2010 Recipient

The Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History, established in 2009 and sponsored by the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is awarded annually for an outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eastern Europe, or Eurasia in the field of history in the previous calendar year.

Winner: Robert Edelman
Title: Spartak Moscow: A History of the People’s Team in the Workers’ State (Cornell University Press)

In a highly competitive field, Spartak Moscow stood out as much more than just the history of a single Russian sports team. It offers its readers a unique vision of Russia’s entire 20th century, as told through the remarkably revealing prism of the Spartak experience. The core of the book, on the years from 1935 to 1964, is packed with insights not only into sport and popular culture, but Soviet society and politics. If these insights are not explicitly revisionist, they still compel a more complex and subtle understanding of these tumultuous years. Sport history is a growing field, both in its own right and as part of the greater emphasis historians now place on culture, broadly (or anthropologically) defined. With respect to Russia, Edelman has been a pioneer in the field and he’s done a remarkable job of integrating the institutional history of the game, urban social history, and the history of masculinity with the unique and critical political and social issues posed by the Soviet experience.

Spartak Moscow is a lively and compelling read. Sports fans will enjoy Edelman’s riveting accounts of key matches and his portraits of remarkable individuals, while scholars, students, and general readers will also find an engaging but serious commentary and interpretation of important issues, based on painstaking and thorough research.

Honorable Mention: Howard Louthan and Christine Ruane