Title: Georgetown Scholar Wins Prize for Book on Russian History

Catherine Evtuhov

Portrait of a Russian Province: Economy, Society and Civilization in Nineteenth-Century Nizhnii Novgorod (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012) takes a look at a 19th-century province in Russia once believed to be home to peasants living in poverty and ignorance.

“While I was working on this book, I had a very strong sense of swimming against the current, or wanting to undermine approaches and paradigms that had dominated the field of Russian history for many decades,” Evtuhov says.

Her research showed the province actually was home to skilled farmers, talented artisans and craftsmen and enterprising trade workers.

The prize is awarded for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences published in English this year in the United States.

“I was enormously pleased that the prize committee was receptive to my vision and that they enjoyed reading the book slowly and with care,” says Evtuhov, who will receive her award during the 44th annual ASEEES conference in New Orleans Nov. 15-18.

The Georgetown scholar has written extensively in books and academic publications about the history of Russian thought in European context, material culture and local history and the history of the Black Sea region and Russian-Ottoman relations.