Announcing the Laureates of the Enlightener Prize

• 20 Nov 2025



•  Today, on November 20, the winners of the Dmitry Zimin Enlightener Prize group were announced. The winning books of this year explore topics ranging from wild boars and animal-criminals to church and state, interwar Europe, and the philosophy of Pinocchio.

  The laureates of the Enlightener Prize are:

  In the category “Natural and Exact Sciences”
  — Wild Boars, Beavers and Desmans by Nadezhda Pankova (Albus Corvus);

  In the category “Humanities”
  — "Nation and Order”! Central Europe and the Balkans Between the World Wars by Yaroslav Shimov and Andrey Shary (The Historical Expertise).

  The laureates of the Enlightener.Translation Prize are:

  In the category “Natural and Exact Sciences”
  — Translator Galina Borodina and editors Mikhail Nikitin and Oleg Bocharinikov for their work on Mary Roach’s book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (Alpina Non-Fiction);

  In the category “Humanities”
  — Translator Marina Kozlova and editors Stanislav Mukhamedzhanov and Alina Klimkina for their work on Giorgio Agamben’s Pinocchio: A Philosophical Analysis (“Lyod,” AST Publishing Project).

  The special prize PolitProsvet  was given to Ksenia Luchenko for her book With Good Intentions: The Russian Orthodox Church and the State from Gorbachev to Putin (“Echo Books” / StraightForward).

  A special jury mention was also awarded to the book by the Team Against Torture titled Anatomy of Collapse: How and Why Human Rights Ceased to Be a Value in Contemporary Russia.