BASEES Prize for the Best Scholarly Article by a Postgraduate Student

The BASEES Prize for the Best Scholarly Article by a Postgraduate Student is offered annually by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies for a scholarly, peer-reviewed article of high quality in any of the disciplinary and geographical areas which fall within the BASEES remit. The term ‘article’ can be taken to include a chapter in an edited volume. The authors of nominated works must at the time of nomination be members or associate members of the Association. For details of the full eligibility see the criteria below.

The BASEES Postgraduate Prize is accepting nominations for articles published in 2023. The deadline for nominations is 30 June 2024. The winners will be announced early in 2025 and the prize (if awarded) will be presented at the annual dinner of the 2025 conference.

This year’s winner is announced below. The judges for the 2022-23 award are Dr Margarita Vaysman, University of Oxford, and Dr Tamar Koplatadze, University of Oxford. The prize will be presented at the annual dinner of the 2024 conference.

Regulations

The works received will be scored by our judges against criteria of originality, rigour and significance.

The regulations are proposed as follows: 

1. The prize, of fifty pounds, plus a ticket for the annual conference dinner, is offered annually for a scholarly, peer-reviewed article of high quality in any of the disciplinary and geographical areas which fall within the BASEES remit. The term ‘article’ can be taken to include a chapter in an edited volume.

2. The author of the nominated article must be registered as a postgraduate at a higher education institution at the time the final version of the article is approved for publication, and after the editorial process is complete and all revisions have taken place. Written evidence of this must be provided in the form of a letter from the editor or the home institution of the nominee. Proof of postgraduate status must also be supplied by the candidate.

3. Articles nominated for consideration must be of a scholarly character and constitute original research. They must be in English, and must have received final acceptance for publication within the 12 months of the calendar year preceding the annual closing date for nominations.

4. The article must be of no fewer than 5,000 words and no more than 15,000 words in length.

5. Co-authored articles may be nominated, provided that they are accompanied by clarification of the input of the postgraduate student (this does not apply if all of the co-authors are postgraduate students).

6. The authors of the nominated article must at the time of nomination be members or associate members of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. It is the responsibility of the nominator to check the BASEES membership status of potential nominees and ensure that membership is in place prior to nomination. Nominations of non-members will not be considered.

7. Awards will be made by a jury whose membership will be approved by the Executive Committee of the Association, and which will normally consist of two members of the committee.

8. The jury may divide the Prize equally between not more than two nominated articles in any year; or they may make no award in any year in which no article of sufficient merit presents itself.

9. Articles may be nominated by the authors, or by editors, librarians or other scholars.

10. The nominated article(s) should be supplied in electronic form and should include a cover sheet with full details of the author, including contact details, and of the article.

11. The deadline for submission of nominations shall be 1 July each year in respect of articles whose date of final acceptance is the previous calendar year. The prize is awarded (if a recommendation is made to do so) at the Association's annual conference in the spring of the calendar year following the deadline for submission of nominations.

12. Nominations should be made on the standard form for this purpose, which is available as a download from this page, and submitted to the Secretary of the Association, or via electronic submission below.

Current winner

The winner this year is Szinan Radi (Cambridge), with Mariia Shynkarenko as runner up.

Szinan Radi, ‘Do-It-Yourself Socialism: Home Construction Credits, Private Property and the Introduction of the Self-Build Programme in Hungary, 1954–1956’, Contemporary European History (2023).

Radi's article makes an important contribution to several interlocking fields: area studies, sociology, economics and political science. Although it is focussed on just one aspect of Hungarian social and economic history ¬– housing policy – its topic is far from narrow: it argues against a wide-spread assumption, typical in many fields, that socialist societies have ‘behaved’ as our theoretical knowledge of socialism tells us they should have. In fact, across the post-socialist world, the economic and political reality was far more complex than the theoretical models could account for. Radi’s article argues convincingly that primary sources and raw data reveal that economic and monetary constraints trumped ideology and state control when it came to housing policy in post-Second World War Hungary, paving the way for significant political changes in 1956. The jury would like to commend Radi’s careful and informed use of primary sources, exemplary clarity of argument, and ability to present findings in a clear, accessible way that easily crosses disciplinary boundaries.

Highly commended:

Mariia Shynkarenko, ‘Compliant Subjects? How the Crimean Tatars Resist Russian Occupation in Crimea’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2022), 55.1, 76–98

 The jury would like to commend this excellent article which analyses Crimean Tatars’ complex means of resistance to the state following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Challenging the common association of resistance to communist and post-communist authoritarian regimes through open political subversion, the author puts a spotlight on less visible forms of resistance and agency, convincingly arguing that Crimean Tatars have undermined Russian oppression through ‘tactics that are not covert, overt, or liberal’ – namely laughter and patience (or sabr). The article undoubtedly prompts future studies to consider other similar cases of resistance, although these might pay additional attention to some of the central questions in ethnographic research around positionality and the use of sources not only in dominant, but also local languages.

The judges for the 2022-23 award are Dr Margarita Vaysman, University of Oxford, and Dr Tamar Koplatadze, University of Oxford.

Past winners

2023

Co-WINNER: WOJTYCH, TADEUSZ. “Politics, Community, and Entertainment: The Reception of Soviet Guitar Poetry in Poland.” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas 69, no. 2 (2021): 183–208. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27153357.

Wojtych’s article offers an insightful analysis of an important, if rarely discussed, aspect of twentieth-century Polish culture: the reception of Soviet guitar poetry (avtorskaia pesnia). Based on extensive interviews, Wojtych’s excellent study brings this part of Polish musical culture into dialogue with similar phenomena in other post-communist countries. Combining sensitive use of oral history with astute understanding of its limitations, this piece draws our attention to the importance of local and personal perspectives on transnational political history as represented in popular cultural practices. The jury was especially impressed with the care and deep self-awareness demonstrated in the analysis of the oral history sources, as well as with Wojtych’s command of a wide range of theoretical and historical sources. Elegantly written and clearly structured, Wojtych’s article poses important questions, relevant for several overlapping fields: musical, public and political history; memory, counter-culture, and national identity studies; and cultural anthropology. 

Co-WINNER: Kurylo, Bohdana (2022). Counter-populist performances of (in)security: Feminist resistance in the face of right-wing populism in Poland. Review of International Studies, 48(2), 262-281. doi:10.1017/S0260210521000620

In this rigorous and well-researched article, Bohdana Kurylo puts forward an original argument that feminist activists can resist right-wing populist constructions, namely on (in)security, by selectively and strategically appropriating them. Her case-study examines how feminist movements in Poland subverted the dominant, elitist, and exclusionary constructions of (in)security exemplified during the Independence March through introducing their own counter-populist discourses and aesthetics of security around the 2020-21 Women’s Strike pro-choice protests. Kurylo convincingly shows that they did so by establishing ‘the feminist people’ as an alternative collective political subject of security, and by presenting society’s marginalised groups, among them the LGBTQ+ community and disabled people, as the real ‘people in danger’. Building on Judith Butler’s theory of embodied and plural performativity, Kurylo makes her own impressive contribution to critical theory by expanding existing frameworks for analysing the interaction of populism, security and feminism. The article thus holds significance to several fields including Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, Social Sciences, International Relations, and Gender Studies.

Highly commended (runner up):

Lovett, Jessica (2022). “The Fate of the Nation”: Population Politics in a Changing Soviet Union (1964–1991). Nationalities Papers, 1-20. doi:10.1017/nps.2022.27

The jury would like to officially commend this impressive article that builds on extensive archival work and skillfully examines the contradictions of Soviet population control policies in various parts of the USSR.

 2022

Joint Winners

Jelena Golubović (2020) “‘To Me, You Are Not a Serb’: Ethnicity, Ambiguity, and Anxiety in Post-War Sarajevo.” Ethnicities 20 (3): 544-563.

In this innovative and thought-provoking article, Jelena Golubović provides richly textured insights into everyday practices and negotiations of ethnicity in a post-war space, exploring how the siege of Sarajevo (1992-1995) altered the social experience of ethnicity, by refiguring ethnic categories into moral boundaries. Throughout, Golubović’s careful analysis of original ethnographic fieldwork undertaken with Serb women in Sarajevo is scaffolded by an impressive array of secondary literature which bridges theoretical work on anthropology, ethnicity, identity, performativity, the body and emotion. In her research, Golubović moves away from more traditional constructivist readings of ethnicity to focus instead on how it feels to be Serb in Sarajevo, presenting ethnicity as an embodied phenomenon, expressed by concealment as much as performance. In exploring how Sarajevan Serb women intentionally perform ethnic ambiguity, Golubović effectively illustrates how feelings of ethnic anxiety produce feelings of exclusion and stigmatisation, and convincingly demonstrates how the residual anxiety of conflict shapes social interactions and bodies, even in terms of ‘mundane’ or everyday social interactions. This article sheds important new light on how violence alters the social experience of ethnicity, highlighting the complex and asymmetrical politics of contested belonging.

Sasha Rasmussen, ‘Musicians, Students, Listeners: Women and the Conservatoire in pre-war Paris and St Petersburg’. Cultural and Social History, published 19 March 2021 online first at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2021.1902608

In this outstanding article, Rasmussen brings together archival discoveries with an astute analysis of the social and cultural history of women student’s attendance at the conservatoires in St Petersburg and Paris. This piece contributes genuinely new knowledge to multiple fields: Russian studies, transnational history of cultural institutions, history of education, gender, music, and performance history. Rasmussen challenges the commonly held perception that women were a minority in Russian and European conservatoires in the early twentieth century. The first part of the article reconstructs the many histories of women students in Russia and France, establishing a socio-economic and demographical profiles of typical students, ‘young women of diverse backgrounds who were motivated to study music for a range of personal and professional reasons’. The second part discusses a representative case study of two sisters and conservatoire alumnae, Lili and Nadia Boulanger. Combining close reading of archival sources with an impressive knowledge of cutting-edge theories and histories of listening, music making and public performance, Rasmussen’s elegantly-written article illuminates a major role conservatoires played in creating ‘pockets of creative space’, where the ‘engagement with music was both gendered and deeply individual’.

Highly commended

Michelle Assay, Hamlet’s Soviet Operatic Life.

The judges would like to officially commend this impressive article, that effectively uses twentieth-century productions of Hamlet as an example of Russian operatic tradition’s involvement with politics. 

2021

BASEES POSTGRADUATE PRIZE: JOINT WINNERS

George Bodie, ‘‘It is a Shame we are Not Neighbours’: GDR Tourist Cruises to Cuba, 1961–89’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 55/no. 2, (2020), pp. 411-434.

George Bodie’s article constitutes the first dedicated study of East German tourism to Cuba, a travel destination which functioned as both a site of exoticism and of revolutionary allure for the GDR. Extensively researched, using a rich combination of source materials including archival documents, state-produced travel material and secret police files, this fascinating study explores the ways in which GDR tourist cruises to Cuba fulfilled a variety of functions in the years 1961-1989, from their origins representing a utopian ideal of transnational proletarian convergence within the socialist world in the 1960s to the less imaginative reality of meeting growing domestic demand for ‘exotic’ travel in the 1980s, subject to increased security scrutiny. Bodie effectively argues that while the numbers of GDR citizens who partook in these cruises was relatively small, they provide an important example of how East Germans experienced the world outside of their nation’s borders, both in reality and in image. His research also critiques contemporary depictions of GDR travel and challenges the dominant presentation of the GDR in both academic and popular literature as parochial, insular, and restrictive. This article makes an important contribution to the growing field of socialist tourism and to changing perceptions of the Cold War-era ’socialist world system’ more generally.

Tamar Koplatadze ‘Theorising Russian Postcolonial Studies’, Postcolonial Studies, vol. 22/no. 4, (2019), pp. 469-489.

In this rigorous and well-researched article, Tamar Koplatadze questions the legitimacy of the current application of postcolonial theory in Russian studies. In order to do so, the author analyses an impressive number of secondary sources, ranging from Gayatri Spivak and Adeeb Khalid’s invitation to widen the horizon of postcolonial studies in the post-Soviet area, to Mark von Hagen’s proposal to overcome the binary paradigms used to analyse Russia’s relationship with the East in relation to the concept of Eurasia, to the works of literary scholars, such as Harsha Ram. Koplatadze discusses with rigour an outstanding variety of approaches, ideas and interpretations on some of the key issues in Russian intellectual history, culture and geopolitics (e.g. Orientalism, modernisation and centre-periphery dynamics), providing a series of insights and thought-provoking analyses, and arguing in a convincing way that a new, more nuanced and less Russo-centric approach needs to be undertaken in order to obtain a more efficient and comprehensive implementation of postcolonial theory in Russian culture. By doing so, Koplatadze shows the ability to shift well-established paradigms, and she does so with a confidence that is surprising for a PG candidate.  

Highly Commended:

 In recognition of the very high standard of nominations for the BASEES Postgraduate prize this year, the judges would also like to formally make honourable mention of two other nominated articles: 

Mollie Arbuthnot, ‘The People and the Poster: Theorizing the Soviet Viewer, 1920–1931’, Slavic Review, vol. 78/no. 3, (2019), pp. 717-737. 

Jelena Golubović, ‘“One Day I Will Tell this to My Daughter”: Serb Women, Silence, and the Politics of Victimhood in Sarajevo’, Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 92/no. 4, (2019), pp. 1173-1199. 

2020

Katarzyna Nowak, ‘A Gloomy Carnival of Freedom. Sex, Gender and Emotions Among Polish Displaced Persons in the Aftermath of World War II’, Aspasia, 13 (2019), pp.113-134. 

In this meticulously researched and written article, Katarzyna Nowak combines literary theory with detailed historical analysis, using Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque transgression as a lens to analyse the sexual experiences and intimate relations of Polish Displaced Persons in Allied camps between 1945-1951. This original approach, combined with extensive archival research and close textual analysis of an extremely impressive range of source materials, allows Nowak to describe the ‘outburst of bodily experiences’ within the camps following the euphoria of liberation, during a liminal period when sexual encounters provided a release from the corporeal oppression of the war and intimate relationships went largely untouched by traditional social and moral norms, before analysing subsequent attempts by Polish community leaders to facilitate the resumption of normalcy, by regulating intimate relationships, sexual activity and policing bodily autonomy in their efforts to the restore more traditional religious values, gender norms and social conventions within the confines of camp space. In addition to shedding new light on the experiences and attitudes of Polish DPs, Nowak’s research pushes the boundaries beyond traditional historical analysis, enabling her to focalise several important aspects of emasculation, war trauma and the challenges of rebuilding a community in exile. 

2019

Catherine Gibson (European University Institute) for ‘Shading, lines, colors: mapping ethnographic taxonomies of “European Russia”’ in Nationalities Papers, Vol 46, Issue 4 (2018).

 Catherine Gibson's well-written and extensively researched article sheds new light on the importance of cartography in shaping the ethnographic landscape of the Russian Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on an impressive list of secondary sources, and a close analysis of two ethnographic maps (Keppen 1851 and Rittikh 1875), Gibson convincingly argues that the techniques used to create these maps have helped the construction of the ethnographic taxonomies in use in the Russian Empire. Gibson further shows the impact of cartography on the visual representation of ethnicity and nationality within the Empire. Inspiring, well-researched and methodologically rigorous, Catherine Gibson's article is a deserving winner of this year's BASEES Postgraduate Prize.

2018

Olena Palko (Birkbeck, University of London) for "Between Two Powers: The Soviet Ukrainian Writer Mykola Khvyl'ovyi" in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 64 (2016), H. 4, S. 575–598

Olena Palko’s study of ‘Soviet Ukrainian Writer’ Mykola Khvyl’ovyi effectively challenges the existing historical and literary paradigm which seeks to classify prominent intellectuals as communist or nationalist. Palko’s central argument, that Khvyl’ovyi’s multifaceted identity as proletarian writer, Bolshevik and Soviet Ukrainian during the 1920s was complex but not contradictory, is compelling and lays the basis for a much more nuanced analysis of his life and literary legacy. This engaging and well-written article draws on available archival materials and original literary analysis, effectively integrated within a rich historiographical context. Palko’s study not only broadens our knowledge and understanding of Khvyl’ovyi and his work, but also provides many useful  observations about ‘national intellectuals’ in the early Soviet period. Therefore, it is a deserving winner of this year’s BASEES Postgraduate Prize.

2017

Ellen Martus (University of New South Wales, Australia) for ‘Contested policymaking in Russia: industry, environment, and the “best available technology” debate,’ Post-Soviet Affairs (2016): 1-22

This article analyses the Russian policy process by examining the ability of industry to determine policy outcomes. It focusses on the environmental policy process concerning the introduction of the "best available technology". This highly contested policy led to significant opposition from industry groups and disputes between government actors. The case demonstrates that industrial interests in Russia are able to exert considerable influence on the policy process, albeit that this policy process is heavily bureaucratized, dominated by a range of competing interests, and that policy outcomes are often best achieved with the Kremlin's direct intervention. The judges found this contribution to be a detailed, rigorously researched and well-written account that transcends its ostensibly narrow focus to contribute to broader debates about contemporary Russian policy making, civil society and democratisation. It shows that Russian politics is not simply about executive dominance and presidential centralisation, but about a constant negotiation between competing interests. As such, this is an impressive article which will influence future research and which should grace future Russian studies course guides.

2014-2015

Yulia Kiseleva  (King’s College London) for Kiseleva, Y (2015) "Russia's Soft Power Discourse: Identity, Status and the Attraction of Power", Politics, 35(3-4): 316-329

This article adopts an intriguing perspective on a currently ‘hot’ topic – that of Russian soft power and its relationship to Russian foreign policy. Instead of trying to measure soft power, or simply assuming that Russia has adopted Joseph Nye’s well-trailed definition of soft power, Yulia Kiseleva uses an interpretivist approach to focus on why Russian elites are drawn to soft power, how they interpret it, and how such interpretations affect their interactions with the outside world. Kiseleva focusses on the ‘hegemonic’ nature of the customary soft power discourse, which is intricately bound up with Euro-Atlanticist normative criteria that Russia is ex-initio unlikely to meet. Russia adopts a countervailing discourse which experiences a profound duality – it takes on some of the characteristics of the hegemonic discourse, but also tries to challenge it. Soft power discourse therefore indicates the tensions in Russia’s love-hate relationship with the West and its interpretation of the West both as hegemon and Russia’s Other. Russia appears trapped in a vicious circle whereby in response to purportedly insidious and manipulative Western soft power, its policy makers adopt competitive policies based on this faulty perception of soft power which thereby perpetuate mutual distrust. The judges concurred that this was a very sophisticated and nuanced article, which makes some telling empirical and theoretical observations, and is stylishly written. It is likely to be an agenda-setting article for future work on Russian soft power and foreign policy. 

2013-2014

Gleb J. Albert (Co-Winner) (University of Zurich, Swizerland) for Albert, Gleb J. (2014) “‘To help the Republicans not just by donations and rallies, but with the rifle’: militant solidarity with the Spanish Republic in the Soviet Union, 1936-37” in European Review of History 21(4): 501-518.

Gleb Albert’s study of the involvement of Soviet volunteers – and Soviet public opinion more broadly – in the Spanish Civil War is an important, timely and intriguing contribution, well worthy of special mention. Mobilising newly available archival materials and a rich historiographical context, Albert embarks on a complex and careful historical sociology, delving into the motivations and objectives of Soviet citizens and Stalin’s emergent regime, and the often convoluted interactions between the two. He finds that “the responses ‘from below’ to the solidarity campaign with republican Spain present a paradoxical picture of internationalist engagement that was both in line and at odds with the official discourse of internationalism.” The result is a deeper understanding of the ways in which a regime’s development of an ideologically structured frame for both domestic and international affairs simultaneously empowers and constrains the state, by creating powerful, self-reinforcing incentives for citizens and elites. Indeed, in ways that the author may not have been able to anticipate at the outset, the article resonates in the present day and has significant implications for those seeking to understand the factors both causing and limiting current events in Russia and Ukraine.

Ilya Yablokov (Co-Winner) (University of Manchester) for his contribution to Elisabeth Schimpfossl and Ilya Yablokov, ‘Coercion or Conformism? Censorship and Self-Censorship among Russian Media Personalities and Reporters in the 2010s’, Demokratizatsiya, 22 (2014): 295-312

This article’s main angle is a series of elite interviews with members of Russia’s state media stratum. This includes such notorious figureheads as Dmitrii Kiselev and Maxim Shevchenko, but also several rank-and-file reporters. While managing to unearth some choice quotes, it makes a very weighty contribution to contemporary understandings of the Russian media realm, dominant political discourses, national identity and Russian governance. The central claim is to challenge the (prevalent) idea that the state either actively forces reporters on federal television to promote pro-Kremlin views, or that pro-Kremlin views are the result of substantial self-censorship by journalists themselves. Quite the contrary: the article argues that reporters are active agents in shaping their own agendas; this is important in providing diverse and compelling TV which gains high ratings (even though such agendas broadly fit within limits set by the Kremlin). Therefore those that promote the dominant Kremlin discourses do so because they have chosen to do so, often with Messianic zeal and considerable cunning. They promote the notion of “adek­vatnost’” – best translated as the right (pro-state) instinct combined with adroit appropriateness and a portion of wiliness.  All in all this is a highly topical and relevant, as well as factually rich, article. It is engagingly written and compellingly argued and so, all in all is a thoroughly deserving winner. 

2012-2013

Łukasz Szulc (University of Antwerp), ‘From queer to gay to Queer.pl. The names we dare to speak in Poland’, Lambda Nordica 17 (4), 2012: 65-98.

This topical, relevant and methodologically interesting article addresses an issue that, while seemingly not in the spotlight of contemporary Slavonic studies, in fact sheds significant light on important social, discursive and ideational developments. The author does an admirable job of integrating several analytical narratives – one geographically and temporally local to today’s Poland, one situated in the broader context of post-socialist ‘transition’, and one more generally global – into a compelling exploration that says as much about processes of social transformation in Poland as it does about the LGBT movement in that country. Moreover, the article presents significant original research, making effective use of archived online discussions as an unadulterated historical record, thus adding both to our stock of knowledge and to our level of understanding. It is also worth noting that the article is well written and solidly constructed. For all of these reasons, the article deserves recognition with this prize.