Terry Martin Receives Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize for 2002

The Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize is co-sponsored by AAASS and the Center for Russian and East European Studies at Stanford University to honor an outstanding monograph in Russian, Eurasian, or East European studies in any discipline.

Award Citation
The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939, Terry Martin's masterful study of Soviet nationalities policies, combines exhaustive documentation, prodigious archival work, and clear, well-documented analysis. Tracing the evolution of these policies through the 1920s and 1930s, Martin demonstrates the framing roles played by such disparate factors as ideology, foreign policy, economic necessity, and bureaucratic centralization. Combined, these forces recast the utopian impulses of the mid-1920s into the paradoxical practices of a Soviet order that could simultaneously proclaim the 'friendship of the peoples' alongside state-sponsored ethnic cleansing. Even more, through his close study of the interaction between the emerging Stalinist order, local authorities, and the population at large, Martin greatly enhances our understanding of the Stalinist system and how it worked.