Russian playwright Polina Borodina talks about protest, censorship, and navigating the cultural landscape in Berlin.
Interview by Dennis Schep
When you need to introduce yourself, what comes up first?
Not long ago I did an exercise that I found in a self-help book (yeah, I sometimes read all sorts of nonsense). You write all your roles and statuses on a piece of paper. For example, being a father, being a cyclist — or someone who pays taxes… And then you take out the things that are not the core of your personality, till you come to the three last ones, that just feel impossible to get rid of. The main one, no surprises, was author. But I also had “funny girl,” and it was impossible to get rid of that one as well. Though lately I definitely haven’t felt like one.
You say you’re from Russia, but it doesn’t fully define you?
I didn’t even put it on the list (laughs). I define myself more as “someone who writes in the Russian language.” I would say I’m an author from Russia.
Why “author” and not “writer”?
Do you remember that lesson in school, when the teacher tells you there are three types of literature? Lyric, epic and drama. We all remember that lesson. But in reality, if we look at literature as part of society, as a system of institutions, public spaces, and people, the authors of drama – so-called playwrights – are put kind of on the side. For example, compared to prose, the Russian book market publishes very little drama. Literary critics don’t write about it — it’s the domain of theater critics. That’s why we all have identity issues. And for me, the word ‘author’ is broader and fits better what I do — sometimes I create worlds in texts, and sometimes I invent performances on the level of texts.
What was life like for an playwright under the Putin regime?
I’ve been an author for about fifteen years. All of my career as an author was unfolding in the Putin era, that’s true. It’s not difficult, he has been ruling for more than 20 years. My career began when I was 19 — my first play won a playwriting competition. Someone pays for your flight, your hotel, you receive a prize on a stage. I felt like Cinderella at the ball. I don’t come from a cultural family, my parents are far, far away from the theater world.
Then I wrote many different plays that were shortlisted for all sorts of competitions, and performances were staged based on them. At that time, if anything limited me, it was my own fears, experience, and the depth of my talent. Theater remained one of the last territories of freedom — which is probably why, eventually, it was also targeted. We’ve already seen a couple of high-profile ‘theater trials’ — first the case against Serebrennikov (now he lives in Berlin), and more recently, the ongoing case against my colleagues and friends Zhenya Berkovich and Sveta Petriychuk.
Was there repression or censorship at the time that affected people in their writing practice?
I cannot speak for everyone, but when I wrote fiction plays on a variety of topics, I felt free. Although if you are doing something that contains a political gesture, that is different. Recently I was working on a theater adaptation of a book by Elena Kostyuchenko, a very famous and brave journalist, and she talks about journalists of the newspaper Novаya Gazeta who died unnatural deaths. The first death she mentions happened in 2000.
But of course, journalists are one thing, and writers are another. I personally encountered this problem only when I was invited by Elena Grémina, one of the founders of the most important political theater in Russia, the Theater.doc, to write a play about political prisoners. In 2012, Russia saw mass protests against election fraud and Putin’s presidency. The streets of Russia never saw so many people. I also went, as did many of my friends and colleagues. The authorities responded with repression — they sentenced random protesters to approximately three years in prison. It was a way to scare people. And the people took a step back… Those who were arrested were not visible media figures; they didn’t have power behind them. And society forgot about them. That’s why in 2015 we decided to make a performance. I collected dozens of interviews with relatives of political prisoners and human rights activists and wrote a documentary play. When I was walking from the bus station to the theater for the premiere I ran into a policewoman with a dog. The first time I thought: what a cute shepherd! The second time I didn’t pay any attention. Then I saw another. And another. The closer I got to the theater, the more police I ran into. And then I finally started thinking – does this have something to do with my premiere? As they used to say in old Soviet jokes about a spy deep behind Nazi lines: and that’s when Stierlitz finally had a thought. Then, outside the theater, a police bus that was prepared to take all of us into custody was waiting for me. It was both funny and surprising.
How many were arrested?
At that time they were still playing as if they had rules. They were waiting for a provocation or something that looks like an illegal rally. But it was just a normal performance. They didn’t know what to do with a group of people that wasn’t doing anything criminal. At some point the chief of police started helping the theater people handing out programs… Although the whole theater was basically occupied, we made it to the end. The next day, they asked the fire inspectors to shut down the building for safety reasons, and that’s how they stopped us from performing the play. And they talked to the owner of the building and told him that if he doesn’t cancel the contract immediately, he will have issues. So that’s how they solved it. That was my first experience of political pressure. Nowadays it wouldn’t be so “gentle,” I think.
Did this affect your career?
My “political” plays, those that try to make a direct statement, are perhaps the least important for me as an author, to be honest. So I kept working, and my plays were staged. I don’t want to portray myself as a victim of a regime at a time when I really wasn’t. I organized a theater festival in Jekaterinburg; I was the art director of the largest and most important drama festival, Lyubimovka; a lot of beautiful performances based on my plays came out. I wrote a play called “Exodus,” which received all possible prizes. I was making performances all over the country, from site-specific productions to promenades, existential dramas, teenage tragedies and even operas. I received royalties and had a lot of offers. The productions based on them were nominated for — and received — the most prestigious national theater awards. I started teaching, and I began to work as a screenwriter. I had basically sold the rights to adapt my play into a film — we were one step away from going into production. Sure, a few theaters refused to work with me because of my documentary plays — but that was all. Until 2022.
What changed in 2022?
Full-scale war obviously put an end to all of our plans and our understanding of theater. The theater in Mariupol was bombed, my theater colleagues are in prison for nothing – this is more important than any performances. But speaking of myself, a few premieres of my plays that were scheduled for 2022 were canceled. It was the result of my numerous protests against the war. I didn’t think about theater then. I was thinking of the war 24 hours per day, how to stop the war. It was like some kind of bad trip. I hung posters in the city center. I went to rallies. I wrote. Then, one day, I received a warning that I am one step away from prison. At first, I thought people were overreacting, but now I know it was the truth. A very close friend of mine played the adult, called me and said I had to leave the country immediately. Somehow I followed her instructions and bought a flight to Istanbul for the next day. That night I invited some friends, and I gave them my belongings. To one friend I gave a printer, the last protest flyers still in it. To another I gave my vinyl records. To a third one, some frozen broccoli from the freezer. He took it in silence. This guy didn’t have money issues, but he took the broccoli. Either because confusion had reached cosmic proportions, or because that broccoli could come in handy in a nuclear war. When I had just left Russia, I received some ridiculous threats on my social media accounts. Nothing interesting.
So how did you end up in Berlin?
I stayed in Istanbul for a while, but I wanted to live in a city where I could still be an author. And it’s Berlin, of course. I sometimes think Berlin has one author for every regular person. One reader, one writer. Some of my theater colleagues were already here. There’s a whole community of Russians in exile here, journalists, theater makers, filmmakers, writers. I enjoy how diverse the Berlin scene is — it broadens the horizons of my perception and my understanding of the world. I see how the hopes and struggles of Iranians, Ukrainians, Syrians, Palestinians, and Israelis intertwine, and how all the world’s conflicts are reflected in this city.
Was being a playwright in Russia any different from being one here?
I guess being a playwright isn’t the easiest job no matter where you are, and certainly not a job you take up in order to get rich. But I have always had a wonderful, supportive community. Here I feel that German state institutions take a long time to sniff around immigrant artists, and the key factor isn’t so much what you do, but how well you fit into their communication network and whether the system recognizes you as someone legitimate. Here, you’re not selling your work — you’re selling yourself as a concept. And for me that’s a new thing.
Does that make it harder for you?
I don’t find it comfortable. There’s always a certain agenda, so you need to explain your values, your topics, their connection to your personality. Of course you could say that we are selling ourselves everywhere these days, but I was used to being in the shadow of my texts, and they circulated without me getting all the attention. I have had a new play, “Berlin Syndrome,” in my hands for a year now, and I just don’t know where to take it, although everyone I show it to says it’s a great text. This is a new feeling for me – in two years I still haven’t figured out how text makes its way onto the stage in Germany. And it’s funny that this play is read at festivals and my Russian-speaking colleagues want to stage it, but I don’t allow it, because it’s important for me to break out of the bubble, and because the main character is German and there’s not a single Russian in the text, and I don’t want my bubble to become a ghetto, to be honest. In Russia, my texts were doing most of the work for me.
What is this play about?
So-called elevator pitching is my worst skill. But it’s a bitter comedy about a woman who downplays her own grief while living in a city full of migrants and refugees. It’s also about how our feelings freeze during wartime — she goes on strange dates, hoping to fall in love, but in truth she’s just trying to avoid meeting her own pain.
What was the process like for getting your work staged in Russia?
In Russia you sell a play; here you write an application. Russian theaters were buying my plays, because they found them good enough. And it was much simpler. Here you need to fit to certain opportunities because you need the resources. It’s not enough for the theater to like the things you write. Although let’s be honest, the percentage of contemporary drama in state theaters is quite small, here as well as in Russia — it’s an international problem. The best playwright is a dead one — you don’t have to pay royalties. On May 1st, just for fun, I joined a protest here with a sign that said: “Brecht is already dead — pay living authors.” I’ve spent my whole life protesting for others, and this was the first time I dared to do something about my own profession. Berlin’s union spirit inspired me. It felt a bit cringe walking around with that sign among people demanding an end to the killing of children in Gaza or fighting for women’s rights — but a few fellow writers actually came up to me to say hi and show support. That was really sweet.
Do you feel there is space for Russian artists in Berlin, specifically? Is there institutional discrimination?
I don’t experience any discrimination, but I did experience a kind of bad awareness. You are constantly reminded that you are Russian, especially the first few years. It’s part of the price you pay for what your government does. Institutions have their reputations, which are extremely important to them. They depend on that reputation financially. And sometimes they don’t want to struggle by working with someone that could be sensitive to their reputation. In any production, the Russians need to be diluted. Of course my awareness of these issues affects my decisions as an author. But it’s not really the same as censorship with a repressive apparatus behind it. I don’t know how to name it. In itself, it can also be a good thing — variety.
Also, immigrants and people in exile rarely get the same opportunities as those living in the country where they were born. That has to do with institutional structures, but also with something as basic as language. Language is also a privilege. I can’t write literary works in German, and that’s nobody’s fault. But I do get opportunities here, and I’m grateful. I think Berlin is still the best city to be for someone in my situation. But of course, with the budget cuts, the culture and economy of the city will change. The amount of things artists and cultural institutions can do will become smaller. We are living in a moment when everybody suffers.
What have you managed to create since arriving in Berlin?
Last year, my colleague Nikita Betehtin and I released the promenade “Wald” in Grunewald, which ran for two seasons. It’s an audio walk — a story in 33 audio testimonies, available in German and English, about a girl who disappeared in the forest, a kind of mystical detective tale that reveals just how alienated we are in a big city. I ran a lab at the Deutsches Theater, we explored the topic of refusals. I have had several performances in other countries of Europe — in Estonia and Latvia. Overall, my productivity is much lower compared to my previous life, but I understand that emigration consumes a huge amount of energy and time for adaptation and everyday matters. That’s why I’m grateful for every single project.
Right now I’m in rehearsals for a new production, — I made a ‘Fassung’ of Mein geliebtes Land, Elena Kostyuchenko’s novel. This book — and her personal story — explores how fascism developed in Russia. She is very harsh with the state, but at the same time she is full of love for ordinary people. We have a wonderful team. It will premiere in Weimar on August 21.
Polina Borodina is an author and playwright from Russia living in exile in Berlin.
