Bookshelf

Sacha Filipenko: Kremulator. Editions Noir sur Blanc, Lausanne, janvier 2024, 208 pages • 21,50 Euros • 26 CHF

Traduit du russe par Marina Skalova. Préface de l’auteur

En 1941, le directeur du crématorium de Moscou, Piotr Nesterenko, est arrêté. Il sait mieux que personne ce qui arrive aux victimes des Grandes Purges staliniennes. Opposants, espions présumés, anciens héros de la révolution, tous victimes des répressions – il les a tous incinérés. Au fil des interrogatoires successifs, il doit répondre de sa vie tumultueuse : officier de l’Armée blanche qui a fui les bolcheviks jusqu’en Ukraine, survivant d’un accident d’avion, émigré à Istanbul puis à Paris, amoureux fidèle à la passion de sa jeunesse... Un jeu du chat et de la souris commence entre le prisonnier et son commissaire-enquêteur, brouillant les cartes entre le bourreau et la victime, la justice et le mensonge, le bien et le mal.

Sacha Filipenko entrelace avec virtuosité les documents historiques et la fiction ; maniant une ironie glaçante, il raconte une histoire macabre, folle et fascinante, depuis l’intérieur d’un État totalitaire.

Sacha Filipenko, né à Minsk en 1984, est un écrivain biélorusse d’expression russe. Après une formation en musique classique, il étudie la littérature à Saint-Pétersbourg. Il travaille comme journaliste et scénariste, notamment pour des émissions satiriques de la chaîne de télévision indépendante Dojd’. Il a publié quatre romans en français : Croix rouges, La Traque (Syrtes, 2018 et 2020), Un fils perdu et Kremulator (Noir sur Blanc, 2022 et 2024). Opposant à Loukachenko et à Poutine, Sacha Filipenko a dû quitter la Russie en 2020 et vit aujourd’hui en Suisse.

Article de Nasha Gazeta à lire ici, en russe  et ici en français.

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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