“The Free Voices of Crimea”: Vivat published a book about Crimean journalists-political prisoners

The book about the stories of the Kremlin’s Crimean prisoners has been published in Ukrainian, and the English version will be available this spring. The publication “The Free Voices of Crimea” is a joint initiative of PEN Ukraine, The Ukrainians Media, Vivat Publishing House and the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“The Free Voices of Crimea” is a collection of portraits of 16 journalist-political prisoners who are fighting for human rights and freedom of speech on the occupied peninsula. They filmed searches and trials of activists, created human rights movements, fought against corruption; volunteered and took care of the families of illegally detained Crimean Tatars, and wrote about Russia’s violations of the Black Sea Fleet bilateral treaties. They showed the truth.

For this, Russia imprisoned them for terms ranging from 7 to 19 years, mostly under articles of “terrorist activity”, “extremism” or “sabotage”. They were tortured to confess their “guilt” to fabricated charges by the occupation authorities. Most of the people featured in this book are Crimean Tatars, which is why many of the portraits explain the historical context and the reasons for the indigenous people of Crimea’s continued resistance to both the Soviet and now the Russian regime. The book also contains a documentary part, which includes selected letters, diary excerpts, and courtroom speeches of journalist-political prisoners.

You can buy the book in Ukrainian in both electronic and printed formats by following the link on the Vivat publishing house website, as well as in Vivat bookstores. The English-language e-book version of “The Free Voices of Crimea”, translated by Yevheniia Dubrova and Hanna Leliv, will also be available this spring. The Free Voices of Crimea was published within the framework of the Library of the Ukrainian PEN.

The release of The Free Voices of Crimea was preceded by PEN Ukraine and ZMINA’s #SolidarityWords campaign, launched in 2021 to support authors-political prisoners in occupied Crimea: as part of the initiative, Ukrainian writers and journalists became ambassadors for their colleagues imprisoned in the occupied peninsula.

“Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the work of writing the stories of the Kremlin’s Crimean prisoners, collecting testimonies from their relatives and friends, and compiling their letters, speeches and diaries has become even more important: the world was forgetting about Crimea and did not want to remember that the Russian war began in 2014 with the occupation of the peninsula. The purpose of this book is to show the courage of Crimean journalists, to explain the phenomenon of citizen journalism in the occupied Crimea, and most importantly, to advocate these cases abroad to support and release our colleagues who have been imprisoned in Russian prisons because they dared to tell the truth,” says Tetiana Teren, the initiator of the publication, a Member of PEN’s Executive Board.

The portraits of political prisoners were first published in a media format. Inna Bereznitska, Editor and Co-Founder of The Ukrainians, took responsibility for coordination: she supervised the media project in the online edition, and found authors of the portraits of political prisoners. Among them: Olesia Yaremchuk, Anastasiia Levkova, Iryna Slavinska, Oleksandra Yefymenko, Eva Raiska, Rustem Khalilov, and Yevheniia Henova. They also communicated with families and human rights defenders, researched court cases, studied letters, and told the stories of political prisoners’ lives, their detention and imprisonment in their texts.

“It is extremely important not only to tell the stories of the Crimean journalists – the Kremlin’s prisoners who bravely fought for freedom of speech in the occupied peninsula – but also to share them. The authors of the special project tried to put the stories of each and every one of them into a single puzzle. These stories are filled with sorrow, but also with resilience and a life-affirming spirit,”  said Inna Bereznitska.

The foreword to the book was written by Crimean Tatar politician and human rights defender Mustafa Dzhemiliev, who spent 15 years in Soviet prisons and camps for his activities. The afterword is by Nariman Dzhelyal, a journalist and politician, Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, who is the subject of one of the sixteen portraits in this publication. On 28 June 2024, he was released from Russian detention. 

Anastasiia Levkova, Author of the Crimean novel “Beyond Perekop, there is land” and Co-Founder of the “Qırım inciri” literary competition, thoroughly edited every sentence of “The Free Voices of Crimea” and acted as an expert on the Crimean Tatar issue.

“These are not just stories of individuals, but of a whole generation. Although there are people of different ages among political prisoners, most of them were born in the 1980s, when the wind of change blew; people who grew up in times of economic, socio-political, and ideological change; people for whom home is not only Crimea, but also democracy, justice, and being honest with themselves,” Anastasiia Levkova said.

Journalist Olesia Yaremchuk co-edited the book and curated the English-language edition: “At a time when disinformation and absurdity are gaining the upper hand, there is a need to tell the truth about what is happening in the Russian-occupied territories. About lawlessness and oppression of journalists and activists, repressions against the indigenous people of Crimea – in the hope that justice will come sooner or later“.

The documentary part of the book uses materials collected by the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, in particular, a large part of the archive was compiled by human rights defender Nadiia Dobrianska. The book is also published in English with the translation done by Hanna Leliv and Yevheniia Dubrova, and the literary editing done by Catherine Parnell.

Reviews of the book:

“These are their voices: the stories of sixteen brave journalists who refused to be silenced and lost their freedom. Their sacrifice will only be fully justified when their stories are known and their voices are heard“.

Serhii Plokhii, Author of the book “The Russo-Ukrainian War. The Return of History”

“This is a very important book: a ray of light that breaks through the Russian lies“.

Luke Harding, Author of the book “Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival”.

“For Ukraine to remain free, for Crimea to be free, the heroes of this book pay with their own freedom, health, and years of life they have not lived. That is why their word has a special weight – the weight of an action“.

Vitalii Portnykov, Publicist and writer

“These are words of struggle and further proof that, no matter how hard Russia tries to silence our people under occupation, it will not succeed. These stories of life will now sound even louder, as they will be told by thousands and thousands of Ukrainian citizens and people around the world. At the moment when our fellow citizens in Crimea speak about the crimes and believe in liberation, we must become voices and messengers of their stories. After all, we are stronger when we are united by one goal – our victory“.

Tamila Tasheva, Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (2022–2024)

“Russia has been fighting against Ukraine for ten years. It all started in February 2014 – in Crimea. Dictatorships like to rewrite history – and therefore, the first people to fall under their attack are those who are not ready to forget the facts. Those who call a spade a spade. Those who continue to speak when others have been silenced. This book is about those who were persecuted by Russia simply because they were too free for a country that dreams of forcing everyone to live by the rules of a prison“.

Pavlo Kazarin, Journalist, Publicist and military member.