Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian politician, author, historian, and former political prisoner, will receive the 2025 Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 4 at Rackham Auditorium.
Kara-Murza will deliver the 30th Wallenberg Lecture titled “Free People in an Unfree Country: Standing Up to Kremlin Tyranny, Past and Present.” In keeping with the tradition of the Wallenberg Lecture, Kara-Murza will draw on his personal experience to share with the audience his understanding of how one person can make a difference.
Kara-Murza
Under the auspices of the Donia Human Rights Center, U-M awards the Wallenberg Medal to those who, through their actions and personal commitment, perpetuate Raoul Wallenberg’s extraordinary accomplishments and human values, and demonstrate the capacity of the human spirit to stand up for the helpless, to defend the integrity of the powerless, and to speak out on behalf of the voiceless.
A close colleague of the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Kara-Murza served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian Parliament. Leading diplomatic efforts on behalf of the opposition, he played a key role in the adoption of Magnitsky sanctions against top Russian officials by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia.
Magnitsky sanctions are governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption.
For this work he was twice poisoned and left in a coma; a joint media investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel determined that officers of the Russian Federal Security Services were behind the attacks.
In April 2022, Kara-Murza was arrested in Moscow for publicly denouncing the invasion of Ukraine and war crimes committed by Russian forces. Following a closed-door trial at the Moscow City Court, he was sentenced to 25 years for “high treason” and kept in solitary confinement at a maximum-security prison in Siberia.
MORE INFORMATION
- Wallenberg Medal and Lecture
- Tickets: No tickets required. The Wallenberg Medal and Lecture ceremony is free and open to the public.
- Information: For event inquiries and requests for event accommodations, contact [email protected] or 734-936-3973.
He was released in August 2024 as part of the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War negotiated by the U.S. and German governments. Kara-Murza is a contributing writer at The Washington Post, winning the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his columns written from prison, and has previously worked for Echo of Moscow, BBC, RTVi, Kommersant, World Affairs, and other media organizations.
He has directed three documentary films and is the author of or contributor to several books on Russian history and politics.
Kara-Murza serves as vice president at the Free Russia Foundation, as senior adviser at Human Rights First, and as senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal.
He was the founding chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and has led successful international efforts to commemorate Nemtsov, including with street designations in Washington, D.C. and London.
Kara-Murza is a recipient of several awards, including the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, and is an honorary fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He holds an MA (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.
Kara-Murza recently joined Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the school’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies as the center’s first Dissident-in-Residence. Kara-Murza joined Georgetown through a program of the Renew Democracy Initiative, Frontlines of Freedom: On Campus.
Kara-Murza visited U-M in March for a distinguished lecture at the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia.
Recent Wallenberg Medal recipients include Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation and a global environmental activist (2024); Lucas Benitez, a co-founder of the Florida-based labor and human rights organization the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (2023); and Safa Al Ahmad, Saudi Arabian journalist and documentary filmmaker (2019).
Notable medal recipients over the past 30 years include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bryan Stevenson, Miep Gies, John Lewis, Elie Wiesel, Denis Mukwege, and His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet.
