2025

The Omeljan Pritsak Book Prize in Ukrainian Studies, established in 2019 and sponsored by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, recognizes a distinguished book in the field of Ukrainian studies that was published in the previous calendar year. Omeljan Pritsak was an esteemed scholar of Ukrainian history and the primary founder of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. 

Honorable Mention: Eugene Finkel, Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (Basic Books, 2024) 

Eugene Finkel’s Intent to Destroy broadens historical inquiry by tracing the long arc of Russia’s imperial project in Ukraine from the early modern period to the present war. Framing the conflict as a war of identity, Finkel demonstrates how successive Russian regimes manipulated history—from the legacy of Kyivan Rus’ to imperial and Soviet narratives—to construct ideological justifications for domination, instill a sense of entitlement among Russian elites, and enforce a hierarchy that positioned Ukrainians as subordinate. By connecting historical mythmaking with contemporary violence, the book highlights the enduring role of history as both a tool of oppression and a battlefield of resistance. 

Winner: Waitman Wade Beorn

Prize Committee: Yuliya Ilchuk (chair), Serhiy Bilenky, and Sarah Philips