Historian Applebaum receives the Peace Prize

One of the leading critics of authoritarian rule is being honoured with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade: US-Polish historian Anne Applebaum. The prize will be awarded on Sunday, 20 October 2024, at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. The British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie received the award in 2023, Ukrainian writer Serhij Zhadan the year before. Since 1950 the award ceremony has traditionally been held in Frankfurt am Main during the world’s largest book fair.

Applebaum has long warned against Putin’s aggressive policy

“At a time when the achievements and values of democracy are increasingly being caricatured and coming under attack, her work is an eminently important contribution to the preservation of peace and the democratic order,” says the Foundation Board, explaining why Applebaum was selected as this year’s winner. An expert on Eastern European history, Applebaum has long warned against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his aggressive anti-Western policy. She also called for support for Ukraine at an early stage. 

It was a great honour for her to be awarded the Peace Prize, Applebaum told dpa. “This means a lot to me because my work on Soviet and Eastern European history has benefited so much from research done by German historians and scholars.” When it was announced that she had won the award, she thanked “everyone in Germany who continues to fight for peace, freedom and democracy in Ukraine, in Russia and throughout Europe”.

In an interview, Applebaum describes her attitude to life as follows: “I try to stay positive and I really do believe that pessimism is irresponsible.” She does see that many people face problems, however. “We’re living in times of enormous upheaval, of course,” she says, “and there a lot of people who’d like this feeling of speed to stop. There’s too much noise for them, too much cacophony. They want life to be simpler”. But there are positive developments too, she says: “We had a great election in Poland in October. What made it so great was the huge turnout, with more people voting than ever before!” Her hope for the future? “I believe younger people will have a really vital role to play in shaping the political debate in future. They’re the digital natives who understand this world (...) they’re the ones who’ll be able to change it and make it better.”

Unlike in Poland, Applebaum is less widely known in Germany. She was born to Jewish parents in Washington D.C., studied at Yale, London and Oxford and went to Poland as a correspondent in 1988. She met the current Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Warsaw. They married in 1992 and have two sons. Applebaum has lived in Poland intermittently for decades and now holds both Polish and US citizenship. 

Applebaum now writes primarily for the US magazine The Atlantic. She has also written books such as “Gulag: A History” (2003), “Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe” (2012) and “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism” (2021) – as well as a cookery book with Polish recipes. She received the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2004. 

Applebaum was awarded the Carl von Ossietzky Prize in 2024

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz congratulated the journalist on winning the prize: “The historian Anne Applebaum warned against Russian expansionism early on. Through the insights she provides into Eastern European history, she reminds us how fragile even democratic societies can be.” 

In Germany, Applebaum was recently awarded the 2024 Carl von Ossietzky Prize by the city of Oldenburg. In her acceptance speech she said: “We must defend Ukraine and hope that a military defeat will end this terrible cult of violence in Russia, just as a military defeat ended the cult of violence in Germany.” This was a reference to the fact that the award ceremony took place on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies landed in Normandy in 1942 during World War II, ushering in the end of Nazi Germany’s reign of terror over Europe. (with dpa)