Erfreuliche Universität

Radio Nacht
Live radio play with Juri Andruchowytsch & Karbido

A unique author's evening somewhere between a performative reading and electroacoustic improvisation: Ukrainian author Juri Andruchowytsch and the Polish trio Karbido combine language, sound and rhythm in a musical-literary experiment that at times unleashes the energy of punk. The performance is based on Andruchowytsch's novel Radio Nacht, whose texts the author performs himself. The book is a crime novel, political novel and soundtrack all in one. At the centre of the story is Josip Rotsky, a barricade pianist in a «Revolution of Dignity» in an unnamed Eastern European country. In doing so, Andruchowytsch takes up a real figure from Ukraine's «Euromaidan» of 2013/14 and continues his story in fictional form: Rotsky flees to the Swiss Alps, is imprisoned after a grotesque assassination attempt and broadcasts an imaginary radio programme from his hiding place about flight as a permanent state. Juri Andruchowytsch is one of Ukraine's best-known writers. His first novel, Karpatenkarnival, was published in 1992. From the very beginning, Andruchowytsch's work has been closely connected with music: he began his career as a member of the performance troupe Bu-Ba-Bu and has been performing with Karbido for many years. In his hometown of Ivano-Frankivsk in the Western Carpathians, Andruchowytsch also runs the cultural space «Unterführung Vagabundo», where concerts and readings regularly take place even during Russia's war of aggression. The reading will be in German, with Ukrainian subtitles.

An in-depth conversation with Juri Andruchowytsch about Radio Nacht, Russia's war against Ukraine and its consequences for culture was published in WOZ in 2022: Read the article