Understanding Russia with Elvira Bary
16. marts 2026 16.00 - 17.30
To most westerners, Russian society beyond the fog of war remains, as Winston Churchill is said to have put it, ”a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” We know next to nothing about what the Russian people actually think of their society, their government and the war being waged in their name.
The Danish Foreign Policy Society has invited Elvira Bary to shed light on those questions. Bary, whose name at birth was Baryakina, was born and raised in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia but has lived in the United States for the last 25 years. By her own account, the outbreak of war in 2022 tore apart Bary’s life as someone rooted in both Russia and the West. Continuing her ties to family and friends in Russia, many of whom openly supported the invasion of Ukraine, became impossible. As was her livelihood as a Russian- language author.
Since 2022, Bary, who had otherwise principally made herself noted as a writer of historical fiction, has reinvented herself as a socio-political communicator and regime critic. As part of an effort to create a counter narrative to the Kremlin’s iron grip on discourse on and from Russia, she tries to explain her country to the world and to discern the cultural and social circumstances that have persistently brought autocrats to power.
In conversation with Chief Editor of Udenrigs, Ida Sparre-Ulrich, Bary will share from her lived experience of Russia, its people, mentality and self-perception as shaped by history. Not least, through the lens of having seen friends and loved ones defect to what she perceives as a totalitarian, militaristic and imperial project, will seek to explain what brings ordinary Russians to embrace Putinism.
The Danish Foreign Policy Society has invited Elvira Bary to shed light on those questions. Bary, whose name at birth was Baryakina, was born and raised in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia but has lived in the United States for the last 25 years. By her own account, the outbreak of war in 2022 tore apart Bary’s life as someone rooted in both Russia and the West. Continuing her ties to family and friends in Russia, many of whom openly supported the invasion of Ukraine, became impossible. As was her livelihood as a Russian- language author.
Since 2022, Bary, who had otherwise principally made herself noted as a writer of historical fiction, has reinvented herself as a socio-political communicator and regime critic. As part of an effort to create a counter narrative to the Kremlin’s iron grip on discourse on and from Russia, she tries to explain her country to the world and to discern the cultural and social circumstances that have persistently brought autocrats to power.
In conversation with Chief Editor of Udenrigs, Ida Sparre-Ulrich, Bary will share from her lived experience of Russia, its people, mentality and self-perception as shaped by history. Not least, through the lens of having seen friends and loved ones defect to what she perceives as a totalitarian, militaristic and imperial project, will seek to explain what brings ordinary Russians to embrace Putinism.
Dette arrangement er kun for medlemmer.
Log ind for at tilmelde dig arrangementet.
Hvis du ikke er medlem, opret medlemskab her.
Arrangør:
The Danish Foreign Policy Society
Tidspunkt
16. marts 2026
16.00 - 17.30