for a walk or having a rainbow ice cream, until, faced with a new prison sentence, she escapes Russia in May 2022 dressed as a delivery food courier. Her story, like her life, is fiercely courageous, darkly funny and highly inspiring to anyone who wants to stand up for the truth.
Maria will be in conversation with Una Mullally
Una Mullally is a writer from Dublin, Ireland. Her journalism and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, The Stinging Fly, and in The Irish Times where she writes a weekly column on society, culture, and politics. She is the founder of the queer press, Sliver, and its zine imprint 4Ls Press. She is the author of two books on social change in Ireland, In the Name of Love (2014), and Repeal the 8th (2018). In theatre, she has worked with the companies Dead Centre and thisispopbaby, has co-founded numerous podcasts, club nights, and curated festivals for the National Concert Hall of Ireland, the Gate Theatre, and the Light House Cinema.
This event takes place in a licensed venue; therefore, admission to the 8pm performance is limited to guests aged 18+.
Tickets also available from:
Visit Belfast | 028 90 246 609
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