The Herder Prize (german: Gottfried-von-Herder-Preis), named after the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), was a prestigious international prize awarded every year from 1964 to 2006 to scholars and artists from Central and

Southeast Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (a ...

whose life and work have contributed to the cultural understanding of European countries and their peaceful interrelations. Established in 1963, the first prizes were awarded in 1964. The prize jury was composed of German and Austrian universities. Financing for the Prize, which amounted to €15,000, was sponsored by the

Alfred Toepfer Foundation The Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. is a German foundation established in 1931 by the Hamburg merchant Alfred Toepfer. The foundation is committed to promoting European unification and ensuring cultural diversity and understanding between the count ...

based in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. The awards were traditionally presented in an annual ceremony at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

and handed over by the President of Austria. Each prize also included a one-year scholarship at an Austrian university given to a young person nominated by the winning scholar. The prize was open to

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

scholars and artists from a wide variety of fields, including

ethnographers Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

, writers, architects, composers, poets, folklorists, painters, historians, literary scholars, art historians, archeologists, theatre directors, musicologists, museologists, linguists, playwrights, etc. Several writers who received the Herder Prize went on to later win the Nobel Prize in Literature, such as

Wisława Szymborska Maria Wisława Anna SzymborskaVioletta Szosta gazeta.pl, 9 February 2012. ostęp 2012-02-11 (; 2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent ( ...

(in 1995 and 1996),

Imre Kertész Imre Kertész (; 9 November 192931 March 2016) was a Hungarian author and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history". He was ...

(in 2000 and 2002), and

Svetlana Alexievich Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich (born 31 May 1948) is a Belarusian investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suf ...

(in 1999 and 2015), and many other recipients received other international accolades and were members of their

national academies A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humani ...

. Since its inception the prize was open to scholars and artists from seven central and southeast, mostly communist, European countries (

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

and

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

). After the

fall of communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...

in Europe in the late 1980s and the subsequent turmoil which led to the breakup of Yugoslavia, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, scholars from all the succeeding countries remained eligible for the prize. In the early 1990s several ex-Soviet European countries (the Baltic nations of

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, Latvia, and Lithuania;

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

, and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

) as well as

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

were also made eligible. Usually seven recipients would be announced every year, except in 1964 (four), 1977 (eight), 1993 (nine), and in 2006 (five) — which was also the last edition of the Herder Prize. In 2007 the prize was discontinued and merged with other prize funds sponsored by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation to create a new Europe-wide annual award, the

KAIROS Prize The KAIROS Prize has been awarded to European artists and scholars from the fields of visual and performing arts, music, architecture, design, film, photography, literature and journalism since 2007 by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Hamburg. It i ...

, worth €75,000 and given to a single artist every year to encourage their innovative work.

List of recipients

External links

Alfred Töpfer Foundation
official website
Complete list of winners
at Österreich-Bibliotheken.at {{in lang, de Awards established in 1963 Cultural studies awards Humanities awards Social sciences awards European awards Awards disestablished in 2007 Austrian awards German awards 1963 establishments in Austria 1963 establishments in Germany 2007 disestablishments in Austria 2007 disestablishments in Germany Johann Gottfried Herder

List of recipients

See also

External links