The full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, besides its main goal of destroying a neighboring state, is aimed at the humanitarian values of world culture that unite us, of which the culture in the Russian language is also a part. The language has become hostage to the aggressor, and it is up to us—writers, publishers, literary scholars, translators, and Slavic studies specialists—to urgently support free literature in Russian. The establishment of an independent award is one such measure.

The literary award "Dar" is neither a "Russian award" nor an "award for Russian literature." It is an award that reinterprets the entire experience of literature in the Russian language, an award for discovering new approaches to literature and literary life outside archaic statehood, an award for all who write and read in Russian, regardless of their passport and country of residence. The Russian language does not belong to dictators; it belongs to the culture of humanity. The current discourse on "post-imperialism" and "decolonization" of literature must be translated into practical action—the "Dar" award provides one opportunity to move from words to deeds. Now is the time to create a new type of Russian-speaking culture, free from the "curse of territory" and Russian "patriotism," and aware of itself as part of world culture. The "Dar" award is one of the tools for this work.

The public stance of the award is that all those involved in its organization, as well as the authors submitting their works for the competition, stand against aggressive wars, against dictatorships, and support every nation's struggle for freedom and independence.

The aim of the award is to support authors writing in Russian and to promote the winning literary works by providing grants for translations.

Founders of the award:

Swiss Association of Slavists "Literary Award Dar" (Literaturpreis "Dar", Prix littéraire "Dar"): Tomas Glanc, Jean-Philippe Jacquard, Katrin Kahl, Georges Nivat, Ilma Rakusa, Gervais Tassis, Anastasia de la Fortelle, Jens Herlt, Mikhail Shishkin, Ulrich Schmid.

Co-founders of the award:

Boris Akunin, Svetlana Alexievich, Dmitry Bykov, Tomas Venclova, Ivan Vyrypaev, Alexander Genis, Dmitry Glukhovsky, Anton Dolin, Armen Zakharian, Andrei Zubov, Sergey Kuznetsov, Roma Liberov, Vitaly Mansky, Artemy Troitsky, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Sasha Filipenko, Mikhail Epstein, Vladimir Jurowski, Forum SlovoNovo (Montenegro), Kulturus (Czech Republic), "Nasha Gazeta" (Switzerland), "Nastoyashchaya Rossiya" (United Kingdom).

Members of the Jury:

Varvara Babitskaya, Polina Barskova, Andrei Bilzho, Georgy Borisov, Ilya Vinitsky, Sergey Gandlevsky, Mikhail Gigolashvili, Leonid Gozman, Yuliy Gugolev, Alexander Delfinov, Alexander Dolinin, Andrei Zorin, Kirill Kobrin, Vitaly Komar, Dmitry Krymov, Dmytro Kudryavtsev, Ilya Kukulin, Oleg Lekmanov, Mark Lipovetsky, Andrei Makarevich, Vladimir Mirzoev, Polina Ossetinskaya, Vera Pavlova, Oleg Radzinsky, Rosemary Titze, Elena Fanailova, Chulpan Khamatova, Irina Shcherbakova, Tamara Eidelman.