REEESNe is pleased to announce its 2023-24 Essay Competitions, which will be open during May 2024 to students at Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies Northeast network institutions. Prizes of up to $1,000 will be awarded for the top English-language essays in three categories: Master’s-level long-form scholarly essays, Undergraduate-level long-form scholarly essays, and Open-level short-form essays (scholarship or public-facing pieces). See below for information on how to submit between May 1st and 31st, 2024.
The competitions:
The Marina Ledkovsky Prize: For short-form writing on REEES topics of at least 1,000 words but fewer than 3,000 words (including all appendices, but NOT including bibliographical materials or footnotes/endnotes, which may be counted separately). The competition is open to both undergraduate- and Master’s-level writing, as well as to essays written for scholarly as well as public audiences.
The Carlos Pascual Prize and the James Billington Prize: For long-form, scholarly writing on REEES topics of at least 3,000 words but fewer than 9,000 words (including all appendices, but NOT including bibliographical materials or footnotes/endnotes, which may be counted separately). These are two separate competitions for MA- and undergraduate-level writing; in each case, the essay should be aimed at an academic audience.
Student eligibility: Entrants must be current students at REEESNe member institutions OR must have been enrolled at one in the 24 months prior to the competition deadline of May 31st, 2024. Students who have graduated within the past two years and have not moved on to a higher level of education during that time (i.e. who have not enrolled in a Master’s program in the case of Associate/Bachelor’s graduates, or in a doctoral program in the case of Master’s graduates) may submit to the competitions that match their most recent studies. Students who have advanced to doctoral candidacy are not eligible for these competitions. We encourage speakers from the REEESNe Student Conference to submit their revised papers, but participation there is not a prerequisite for the competition.
Essays requirements: Each entry must be the REEES-related work (in English) of a single student author and must be submitted by that author. REEES-related work from any discipline is eligible. There is no restriction on when the essay was written, but students may not submit work currently or previously considered for another REEESNe competition. For long-form essays, students’ writing will be evaluated in the competition for which they are eligible based on their current level of study. Students may only enter one essay in each competition but may, in the same year, enter separate essays in the long-form competition for which they are eligible and in the single short-form competition.
How to enter the competition: Please do not submit your work before May 1st, 2024. We also ask you, to the extent possible, to stick to the May 31st submission deadline, but we also recognize that students might have institutionally dictated deadlines for producing new writing (e.g. a departmental deadline for a thesis or a newspaper deadline for a cover story) close to the due date for the REEESNe competition, and you may email Ian MacMillen before May 31st to petition for a slightly later submission date (this is to accommodate sickness or institutionally determined schedules for new writing; it is not intended to allow more time for revising previously written essays). Between May 1st and 31st, please submit your essay in PDF format along with a cover letter detailing:
· Your name and essay title
· Your institution, level of study (undergraduate or Master’s), and, if you are a recent graduate, when you graduated
· A short description of the essay’s topic and the circumstances under which you wrote and (if applicable) published the essay – this could include a course for which you wrote it, a newspaper and/or website on which you released it, etc.