2024 Recipient

The Robert C. Tucker/Stephen F. Cohen Dissertation Prize, established in 2006 and sponsored by the KAT Charitable Foundation, is awarded annually for an outstanding English-language doctoral dissertation in Soviet or Post-Soviet politics and history in the tradition practiced by Professors Tucker and Cohen. The dissertation must be defended at an American or Canadian university in the previous calendar year. 

Winner: Paula Chan, “Eyes on the Ground: Soviet Investigations of the Nazi Occupation” (Georgetown University, 2023)  

The Tucker/Cohen Prize Committee is pleased to present the 2024 prize to Paula Chan for “Eyes on the Ground: Soviet Investigations of the Nazi Occupation.” This meticulously researched and beautifully written dissertation illuminates and explains the work of the Extraordinary State Commission as it documented far-reaching war crimes in the aftermath of Nazi occupation of Soviet territory. Dr. Chan’s study is empirically rich and methodologically innovative; it draws on archival sources from across Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic states to bring together the scattered records of the commission’s local, regional, and central units, all the while paying attention to the distinctive history of those lands acquired under the Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols.  

Starting with the straightforward but profound observation that “The perspectives of ordinary people determined what the Soviet state could see,” Chan deploys the lens of “history of information” to unpack evidence about the widespread but generally hidden Nazi atrocities that took place in the East. Her focus on how evidence was acquired and processed allows Chan to address meaningful aspects of how war crimes were variously conceived of by actors on the ground—ranging from survivors, to local officials, to NKVD investigators and central emissaries—and how masses of evidence were shared, utilized, or discarded in the rush at the center to produce concise bulletins that would be scrutinized by outside audiences. Chan’s careful comparisons of how local commissions worked and her deep dive into the editorial choices in the center lead her to disprove “common wisdom” about the motives for and extent to which Soviet reports sometimes elided the Jewish identities of victims. Chan also shows how the high-level falsification in Soviet reporting on Katyn was an exception rather than the rule for those actors navigating the “tightrope of wartime” to balance what was true with what was needed for bolstering morale and maintaining the state’s authority. 

Honorable Mention: Hilary Rybeck Lynd

Prize Committee: Kathleen Smith (chair), Melissa Chakars, and Alexis Peri