2020 Wayne Vucinich Book Prize Winner Announced

Eliot Borenstein, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, received recognition for his assessment of cultural expressions of paranoia in contemporary Russia at this year's annual convention for the Association for Slavic Studies, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), as his new book, Plots against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy after Socialism (Cornell University Press) was awarded the 2020 Wayne Vucinich Book Prize. 

According to the Vucinich Book Prize Committee, Borenstein's latest effort is "Written with irony and wit...Plots Against Russiaanalyzes Russian national myths and disturbingly popular beliefs in the internet age. Borenstein's tour of the darker side of Russian internet, popular fiction, television, and movies, where conspiracy theories flourish with baroque profusion, opens a window onto the engaging and terrifying landscape of contemporary Russian fantasy."

Established in 1983, the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize, sponsored by ASEEES and the Stanford University Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREEES), is awarded annually for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences published in English in the United States in the previous calendar year. Click here for a list of previous winners.