Alexander Martin

The Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History, established in 2009 and sponsored by the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is awarded annually for an outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eastern Europe, or Eurasia in the field of history in the previous calendar year.

Winner: Alexander Martin
Title: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Land of the Tsars: One Family’s Odyssey, 1768-1870 (Oxford University Press)

In this original and gripping book, Alexander Martin tells the fascinating story of Johannes Rosenstrauch, a German merchant in Russia who witnessed Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow, and the world in which he lived and traveled. The product of deep detective work in archives of Russia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, Martin’s use of sources and other historical works is masterful. The inner life of Rosenstrauch that Martin reconstructs is that of a barber and actor in the Holy Roman Empire frustrated by the restrictions of the early modern social system. Influenced by the liberating ideas of the Enlightenment, he seized the opportunity to remake himself in Russia. He helped the tsarist state rebuild after the Napoleonic War, became a prominent merchant in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and spent his final years as a religious figure in Odessa. The book also paints a rich tapestry of the world in which Rosenstrauch lived and shows how he experienced and helped to shape the defining movements of 18th and 19th century Europe—empire, mobility, rising capitalism, revolution and conservatism, and individualism. Martin’s brilliant microhistory also reminds us how the histories of Russia and Central and Western Europe have for centuries been interconnected for so many individuals.

Honorable Mentions: Andy Bruno and Marina Mogilner