Anne Applebaum, in her October 18 news conference at Frankfurter Buchmesse before being awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade on October 20. Image: FBM, Marc Jacquemin
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Applebaum: ‘The Rest of the Democratic World Needs You’
As Publishing Perspectives readers know, the Polish-American journalist, historian, and essayist Anne Applebaum is the 2024 winner of the €25,000 (US$26,987) Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. And as is the tradition, the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels—Germany’s publishers and booksellers association which administers the program—held its annual award ceremony on Sunday evening (October 20), the closing night of Frankfurter Buchmesse.
The event drew some 700 invited guests to Frankfurt’s Paulskirche, including Claudia Roth, Germany’s state culture minister, and Bettina Stark-Watzinger, the education minister, along with party leaders Saskia Esken and Omid Nouripour. As we’ve reported, Irina Scherbakova, a co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Memorial International, was chosen to give the laudation on the occasion.
Our American readers here at Publishing Perspectives are most familiar with Applebaum’s work from her Penguin Random House-published books (most recently the resoundingly well received Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want To Run the World and its predecessor, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism) and for her incisive writings as a closely followed staff writer at The Atlantic magazine.
On Sunday, the magazine honored Applebaum’s becoming the 75th German Book Trade Peace Prize laureate by publishing an article adapted from the acceptance lecture she gave in Frankfurt. In that article, The Case Against Pessimism: The West Has To Believe That Democracy Will Prevail, she references the more than 116,000 Russians who since 2018 “have faced criminal or administrative punishment for speaking their minds” and goes on to write:
“But what about us in the rest of the democratic world? Our voices are not restrained or restricted. We are not jailed or poisoned for speaking our mind. How should we react to the revival of a form of government that we thought had disappeared from Europe forever?
In addition to writing her articles at ‘The Atlantic,’ Anne Applebaum hosts with Peter Pomerantsev the magazine’s podcast series ‘Autocracy in America,’ which you can find here
“In the early, emotional days of the war in Ukraine, many did join the chorus of support. In 2022, as in 2014, Europeans again turned on their televisions to see scenes of a kind they knew only from history books: women and children huddled at train stations, tanks rolling across fields, bombed-out cities.
“In that moment, many things suddenly felt clear. Words quickly became actions. More than 50 countries joined a coalition to aid Ukraine, militarily and economically, an alliance built at unprecedented speed. In Kyiv, Odesa, and Kherson, I witnessed the effect of food aid, military aid, and other European support. It felt miraculous.
“But as the war has continued, doubt has crept in. Since 2014, faith in democratic institutions and alliances has declined dramatically, in both Europe and America. Maybe our indifference to the invasion of Crimea played a larger role in this decline than we usually think. The decision to accelerate economic cooperation with Russia after the invasion certainly created both moral and financial corruption as well as cynicism. That cynicism was then amplified by a Russian disinformation campaign that we dismissed or ignored.
“Now, faced with the greatest challenge to our values and our interests in our time, the democratic world is starting to wobble.”
— Anne Applebaum The Atlantic, October 20, 2024
Scherbakowa: ‘Her Books Are Full of Empathy for the Victims’
In her commentary on Applebaum’s work, Scherbakowa said, in part that what’s particularly valuable about Applebaum’s books is “not only their accessibility and their enlightening pathos, but also their political relevance.”
“Those who accept the erasure of other people’s democracies are less likely to fight against the erasure of their own democracies.”Anne Applebaum, Peace Prize of the German Book Trade acceptance lecture
In many ways, Scherbakowa said, Applebaum has diagnosed and predicted the impending catastrophes in her books. At the same time, she said, it’s very important “that her books are full of empathy for the victims. … She made their voices heard.”
And Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, head of the Börsenverein, told the audience that Applebaum is a person “who takes a position on current politics with impressive clarity and who helps us to understand the world as it is: With her two most recent books on the emergence of a global autocratic network, Applebaum gives us two valuable guides.”
The Peace Prize is in its 75th iteration this year. Recalling that long tradition, Schmidt-Friderichs concluded, “Peace is not a gift. Peace is the greatest task of our time.”
Frankfurt’s mayor, Mike Josef, said, “Does peace mean that there is no fighting? Or is there more to achieving and maintaining peace? Those who abandon the duties of democracy will lose the rights it gives us. It is the duty of all of us to defend democracy because it enables human rights, freedom of expression, and a more peaceful coexistence.”
And among many fine points in her acceptance remarks (which you can hear, along with Josef’s, Schmidt-Friderichs’, and Scherbakowa’s here), Applebaum—in an especially powerful warning here on the near-eve of the United States’ potentially pivotal election—drew a hearty round of applause when she warned against complacency in the face of Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine and other instances of autocratic villainy, saying, “Those who accept the erasure of other people’s democracies are less likely to fight against the erasure of their own democracies.”
She spoke directly to the Germans in her audience, as well, saying that while she knows, “It is a new experience to be asked for help. to be called upon to provide weapons to be used against an aggressive military power. But this is the true lesson of German history. Not that Germans should never fight, but that Germans have a special responsibility to stand up and take risks for freedom.” At this, she received another, profound round of applause.
In closing, Anne Applebaum told the Peace Prize audience in Frankfurt, “All of us in the democratic world, not just Germans, have been trained to be critical and skeptical of our own leaders and of our own societies. So it can feel awkward when we are asked to defend our most fundamental principles.
“But please hear me. Don’t let skepticism decline into nihilism. We in the rest of the democratic world need you.”
Anne Appelbaum receives the 2024 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade from Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels chair Karin Schmidt-Friderichs. Image: Börsenverein, Tobias Bohm
Our 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair Magazine, distributed during the show for international trade visitors, now is available in a digital edition here.
Download your copy here.
You’ll read our focused coverage of issues and events in the Guest of Honor Italy program; book market trends in Brazil, France, the Philippines, the Czech Republic, and Poland; perspectives on the international rights trade from Matthes & Seitz Berlin’s Meran Mentzel; commentary from independent publishers from Greece, Colombia, and Kenya.
PEN International president emerita Jennifer Clement speaks to Publishing Perspectives on censorship ahead of the IPA’s International Publishers Congress (December 3-5); there’s an exit interview with the outgoing IPA president Karine Pansa of Brazil; a wide-ranging interview with Scholastic chief Peter Warwick; perspectives on audio in Italy from Mondadori’s Miriam Spinnato; and more.
More from Publishing Perspectives on Anne Applebaum is here, more on nonfiction is here, more on book and publishing awards in the international industry is here, more on the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is here, more on politics and world publishing is here, and more on the German market is here.
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