Polina Zherebtsova (; 20 March 1985) is a Chechen Russian documentarian, poet and author of the diaries Ant in a Glass Jar, covering her childhood, adolescence and youth that witnessed three Chechen wars.
She was born in a mixed ethnic family in Grozny, Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic, USSR. In 2002, she began to work as a journalist. She is a member of PEN International and the Union of Journalists of Russia. She has been awarded the Janusz Korczak international prize in Jerusalem in two categories (narrative and documentary prose). In 2012, she was awarded Andrei Sakharov Award “For Journalism as an Act of Conscience”. In 2013, she received a political asylum in Finland.
Author of a Report on war crimes in Chechnya in 1994–2004. ru. eng.
Polina was born in Grozny, USSR, and started her diary when she was 9 years old, at the start of the First Chechen War. She was still living in Grozny when the Second Chechen War began. On 21 October 1999, the market in Grozny was shelled where she was helping her mother sell newspapers, and Polina was moderately injured.
Politkovskaya described war as a journalist from the outside. Polina Zherebtsova writes about war from inside the heart of darkness. Der Spiegel №10 /2015.
Ant in a glass jar. Chechen diaries of 1994–2004 has been translated into Ukrainian, Slovenian, French, Lithuanian, Finnish, German, Georgian, and Chechen.
Polina Zherebtsova has given interviews to the BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, has participated in literary festivals around the world.
She has always offered publishing rights for translations of all of her books by herself, without the use of services of literary agents.
Biography
She came from a family of Chechens and Ukrainians. She calls herself a cosmopolitan.
Polina's father was a lawyer, who died when Polina was a child. Her mother, Elena, worked as a senior goods manager at a large company. She devoted her spare time to her daughter's education. Polina grew in a family that equally revered books like the Torah, the Bible and the Koran. Since childhood, she had studied religion, history, and philosophy.
Polina Zherebtsova was born in 1985 in Grozny and lived there for almost twenty years. She considers herself a cosmopolitan as she has multi-national ancestry. Polina's father died when she was very young. Polina's maternal grandfather Zherebtsov Anatoly Pavlovich, with whom she had formed a friendship, worked in Grozny for more than 25 years as a TV journalist-cameraman. Polina's maternal grandmother was a professional artist. Paternal grandfather was an actor and musician. Polina's paternal grandmother was a professional actress.
In 1994, Polina started a diary in which she recorded what was happening around her. Her diaries cover her childhood, adolescence and youth that witnessed three Chechen wars. School, first love, quarrels with parents, what is familiar to any teenager, side by side in the life of Polina with the bombing, starvation, devastation and poverty. On 21 October 1999 she was wounded by shrapnel during a missile attack on Grozny Central Market.
Since 2002, she has begun to work as a journalist. In 2003–2004, she studied at the School of Correspondents.
In 2004, Chechen diary was completed when the author was 19 years old.
In 2006, she has been awarded the Janusz Korczak international prize in Jerusalem in two categories (narrative and documentary prose). Competition theme was "terror and children."
Since 2007, she has been a member of the Russian Union of Journalists.
In 2010, she graduated from the Stavropol North Caucasus University with a degree in General Psychology.
In 2011, "Polina Zherebtsova's Journal: Chechnya 1999–2002" was published.
Since 2012, she has been a member of PEN International.
In 2012, she was awarded The Andrei Sakharov Award “For Journalism as an Act of Conscience”.
In 2013, she has received a political asylum in Finland.
In 2014, "Ant in a Glass Jar" was published.
First Chechen War
The first military campaign started in 1994. At the beginning of the war, Zherebtsova's grandfather, Anatoly, was killed by shells from airplanes. Zherebtsova made the first serious entries in her diary at this time. She kept the diary to herself, and wrote about humorous and sad moments in the lives of her neighbors and friends. Because of her Russian surname and national strife, Polina was subjected to repeated insults at school.
Second Chechen War
In 1999 a new round of war in Grozny began in the North Caucasus, when Polina was 14 years old, which she describes in her diary.