Living Dissent: A Conversation with Ukrainian Dissident and Human Rights Activist Yosyf Zisels - Instytut Pileckiego

Conversation with Ukrainian Dissident and Human Rights Activist Yosyf Zisels moderated by Margarita Yehorchenko as part of "The Making of Solidarity: A Conference on Eastern and Central European Dissidents".

Living Dissent: A Conversation with Ukrainian Dissident and Human Rights Activist Yosyf Zisels

17.11, 18.30 | Pariser Platz 4A, 10117 Berlin

Guest: Yosyf Zisels
Moderator: Margarita Yehorchenko

Registration: https://forms.gle/7xPG5PkwzYoHyejL9

What does it mean to live a life of dissent – and what remains of that commitment across generations? In this conversation, Ukrainian Jewish community leader, human rights activist, and former Soviet dissident Yosyf Zisels reflects on his personal experience of resistance, political persecution, and the enduring struggle for freedom and human dignity.

From the early 1970s onwards, Zisels was actively involved in Jewish and broader democratic dissident movements in the Soviet Union. He documented human rights violations, distributed samizdat publications, supported political prisoners and their families, and campaigned for the right of Jews to emigrate to Israel. As a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, he was arrested in 1978 and sentenced to three years in a high-security penal colony. Following his release, he continued his dissident activities and played a significant role in the revival of Jewish cultural and organisational life in Ukraine.

His life offers a unique perspective on the intersections of human rights activism, Jewish identity, national self-determination, and resistance to Soviet authoritarianism. It also invites reflection on the continuities between the struggles of the dissident movement and the challenges facing Ukrainian society today.

Against the backdrop of Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine, this conversation will explore the contemporary relevance of dissident experience: What can the struggles of earlier generations teach us about defending freedom and democracy today? How can solidarity be sustained in the face of oppression? And what does it mean to remain committed to dissent when resistance becomes a lifelong responsibility?

As the concluding public event of The Making of Solidarity: A Conference on Eastern and Central European Dissidents, the conversation brings the historical experiences of dissent into dialogue with the present.

About the guests

Yosyf Zisels is a Ukrainian Jewish community leader, human rights activist, and former Soviet dissident. Born in Tashkent, he graduated from Chernivtsi University in 1969 with a degree in theoretical physics. From the early 1970s, he was active in Jewish and broader democratic dissident movements in the Soviet Union. His activities included documenting human rights violations, distributing samizdat, supporting political prisoners and their families, and campaigning for the right of Jews to emigrate to Israel.

In 1978, he joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, was arrested, and sentenced to three years in a high-security penal colony. Following his release in 1981, he continued his dissident activities and became involved in the revival of Jewish cultural life. In 1984, he received a further three-year prison sentence. In 1988, he established the first Jewish organisation in Ukraine, in Chernivtsi. The following year, he helped found the Vaad (Confederation of Jewish Organizations and Communities) of the Soviet Union, becoming its co-chair.

Margarita Yehorchenko holds a Candidate of Philological Sciences degree and is a literary scholar and editor. Born in Kyiv, she studied history and literary studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and defended her dissertation on Vasyl Stus’s concept of poetic creativity in 2021. She is one of the three editors of the Complete Works of Vasyl Stus (vol. 1, Smoloskyp, 2026), a scholarly editorial project launched in 2024 to publish the poet’s writings as comprehensively as possible. She served as an academic consultant for the exhibitions STUS (Pilecki Institute, Berlin, 2024) and Vasyl Stus: As Long as We Are Here, Everything Will Be All Right (Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, 2025). She has translated Simone Attilio Bellezza’s The Shore of Expectations: A Cultural Study of the Ukrainian Sixtiers (2024), among other works. Her research also includes Jewish studies. She edits publications on Jewish history in Ukraine, leads the Virtual Museum of Jewish History and Culture of Ukraine, and works at the Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry and the Stus Centre.