Enlightenment Prize for Non-Fiction Literature

In 2008, the Dynasty Foundation established a new prize for non-fiction literature, the Enlightenment Prize.

The concept of the new prize was presented on June 12, 2008, at the Third Moscow International Open Book Festival. The prize's founder, Dmitry Zimin, was joined by prize committee co-chair Alexander Arkhangelsky for this presentation.

The Russian publishing industry used to offer the general reader a wide selection of excellent books on the discoveries of modern science and scholarship. Everyone knew the names of the writers who authored these books: Yakov Perelman, Dmitry Likhachev, Matvei Bronshtein, and Alexander Panchenko. But then science education was relegated to the backwaters of the publishing business.

Thanks to efforts on the part of publishers, including the Dynasty Foundation Library imprint, translations of the best western authors writing in the popular science genre have come onto the Russian market in recent years.

The Foundation decided to take the next step in this direction by supporting Russian writers whose work is devoted to educating the public. These are writers who have the ability to popularize ideas that are the lingua franca of the scientific and academic communities.

The goal of the prize is to draw readers to educational non-fiction literature, to encourage authors who work in this genre, and to foster growth in the educational non-fiction market.

In autumn 2008, the prize committee announced a short list of five books nominated for the prize. To qualify for this nomination, the books had to have been written in Russian and published between January 1, 2006 and June 15, 2008.

The award ceremony took place during the Non-Fiction Book Fair Nov 27, 2008. The winning author—Marina Svanidze, the author of “Historical Chronicles with Nikolay Svanidze”—received a prize of 600,000 rubles, while the book's publisher received a certificate for 120,000 rubles.

Authors and publishers are not the only winners—young Russian readers win as well. The prize committee purchases a thousand copies of the winning book and five hundred copies of each of the other short-listed books for donation to Russia's regional libraries. This set of donated books also includes the translated classics of world popular science literature published by the Dynasty Foundation Library. Russian university students are also able to buy these books at a considerable discount.

The 2008 winner

Marina Svanidze is a historian, writer, and the author of Historical Chronicles with Nikolai Svanidze. She works in television, and was a producer of the programs Details and Mirror, which were broadcast on one of the major channels.

It is worth noting that Svanidze writes out all her books with pen on paper before typing them on a computer.

Together with husband Nikolai Svanidze, in 2008 Marina published the book Medvedev, the first biography of Russia's current president.

The third part of Historical Chronicles will be released in 2009.

 

The 2009 winners were:

• In the natural sciences category
  The physicist Leonid Ponomarev for the research work that has gone through many editions—POD ZNAKOM KVANTA (Moscow: Fizmatlit, 2007) [English translation: The Quantum Dice, Bristol: Institute of Physics Pub., 1993].
  
  This book is addressed to people interested in the origin, the ideas, and the main achievements of quantum physics, all of which influenced the 20th century, and also in the role of quantum physics in making modern culture. The book has been translated into 16 languages and is used in many countries as a resource in the history of physics. Leonid Ponomarev—Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences—has for many years been a lecturer in the theoretical physics department of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT).
  
  
• In the humanitarian category
  The art historian Grigory Kozlov for the book about shady deals connected with famous pictures—POKUSHENIE NA ISKUSSTVO: Art-detektiv [The Attempt on Art: Art Detective] (Moscow: Slovo, 2009).
  
  Grigory Kozlov is a famous art historian, the author of books about the fate of European museums during the Second World War, and a member of the editorial board of “Art News” in New York. He also hosted the series “The Secret History of Art” on the First Channel of Russian television.