A biologist and a linguist became chief enlighteners of 2011

The winners of the only prize for popular science literature in the country—the Enlightenment Prize—were announced during the awards ceremony at the theater center “Na Strastnom” in Moscow 24 November 2011.

Altogether, more than 100 books and manuscripts were submitted for the 2011 competition: 25 books were included in the long list, and 8 books, in the short list.

In 2011, the Enlightenment Prize was awarded:

• in the natural sciences category, to Aleksandr Markov, the author of the two-volume book The Evolution of Man (Мoscow: Corpus, 2011)
  Aleksandr Markov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, is an anthropologist and a leading researcher of the Paleontological Institute (RAS).
• in the humanities category, to Vladimir Plungyan for the book Why Languages Are So Different: Popular Linguistics (Мoscow: АSТ-Press, 2011)
  Vladimir Plungyan, Doctor of Philological Sciences, is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The master of ceremonies, Nikolai Aleksandrov, literary critic and TV and radio host, introduced all the nominees for the short list. After handing out diplomas to the finalists, he turned the floor over to Dmitry Zimin, founder of the Dynasty Foundation and the Enlightenment Prize, who bestowed special awards.

He called the oldest Russian popular science magazine VOKRUG SVETA (Around the World), which turned 150 this year, and Sergey Petrovich Kapitza, a famous scientist, science popularizer, and the permanent host of the TV show The Obvious and the Incredible, great enlighteners.

Vokrug Sveta was awarded an honorary diploma, which was received by the editor-in-chief Sergey Parkhomenko.

Sergey Kapitza was honored with a special award—a statuette with the symbolic engraving God-gifted Enlightener—handed to him by Dmitry Zimin.

Krasny Yar Laboratory: Scientific Answers to Fantastical Questions, a book written by a group of authors from Krasnoyarsk, was awarded the Prize of the Science Journalist Club.

The linguist Maksim Krongaus and the writer and mathematician Vladimir Uspenski, members of the jury, announced the winners.

Maksim Krongaus noted that the border between the two categories turned out to be rather fuzzy this year and that either book could be referred to both sciences and humanities: “we see interdisciplinarity: the sciences and the humanities intertwine, and something new emerges.”

The 2011 natural sciences category winner and “zealous Darwinist” Aleksandr Markov began his speech by asserting that the human brain shrinks in the process of evolution and we thus “get dumber,” but thanks to the Dynasty Foundation and the Enlightenment Prize, the cultural environment is revitalized.
“I am pleased,” continued the scientist, “that, at last, a book in biology, answering the questions where we came from and who we are, received attention. This is a good sign allowing us to hope that the emerging trend for 'dumbing down' can be overcome.”

Vladimir Plungyan, the winner in the humanities category, pointed out in his speech: “Perhaps, there isn't a more complex object of study than human language, and an ordinary modern person, even an intellectual, knows language very little. He cannot acquire it at school: there is no such subject. That is why it is necessary to encourage an expansion of space for linguistic knowledge in every possible way. I tried to do this with regard to the linguistic diversity of humanity as a whole. It seems to me, this is a very first step, but I would be glad if everyone would learn a little more about the diversity of languages.”

The prize winners will each receive a monetary award in the amount of 720,000 rubles. The publishers of the winning books will receive monetary certificates worth 130,000 rubles for promoting the books in the market.
The authors of the short-listed books will each receive a monetary award in the amount of 120,000 rubles.
The books of the laureates and prize finalists will be sent to 125 Russian libraries in December.
This year, the Vokrug Sveta magazine will participate in the Enlightenment Prize program for libraries: it will grant the libraries free one-year subscriptions.

In 2010, the Enlightenment Prize winners were the historian-byzantinist Sergey Ivanov (A Thousand Years of Illumination) and the mathematician and linguist Vladimir Uspenskii (Apology of Mathematics).