Fearless – Exhibition Opening and Litera Awards Ceremony

Litera Award ceremony: 17:00

In November 2021, Litera and the Blinken OSA Archives launched a joint venture entitled The Story of My Cowardice, which included an open and an invitational literary competition. At the awards ceremony, where the Litera Prize and the open competition prizes will be awarded, the two winning works and the judges' evaluations will be presented                                                               

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Exhibition opening: 18:00             

Curator: István Rév                                         

Opened with the messages of Elena Zhemkova, Executive Director of Memorial (the organization was liquidated in the Russian Federation on February 28, 2022) and philosopher Miklós Gáspár Tamás.

Blinken OSA Archives hosts one of the world's largest collections of uncensored speech, of samizdat texts defying authoritarianism, published and distributed without official permission. To mark the centenary of the birth of the nuclear physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, the 50th anniversary of the founding of Index on Censorship, the most important journal for freedom of expression, and the 40th anniversary of the publication of the first issue of Beszélő, the journal of the Hungarian democratic opposition, we thought it important to commemorate, remind and raise awareness of the importance of fearless speech in a series of events organized jointly with students and teachers of the Freeszfe Association. The exhibition "Fearless" is the central event in this series of events.

The exile of the Central European University from Budapest—the violent suppression of freedom of thought, expression and academic freedom—played as much a part in the exhibition's creation as the exemplary stand taken by the students of the University of Theatre and Film against the arbitrary rule of the authorities. 

The program is in Hungarian, (English translation of the opening remarks is available on spot). 

The program is part of the fearless program series by Blinken OSA and Freeszfe Association.                                     

The video recording of this event is available on Blinken OSA’s YouTube Channel.