2018 Recipient

The Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies, established in 2008 and sponsored by the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, is awarded annually for an outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe in anthropology, political science, sociology, or geography in the previous calendar year.

Co-Winner: Natalia Roudakova
Title: Losing Pravda: Ethics and The Press in Post-Truth Russia (Cambridge University Press)

Losing Pravda by Natalia Roudakova investigates a topic of great global currency and significance – the relationship between media and truth. Through careful analysis and deep sourcing, Losing Pravda rethinks the nature of one of the most politicized of Soviet institutions: journalism. Roudakova finds that, despite overt party control, Soviet journalists possessed a strong sense of professionalism. After presenting a detailed account of the practice of Soviet journalism, she then follows its dramatic transformation after the Soviet collapse – the rapid evolution of the journalistic profession and practice in the 1990s and 2000s Russia, which takes us to the present day and the moment of “post-truth”. Roudakova raises a big question for historians and social scientists studying the Cold War and its aftermath: what was and what still is the relationship between the citizen as a subject and the state, truth, propaganda, and belonging? Argued with vigor but also careful nuance, Losing Pravda speaks to wider publics concerned about current political trends where the relation of truth and power has become problematic in ways that the Soviet experience did not fully anticipate. This fascinating study therefore helps us rethink the role of media, truth, and power across Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. For these achievements, the committee is pleased to award the Davis Center Prize to Natalia Roudakova.

Co-Winner: Elidor Mëhilli