Daria Serenko

Russian feminist

Maxim Gorky Literature Institute

OccupationPoet, curator, artist, peace activist

Awards

100 Women (2023)

Daria Andreyevna Serenko (Russian: Да́рья Андре́евна Сере́нко; born 23 January 1993) is a Russian feminist activist, poet, curator and public artist.

Life

Daria Serenko was born in Khabarovsk, Russia, in 1993, and studied at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. She lived in Moscow, where she worked as a curator at the Municipal Library in Moscow.^[1]

Serenko took part in the 2015–16 anti-militarist travelling art exhibition Ne Mir (No Peace). In her collaborative 2016 project Tikhii Picket (Silent Picket), participants created an A3 political poster and recorded reactions. Serenko herself permanently travelled with her Silent Picket poster, "three months under the supervsion of a poster", and as a result was "constantly communicating with people, fifteen or twenty hours a day". One sign depicted a girl with her head in her arms inundated by sort of the comments received if a woman alleges rape ("She was probably drunk", "What was she wearing?"). Serenko said: "Men, as always, laughed."^[2] In 2016, Serenko also curated a Moscow exhibition of Stuckist art.^[1]

In 2020, Serenko was one of the cofounders of Femdacha, a feminist retreat on the outskirts of Moscow.^[3]

On Valentine's Day 2021, Serenko organized a "chain of solidarity" for female victims of political repression. After announcing the event on Facebook, she received an estimated 600 death threats.^[4] That year, she worked for the campaign of human rights activist Alyona Popova, a candidate for the State Duma. In November 2021, Serenko published a Facebook post underlining that migrants were only responsible for 3–4% of crimes in Russia. Soon afterwards, she discovered that her phone number and a home address had been leaked to far-right activists. The founder of the Male State movement urged his followers to "crush" the "scum",^[5] and Serenko received thousands more death threats.^[6]

On 8 February 2022, Serenko was sentenced by Moscow's Tverskoy District Court to 15 days in jail for a September 2021 Instagram post advocating tactical voting. The post contained campaign symbols for the Smart Voting campaign of Alexei Navalny's' Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), proscribed in June 2021 as an "extremist organisation".^[7]^[8]

Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Serenko has participated in the activist group Feminist Anti-War Resistance,^[9] which on 27 February issued a manifesto calling on Russian feminists to oppose the war.^[10]^[11] Serenko herself published a statement calling on Russians to put aside political apathy and act:

Stop being pathetic cowards, conformists, patient sufferers, loyal citizens, stop being apolitical ...Stop sitting in cafes. Stop planning vacations. Stop listening to propaganda. Don't die like fools. Stop being scared of prison and arrests, I swear to God, those are not the worst options. Join antiwar activists and movements. Protest this war."^[9]

In March 2022, Serenko was among 151 international feminists signing Feminist Resistance Against War: A Manifesto, in solidarity with the Feminist Anti-War Resistance.^[12]

On 27 January 2023, the Russia's Ministry of Justice added Serenko to the so-called list of "foreign agents".^[13]

In November 2023, the BBC named Seranko to their 100 Women list of "inspiring and influential women from around the world", recognizing Serenko for her feminist and anti-war activism, art and writing.^[14]

Works

Poetry

Siberia Burns: A Poem from Russia. Los Angeles Review of Books, 12 August 2021. Translated by Rachel Brazier, Serena Clapp-Clark, Paige MacKinnon, Helen Poe and Elizabeth Tolley.
Contributor to Galina Rymbu et al. (eds), F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry. ISOLARII, 2020

References

^ ^a ^b Andrei Erofeev; Irina Kochergina (2017). "Voices From the art scene: interviews with Russian artists". In Lena Jonson; Andrei Erofeev (eds.). Russia - Art Resistance and the Conservative-Authoritarian Zeitgeist. Routledge. ISBN 9781351738347.
^ Aliide Naylor (21 February 2017). "What's it like to be a human rights activist in post-Pussy Riot Russia?". New Statesman.
^ Isabelle Khurshudyan (14 March 2021). "The feminist retreat in the woods of Russia, away from Putin's power". The Independent. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ "Russian Activists Face Death Threats Over Women's 'Solidarity Chain' Protest". The Moscow Times. 16 February 2021. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ Vladimir Kheifets (10 November 2021). "'Тебя убьют' — националисты угрожают феминистке расправой" ["You will be killed" – nationalists threaten feminist with reprisal]. Plus One (in Russian). Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ Samantha Berkhead (25 December 2021). "For Russian Women, 2021 Was a Year of Broken Promises". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ Sophia Kishkovsky (9 February 2022). "Pussy Riot's Masha Alekhina arrested for second time in two months over social media posts". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ "Russia: Poet sentenced to 15 days of administrative detention over Instagram post". Freemuse. February 2022.
^ ^a ^b "Statement by feminist poet, artist, and activist Daria Serenko". Jordan Center. Translated by Eugene Ostashevsky. 27 February 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ Aliide Naylor (10 March 2022). "Amidst a Crackdown, Russia's Anti-War Artists and Activists Try to Reclaim the Streets". ArtReview.
^ Feminist Anti-War Resistance (27 February 2022). "Russia's Feminists Are in the Streets Protesting Putin's War". Jacobin. Translated by Anastasia Kalk; Jan Surman. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ "Feminist Resistance Against War: A Manifesto". Specter Journal. 17 March 2022. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
^ "Russian Justice Ministry names new 'foreign agents,' including Dalai Lama's envoy Telo Tulku Rinpoche and Little Big frontman Ilya Prusikin". Meduza. 27 January 2023. Retrieved 19 August 2023.
^ "BBC 100 Women 2023: Who is on the list this year?". BBC News. November 23, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-24.