On October 13, as part of the presentation of the annual Valdai Reportwith the participation of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the name of the winner of the 2020 Valdai Club Award was announced. The laureate is Yuri Slezkine, Jane K. Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, Senior Research Fellow at St Edmund’s College, and Senior Research Fellow at RANEPA. The Club’s academy lauded his book “The House of Government”, published in 2019.
This is the fourth time the Valdai Club Award has been awarded. In 2017, Academician Vitaly Naumkin became the first laureate, receiving an award for his work to achieve a truce in Syria. In 2018, the British historian Dominic Lieven received the Valdai Club Award for his scientific contribution to the study of Russian history. In 2019 the winner was John J. Mearsheimer — the jury recognised his book “The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities”.
The presentation of the report was attended by all the past winners of the Valdai Club Award. Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club, congratulated Yuri Slezkine and noted that this is not the only award presented each year by the Valdai Club.
“We also annually present the Prize for contributing to the activities of the Valdai Club. This year, this Prize is being awarded to Alexander Rahr, Research Director of the German-Russian Forum,” he said.
All winners of the Valdai Club Award took an active part in the discussion of our latest report, titled “History, To Be Continued: The Utopia of a Diverse World”, which precedes the main event of the year — the 17th Annual Meeting, which will begin in less than one week, on October 20. For the first time in the history of the Club, the entire programme of the Valdai meeting will be open to the media and the general public. Follow us online!
