The Maladype Theatre presents the Hungarian-language monodrama based on the autobiography of the former high ranking Soviet official at the Institute of Advanced Studies.

Featuring Zoltán Balázs actor (Maladype Theatre)

György Csepeli sociopsychologist (iASK) will conduct a discussion after the performance.

Time: 6 p.m. Friday, 13 October 2017

Venue: Kőszeg, Zwinger Old Tower (Chernel st. 16)

Viktor Kravchenko’s book had presented the terror of the Soviet lagers and the communist dictatorship before Alexandr Szolzsenyicin’s Gulag gave an account of it.

The book’s essence does not derive merely from historical interpretation and historical facts. The theatrical adaptation entitled I Chose Freedom has a meaning different from the one it had at the outset of the Cold War and its challenge goes beyond ideological and political positions between regimes. The concealment of the Kravchenko case points out to the fact that we have not fully faced those consequences of the Second World War that were raised by the book in 1946. Kravchenko’s vital question was: How can the “memory of personal freedom” be preserved and recreated with respect to the cultural experience of having the ability and responsibility to choose life in circumstances when the totalitarian system declares all of this as something that needs to be get rid of and as being the unnecessary evil. (For further details consult the following link at the website of the Maladype Theatre: http://maladype.hu/…/eloadasok/item/286-en-a-szabadsagot-va…).

An interview with Kravchenko is available on the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVQ3MJacSw

The performance is free for visitors.

Hungarian-language copies of Kravchenko’s highly successful autobiography will be available for purchase (Price: 3990 HUF).