Bookshelf

Jean-Christophe Emmenegger: Victor Louis, un agent très spécial. Editions Infolio Illico, 2021

"Il n'est jamais trop tard pour faire la lumière sur une affaire ancienne et pour mesurer jusqu'à quel point ce que l'on a pu considérer comme un cas isolé s'insérait en fait dans une action collective." Marcel Chalet, ancien patron du contre-espionnage français (DST)

Victor Louis n'était pas un "agent" conventionnel. Né à Moscou en 1928, sous le npm de Vitali Evguenievitch Louï, il se retrouve très vite orphelin. Adolescent en 1941, à l'arrivée des troupes allemandes en Russie, il déménage à Tachkent, puis revient à Moscou où il est arrêté par la sécurité d'Etat aux motifs d'espionnage et de trafic de devises.

Condamné à 25 ans de camp de travail, il en ressort après neuf ans pour devenir officielement journaliste, en réalité un agent d'influence de hat vol pour le compte de Moscou. De la fin des années 1950 à la fin des annéees 1980, sa vie prend un tournant stupéfiant. Il devient un intermédiaire secret entre plusieurs gouvernements, voyage dans le monde entier, gagne beaucoup d'argent et séjourne souvent en Suisse.

Jean.Christophe Emmenegger est journaliste et chercheur indépendent,  spécialisé dans les realations Suisse-Russie et les archives du renseignemenet, auteur du livre "Opération Svetlana" sur le séjour en Suisse de la fille de Staline (Editions Slatkine, 2018). L'interview accordé à Nasha gazeta à lire ici. 

About the author

Nadia Sikorsky

Nadia Sikorsky was born and raised in Moscow. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University and went on to complete her postgraduate studies there, earning a PhD in History. She spent 13 years at UNESCO, first in Paris and then in Geneva. After serving as Director of Communications at Green Cross International, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, she launched NashaGazeta.ch in 2007, Switzerland’s first Russian-language online daily newspaper.

In 2022, Nadia Sikorsky was named to Le Temps’ Forum des 100, which brings together individuals who, in the newspaper’s view, have “significantly contributed to the success of French-speaking Switzerland”, from across public life, business, politics, science and culture.

After 18 years at the helm of NashaGazeta.ch, Nadia Sikorsky decided to devote herself to what had always held a special place in her work as a journalist: culture in all its diversity. This led to the creation of Russian Accent, a trilingual cultural blog in Russian, French and English, born in the heart of Europe, in Switzerland, which has become her second home and whose multiculturalism and multilingualism have helped shape the character of this new project.

At the heart of the project is the perspective of a European of Russian origin, drawing on more than 35 years of professional experience and a deep knowledge of both cultural traditions. Nadia Sikorsky sees her role as that of a cultural mediator between the two. The title of the blog, Russian Accent, reflects this idea: the accent is neither a linguistic barrier nor a political position, but a distinctive cultural imprint within a European context.

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