Inaugural Awarding of the Conquest Prize for Contribution to Holodomor Studies

In 2018, HREC initiated a biennial prize to be awarded to the author of an outstanding article on the Holodomor that is published in a Western language. The $2,500 prize is made in memory of Robert Conquest, author of the ground-breaking work The Harvest of Sorrow (1986). HREC convened a panel of specialists to determine the winner of the first award: Olga Andriewsky (Trent University); Andrea Graziosi (University of Naples); Norman Naimark (Stanford University); and Lynne Viola (University of Toronto). The 2018 Conquest Prize winner was Professor Lucien Bianco for his article “Comparing the Soviet and Chinese Famines: Their Perpetrators, Actors, and Victims.” Professor Bianco is an eminent French historian specializing in the history of the Chinese peasantry in the twentieth century. 

One juror wrote: “This article has great sweep, situating the problem of the Holodomor in a comparative framework of famines in Communist societies.” Another noted: “The essay’s ambitious and successful comparative thrust…reveals a profound and unique knowledge of the twentieth century’s communist-related famines, properly situating the Holodomor among them, [and] placing each in its proper context, without losing sight of their uniqueness.”

Professor Bianco received the award at a ceremony in Paris on November 25, 2018, at the Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr the Great (Cathédrale Saint-Volodymyr-le-Grand). The award ceremony was part of the annual Holodomor commemorations in Paris, which began at the Arc de Triomphe, followed by the ceremony at the Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr, and culminated in a Liturgy in Notre Dame Cathedral.