The Enlightenment Prize opens its 2010 season

The Enlightenment Prize for Nonfiction Literature was established by the Dynasty Foundation and its founder Dmitry Zimin in 2008.
In this way, the foundation supports Russian writers that popularize ideas formed by the scientific community.

The Enlightenment Prize jury reviews works in two categories: “humanitarian” and “scientific.”
Only books written in Russian are accepted for the competition.

The prize fund was increased in 2010 by decision of the prize founder Dmitry Zimin.

Each prize winner will receive a monetary award of 720,000 rubles instead of the previous 600,000 rubles. Their publishers will each receive 130,000 rubles for promoting the winning books instead of the previous 120,000 rubles.

In accordance with the prize requirements, the following people can nominate books:

• Dmitry Zimin, founder of the Dynasty Foundation, and members of the Dynasty Foundation Board,
• the Enlightenment Prize jury members,
• publishers,
• staff members of governmental museums; college professors; staff members of research institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Russian Academy of Education; and full and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Russian Academy of Education.

This year, the informal professional society “Science Journalist Club” will also nominate books.
The club will give a list of seven books to the organizing committee of the Enlightenment Prize. The organizing committee must include at least four of those books in the long list for the prize.

The members of the 2010 jury are: Dmitry Bak, philologist, vice-rector of the Russian State University for the Humanities; Evgeny Bunimovich, poet, mathematician; Anton Nosik, internet project creator; Alexei Semikhatov, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, leading researcher of the Lebedev Physical Institute, translator; and Yuri Rizhov, Academician RAS, who is chair of the jury and has the right of an additional vote; and also 2009 winners Grigory Kozlov, art historian, and Leonid Ponomarev, physicist.

The Enlightenment Prize also organizes a big library program. Every year, 125 libraries from Russian regions other than Moscow and Saint Petersburg receive the books of the winners and the finalists.