The Laura Shannon Prize medallion. Photo by Barbara Johnston, University of Notre Dame

Professor Rory Finnin Wins European Studies Book Prize

Rory Finnin, Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, has won the 2024 Laura Shannon Book Prize in Contemporary European Studies for Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (University of Toronto, 2022).

The Laura Shannon Prize, one of the preeminent prizes for European studies, is awarded each year to the best book that transcends a focus on any one country, state, or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole. This year’s cycle of the award considered books in the humanities published in 2021 and 2022. The Laura Shannon Prize is organised by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame (USA).

In its statement, the final jury praised Finnin’s work as a major contribution toward understanding the history and mechanisms of imperialism and resistance in Ukraine and the Black Sea region.

“Rory Finnin’s extraordinary study, Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity, forges breakthrough integrations between Slavic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies to open up and adroitly explore a largely understudied ‘contact zone’ of imperial politics central to the ongoing re-shaping of European conflict today,” the final jury wrote. “The relevance of this book for the current war in Ukraine, as well as ethnic conflict zones throughout Europe and the Middle East, makes it essential reading for anyone engaged with the history, past and present, of resistance to imperial domination within and throughout the borders of Europe.”

Blood of Others has won seven international book awards, earning distinctions in the fields of Ukrainian Studies, European Studies, Slavic Studies, nationalism studies, and genocide studies.

Below Rory Finnin discusses Blood of Others in conversation with James Meek at the European Parliament Liaison Office in the United Kingdom. The book launch, coorganised by the Ukrainian Institute London, was held on 25 November 2022.