Katja Petrowskaja receives Menschenrechtspreis 2022

The Gerhart and Renate Baum Foundation has awarded this year’s Menschenrechtspreis to author Katja Petrowskaja.

The Foundation’s statement reads as follows:

Katja Petrowskaja, a Kyiv author who has lived in Berlin since the late 1990s, receives this honour as a person who lights a beacon of truthfulness and humanity in the current climate of war and crisis. Her literary work focuses on human dignity, and her approach is a very personal one: the stories in Vielleicht Esther (2014), are an investigation of her own origins as well as reflections on the changeable history of her home country. Katja Petrowskaja’s columns, which have appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung for several years and a selection of which was published in volume form by Suhrkamp Verlag in May 2022 under the title Das Foto schaute mich an, leave much room for free association. They are an idiosyncratic combination of images and texts that awakens our sensitivity for the cultural identity of her country – a country that for a long time was not even perceived as a European democratic country by us. We get caught up in the images and stories about individual people and situations, follow and experience them up close and personal.

Without Katja Petrowskaja‘s dedication that takes many different forms, we would know far less about Ukraine. In 2004, during the Orange Revolution, she initiated the Kyiv Talks, a German-Ukrainian platform that supports local democracy processes in Ukraine. In 2013-2014, she was one of the important voices of the Maidan. Listening to her means recognising how little we know about Ukraine, its history and culture. Today, this society, its culture, the whole country, is exposed to Putin’s desire to destroy it. At rallies, in panel discussions, talk shows, interviews and articles, Katja Petrowskaja speaks about what is at stake in Ukraine so that we won’t become used to war and the terrible images of it. In doing so, she also sharpens our view of Russia, of the freedom-conscious peaceful people there, many of whom have had to leave the country. Katja Petrowskaja is enlightening in the best sense of the word, in that she confronts people in this country who are insufficiently informed with her clear opinions based on experience. With her determination, with her artistic prowess, Katja Petrowskaja is a sensitive, thoughtful and powerful voice.

The award ceremony will be held on December 4, 2022, at the Deutsches Theater Berlin.