RUSSIA'S PROPAGANDA - STRATEGY AND MADNESS

Cathrin Kahlweit in conversation with Irina Rastorgueva

RUSSIA'S PROPAGANDA - STRATEGY AND MADNESS

Irina Rastorgueva's new book „Pop-Up Propaganda - Epicrisis of Russian Self-Poisoning“ has just won the Leipzig Book Fair's non-fiction prize; she will be a guest at the Kreisky Forum on 5 May. The young journalist was born on the Russian island of Sakhalin and works as a writer, translator and graphic designer. She has lived in Berlin for eight years. In her books, including „Russian Simulacrum“, as well as essays, she has summarised the everyday excesses of Russian propaganda at home and abroad in a way that is as brilliant as it is irritating. She observes the everyday madness to which the population is exposed and uses it to analyse the regime's political goals. Hardly anyone has observed the Russian media landscape, the constant undermining of decency and humanity and the small acts of resistance in recent years as closely as Rastorgueva. Her work provides an unrivalled insight into the soul of Russian society.

Irina Rastorgueva, Russian, author, translator and graphic designer, her book Pop-up propaganda was completed in 2025 with the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair honoured in the non-fiction/essay category

Cathrin Kahlweit, SZ correspondent for many years, is a publicist and presenter.