2025 Recipient

Jessie Barton Hronešová

“The uses of victimhood as a hegemonic meta-narrative in eastern Europe”

The Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia Article Prize, established in 2024 and sponsored by the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia (WCEE) at the University of Michigan, is awarded annually for an outstanding English-language research article in the social sciences by a junior scholar published in a peer-reviewed journal in the previous calendar year. 

Winner: Jessie Barton Hronešová, “The uses of victimhood as a hegemonic meta-narrative in eastern Europe,” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 32,2 (2024): 442-458  

Jessie Barton Hronešová’s article is a mature and important work by a rising scholar. Among all the articles in this year’s very strong competition, Hronešová’s stood out to the committee not only for its quality, but its power to reshape the field. She argues that most Eastern European states have embraced a victimhood narrative. Either they have been victimized by decades of externally-imposed totalitarianism, from historical or recent war, or by post-1989 humiliation at the hands of the West. In truth, Eastern Europe has faced some seriously hard times. Yet, Hronešová also shows that victimhood narratives often have a nefarious political purpose. They exist not only to consolidate national communities, but also to excuse their own internal dissent and competitions over power. Railing against externally-imposed totalitarianism enables national communities to expunge their own complicity. Posing as victims of some war or another allows believers to escape their own war crimes. Decrying Western colonialism can serve to excuse current conservative and jingoistic nationalism. This critique is powerful because it extends beyond Eastern Europe to victimization narratives worldwide, which claim to stand up for the human rights of a victim, but often provide cover for neotraditional nationalism and whitewash a community’s own crimes. Hronešová helps to unmask the danger of using victim narratives to provide ontological security for national communities, by expunging any semblance of accountability. In a world of competing and continually evolving political forms, this article provides a powerful and resonant critique.  

Honorable Mention: Monika Rice

Prize Committee: Mitchell Orenstein (chair), Bruce Grant, and Amanda Gregg