2024

The Beth Holmgren Graduate Student Essay Prize, established in 1990 and named in honor of Professor Holmgren in 2021, is awarded for an outstanding essay by a graduate student in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.  

Honorable Mention: Mikhail Svirin, “Counter-Monuments, Counter-Narratives: Grassroots Commemoration of Shuttle Traders in Post-Soviet Space” (Miami University, 2023)  

Mikhail Svirin’s essay combines historical and ethnographic methods to offer a stimulating account of memory and commemoration in post-Soviet space. The paper focuses on monuments that memorialize shuttle traders of the 1990s who did so much to weather the traumatic transformations of the era of the Soviet collapse. These monuments are highly unusual in that they were erected by local business communities to commemorate ordinary people. In analyzing the monuments as forms of unofficial commemoration as well as debates around them, Svirin opens a window on life “from below” in post-Soviet societies. The paper engages with a range of literatures and is innovative in its use of sources. 

Honorable Mention: John Webley, “Face-Off: A Russian Prince at the Courts of India” (Yale University, 2023) 

John Webley’s essay offers an original and stimulating exploration of Russian representations of India in the nineteenth century. Weaving art and international relations with care and insight, Webley attends to the aesthetic dimension of imperial geopolitics. The paper assembles and analyzes a sort of multimedia archive of the artist, writer, and diplomat Prince Alexei Dmitrievich Saltykov (1806-1859) to showcase the ways in which his artistic practice variously channeled, reflected, and shaped imperial ambitions and anxieties. Of special note are Webley’s analyses of the portraits of Indian royals that offer a poignant counterpoint to contemporary British depictions. The paper admirably embraces interdisciplinarity and is poised to make a lasting scholarly contribution.  

Winner: Silviya Nitsova

Prize Committee: Maria Popova (chair), Adeeb Khalid, and Roman Utkin