Scherbakova to speak at Anne Applebaum peace prize presentation

Admin I Monday, August 12, 2024

 

FRANKFURT – The organizers of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade have said that the laudatory speech at this year’s award ceremony will be given by the Russian human rights activist, Irina Scherbakova.

They announced in June that the prize itself will be awarded to the Polish-American historian and journalist Anne Applebaum.

In a statement released on Monday the German Publishers and Booksellers Association described Scherbakova as one of the best-known human rights activists in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

She was born in Moscow in 1949 and worked as a translator of German-language fiction. In 1989, she was involved in the founding of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Memorial, which campaigned for the acknowledgement of the crimes of Stalinism in the former Soviet Union. She left her home country after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the dissolution of Memorial, and now lives in Berlin.

The prize winner, Anne Applebaum, is described by the organizers as one of the most important analysts of autocratic systems of rule and an expert on Eastern European history who had warned the world about  Vladimir Putin’s violent expansionist policy early on.

The German Publishers and Booksellers Association, the professional organization for publishers and booksellers, has been awarding the Peace Prize since 1950 in recognition of personalities who have contributed to the realisation of the idea of peace in literature, science or art.

The award is traditionally presented at the end of the Frankfurt Book Fair, this year on October 20. Last year, the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie was honoured.