Wallace House Presents a WCEE Panel and Eisendrath Symposium Event
With Baktygul Chynybaeva, Holger Roonemaa and Joseph Sywenkyj
Moderated by Geneviève Zubrzycki
4:30 PM | Thursday, February 13, 2025
Rackam Amphitheater, Fourth Floor
Reception following the discussion
Free and open to the public.
This is a non-ticketed event.
Press Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe in the Age of Putin
In the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has taken extraordinary steps to try to silence independent media through bans, censorship and repressive labels like “foreign agents.” This crackdown has spread to Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where some governments are mirroring not only Putin’s laws but also his actions — arresting and even killing journalists to suppress free speech.
How can journalists safeguard access to accurate information and combat disinformation in the face of these escalating threats?
Join our panel of journalists from the region, featuring Knight-Wallace Fellows Baktygul Chynybaeva of Kyrgyzstan and Holger Roonemaa of Estonia, and Joseph Sywenkyj of Ukraine and the U.S., WCEE Distinguished Fellow and Knight-Wallace Fellow. Moderated by Geneviève Zubrzycki, Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia, the group will discuss these critical issues and why their work matters to us all.
The Eisendrath Symposium honors Charles R. Eisendrath, former director of Wallace House, and his lifelong commitment to international journalism.
About the Speakers
Baktygul Chynybaeva, 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellow, is a journalist from Kyrgyzstan with more than 20 years of experience covering healthcare, environmental and human rights issues. Fluent in five languages, she serves as a correspondent for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s Central Newsroom in Prague. Her investigative reporting on the dire condition of children’s cancer care in Kyrgyzstan inspired significant reforms in the country’s policies. Chynybaeva is also actively involved in organizing training sessions and capacity-building programs for journalists across Central Asian countries.
Holger Roonemaa, 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellow, manages the investigative and fact-checking team at the daily news site Delfi Estonia. He is also an editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). He has covered money laundering, corruption and evasion of sanctions, and topics related to national security, espionage and propaganda. In recent years, most of his investigations have focused on Russian security threats in Baltic countries. He led and coordinated the “Kremlin Papers” project, a high-profile investigative collaboration that detailed election interference, information manipulation and territorial aggression by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Joseph Sywenkyj, 2024-25 WCEE Distinguished Fellow and Knight-Wallace Fellow, is an American photographer of Ukrainian descent who has lived and worked in Ukraine for approximately 20 years. His photography throughout Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Central Asia has been published regularly in The Wall Street Journal, as well as in The New York Times. His ongoing photographic series, “Wounds,” is an intimate study of Ukrainian activists and soldiers who were severely wounded during the Euromaidan Revolution and Russia’s current war against Ukraine. Sywenkyj has exhibited his photographs in numerous galleries and museums in both the United States and abroad. He was the recipient of two Fulbright scholarships, one as a student and the other as a scholar, and also received a W. Eugene Smith Grant and an Aftermath Project Grant.
About the Moderator
Geneviève Zubrzycki is the Weiser Family Professor in European and Eurasian Studies and the William H. Sewell Jr. Collegiate Professor of Sociology at U-M. She is the Director of WCEE and the Copernicus Center for Polish Studies. She previously served as Director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Center for European Studies. Her research focuses on nationalism and religion, collective memory, the post-communist transition, and cultural politics in Eastern Europe and North America. Her award-winning books have been translated into Polish and French. In 2021, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Bronisław Malinowski Prize in the Social Sciences from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA). She serves on the Board of Directors of The Reckoning Project, an NGO investigating war crimes committed against civilian populations in Ukraine, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, and the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie Université du Québec à Montréal.
Co-sponsors:
Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia
This event is produced with support from Knight Foundation.
