Overview

• The Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels announced Schlögel as the 2025 Friedenspreis recipient, noting the €25,000 endowment and scheduled ceremony on October 19 at the Paulskirche during the Frankfurt Book Fair.
• Schlögel’s scholarship combines decades of empirical fieldwork in Eastern Europe with vivid narrative histories in books such as Terror und Traum (2008) and Das sowjetische Jahrhundert (2017).
• The prize jury cited his early critiques of Putin’s aggressive expansionism and emphasized that “without a free Ukraine there can be no peace in Europe.”
• Schlögel’s firsthand experiences—from the 1968 Prague Spring to research stays in Moscow, Leningrad and a 2014 trip to Ukraine after Crimea’s annexation—have shaped his analyses.
• The award reflects the Friedenspreis’s mission to honor contributions in literature, science, and art that advance peace during ongoing challenges in Ukraine and rising authoritarianism in Russia.