Last-Minute Threat Cancels Nobel Laureate Speech in Odessa

A long awaited reading and public appearance in Odessa by Belarusian Svetlana Alexeivich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, was abruptly cancelled at the last moment this week in the wake of a threatening provocation. The cancellation of the reading by the most famous living Russophone writer, one who had been a staunch supporter of Ukrainian sovereignty in the midst of the ongoing conflict with Russia, was a serious blow to the city. Odessa’s literati and cultural elites have fantasized for a long time about organizing an Alexeivich reading in the city, and this spring, after it became apparent that the Green Theater amphitheater, the venue that would host the Nobel prize winner, would not be able to afford the customary reading fee she charged, the entire city went about crowd-funding a sum of several thousand dollars in order to cover the honorarium and Alexeivich’s traveling costs.

About four hours before Alexievich was scheduled to take the stage, an anonymous individual had added her name to the list of anti- Ukrainian activists on the controversial nationalist Mirotvorets website. The website—the name means “Peacemaker”—is run by Ukrainian nationalists and affiliated hackers, and has become internationally infamous in 2016 when it leaked the names and private contact information of more than 4,000 journalists who had reported from occupied Donbass. Those journalists all had to go through press accreditation processes with self-declared authorities in the occupied region in order to have access to the war zone. Although the site removed Alexievich’s name from the list several hours later, the writer and the theater decided to cancel the event “to avoid possible risks for Alexievich and the audience in the theater.”

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