Those looking for a cultured and memorable way to spend a Saturday evening can head to Liberty for a literary event that will feel nothing like a school lesson.

How are poems born? Where does inspiration come from? And is it true that one of Anna Akhmatova’s most celebrated poems, The Tale of the Black Ring, took 19 years to complete? And who was it really written for?

Alice Grebenshchikova’s literary programme, The Tale of the Black Ring, is neither a lecture nor an attempt to retell a biography from a textbook. It is, rather, a conversation with and beyond the texts themselves.
A former leading actress of the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre, Grebenshchikova has long been developing distinctive literary programmes. In this one, she serves as a guide to the world of Akhmatova—not as a monumental literary icon, but as a living person who loved, felt jealous, doubted, wrote letters, argued, waited and suffered loss, sometimes all at once.
The programme draws on diaries, correspondence, memoirs of contemporaries, historical documents and, naturally, Akhmatova’s poetry.

Why is Grebenshchikova the one leading such a conversation? The answer is straightforward: literature has long become a separate and significant part of her life. She has created programmes devoted to Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Bella Akhmadulina, Olga Berggolts and other 20th-century poets, approaching their lives not as archival material but as living narratives woven from letters, historical context and small yet revealing details. She presents these stories with warmth, humour and accessible language.

As a result, Akhmatova ceases to be a distant figure on a schoolroom pedestal and becomes someone with whom audiences can almost hold a direct conversation.

6 June — Liberty Lisbon
7 June — Liberty Parede
Admission: €20