Poynter - Elena Kostyuchenko, I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country

The European Studies Council, The Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale, and the Slavic Colloquium present Elena Kostyuchenko, journalist and author, in conversation with Andrei Kureichyk, a Belarusian dissident and writer in exile, and Nari Shelekpayev, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures (Yale). Hosted and Moderated by Marci Shore, Associate Professor of History (Yale)

Lunch at 12:30pm ET, talk at 1:00pm ET
Location: HQ, Rm 136 (first floor), 320 York St.
Part of the European & Russian Studies Community Lunch Seminar Series

A fearless, cutting portrait of Russia and an essential cri de coeur for journalism in opposition to the global authoritarian turn

To be a journalist is to tell the truth. “I Love Russia” is Elena Kostyuchenko’s unrelenting attempt to document her country as experienced by those whom it systematically and brutally erases: village girls recruited into sex work, queer people in the outer provinces, patients and doctors at a Ukrainian maternity ward, and reporters like herself.

Bio: Elena Kostyuchenko is a Russian independent journalist. For 17 years she was a special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta, till the newspaper was shut down under the pressure of Russian authorities in March 2022. She reported on conflict, crime, human rights and social issues. Kostyuchenko was among the first to prove the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. She covered the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the second day of the war. Now she collaborates with the independent Russian exiled media Meduza. Her book «I love Russia» will be released on 17 October 2023. Her work was acknowledged with multiple awards including European Press Prize, the Gerd Bucerius Award-Free Press of Eastern Europe, and Paul Klebnikov Prize.

Photo By: Julia Tatarchenko