The main criteria for selection of the winner were: articulation of subject matter and argument, originality of research, rhetoric and clarity of presentation, and mastery of the subject during the question and answer section. Based on these criteria, the jury has awarded the prize to two presenters: Rayna Lopyan for her paper “Russia’s Eighteenth-Century Conflict: Modernization, Unification, or Both?” and Markian Dobczansky for his paper “War and Identity: Stalin, Khmelnytsky and Russo-Ukrainian Relations.”