On August 20, 2023, Trotsky’s four-year exile in Turkey from 1929 to 1933 will be honored at a major event on Prinkipo, an island in the Sea of Marmara off the coast of Istanbul. Trotsky took refuge on Prinkipo following his expulsion from the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime.

The commemoration, “An Island at the Center of World History: Trotsky on Prinkipo,” will be livestreamed on Trotsky.com, at 5:00 pm local time (2:00 pm GMT, 10:00 am EDT) on Sunday, August 20.

A video promoting the event is featured below, and we urge all readers to share it as widely as possible.

The meeting coincides with the 90th anniversary of Trotsky’s departure from Prinkipo in July 1933 and falls exactly on the 83rd anniversary of his assassination in August 1940.

The principal speakers will be David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site; Ulaş Ateşçi, an editor of Mehring Yayıncılık and a leading member of Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu [Socialist Equality Group] in Turkey; and Eric London, an editorial board member of the WSWS, who has written extensively on the assassination of Leon Trotsky.

Professor Mehmet Ö. Alkan, the chairman of the History Foundation in Turkey, will moderate the event. The commemoration is sponsored by the Prinkipo (Adalar) Municipality, led by Mayor Erdem Gül, with the contributions of Adalar City Council, led by Chair Ö. İskender Özturanlı.