Dissident Voices

A monthly program of readings giving voice to dissident writers, past and present. In collaboration with PEN International.

INSULTED by ANDREI KUREICHIK
English translation by JOHN FREEDMAN

August 2020. The streets of Minsk are teeming with protesters, as news gets out that the presidential elections have been rigged.

Thugs have been flown in from all over the ex Soviet Union, they're given free rein to do what they like to the protesters - terrorise, beat them to death, threaten gang rape.

A manicurist and a football hooligan meet in a prison van.
The President screams, "If you don't want Lugashenko, you'll get Putin!"
The woman standing against him asks of us all, "What are you willing to do for love?".

Andrei Kureichik wrote this play on the hoof, as events spread like wildfire in Belarus last summer. It's a damning indictment of a repressive regime, where rigged elections are a commonplace and violence is currency. The police lob grenades at the protesters, but they just keep on protesting...