2023

Honorable Mention: Franziska Exeler
Title: Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and Its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus (Cornell University Press)

A sweeping study of Belarus both during and after the Second World War, Ghosts of War focuses both on the nature of the Nazi occupation and its echoes once Soviet authority was reestablished within the republic. Franziska Exeler stresses the manifold nature of the Belarusian wartime experience, shedding light on the trials and tribulations of various geographical, demographic, and ethnographic communities. Exeler also examines the relationship between the empirical ordeal of war and the memory politics that followed as an array of actors attempted to make sense of the suffering. Ultimately, Exeler tells a compelling story of how Belarusian society was forced to experience the horrors of war for decades after June 22, 1941.

Winner: Alessandro Iandolo