Press Release, 26.02.2024

Illusration: Pablo Picasso, Guernica. 1937. Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid

On 28 February, the central office of the Yabloko party in Moscow will host a concert-performance “Fooled. 1938-1941”. The production is based on the diary of Friedrich Kellner (1885-1970). The director of the performance is Alexander Gnezdilo, member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko. The show is timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the start of the so-called “special operation” on the territory of Ukraine.

Friedrich Kellner, a veteran of the First World War and a mid-level provincial judicial official, was a staunch opponent of National Socialism, Adolf Hitler’s Reich and the criminal war of aggression that he unleashed. He began making secret notes about what was happening around him in 1938. After the outbreak of World War II, these notes grew into a diary, which Friedrich Kellner kept until the end of the war and the beginning of the denazification of Germany.

In 2011, the full text of Friedrich Kellner’s diary was published for the first time in Germany under the title “My Opposition”. Translation of extensive fragments of the diary into Russian was made by Anatoly Yegorshev.

The performance-concert by the Gnezdo theatrical group deals with the diaries of the first three years, starting from the autumn of the Munich Pact, the most bitter for the author of the diary.

Performers: Viktor Balabanov, Erwin Gaaz, Alexander Gnezdilov.

Director: Alexander Gnezdilov.

The production will take place at the office of the Yabloko party in Moscow (Pyatnitskaya 31, building 2, metro station Tretyakovskaya or Novokuznetskaya). The performance starts at 19:15. Everyone is welcome. The number of seats is limited. Registration is required. Please take your ID card with you.