The Midwest Slavic Association is pleased to announce the results of its annual essay competition for 2025. Students were able to submit papers in different formats, from conference papers, to course papers, to dissertation chapters, to master’s theses. Submitted papers covered many different disciplines in the humanities, history, and social sciences, and different countries from the East European and Eurasian region. Papers were judged by two separate committees for the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The 2025 winners are:

• Undergraduate: Lekha Masoudi, U. of Chicago, "Kneeling Before Every Common Grave: The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Antifascist Combat in Yugoslavia and USSR"
• Graduate: Danylo Leshchyshyn, Northwestern U., "Statebuilding and Survival Behind the Front: The Jewish Minority in the West Ukrainian State (1918-1919)"

Both students will receive a one-year membership to the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). Danylo Leshchyshyn’s essay will be submitted for consideration to ASEEES' Beth Holmgren Graduate Student Essay Prize, a national level essay competition.

Thank you to all students who submitted their essays for consideration! Co-sponsorship of the Midwest Slavic Association Student Essay Competition is provided by ASEEES.