Jubilee year 2023
Learn more about the 375th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia.
The Peace Prize
Every two years, Osnabrück awards the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize.
Erich-Maria-Remarque-peace-prize
The Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, endowed with 25,000 euros, will be awarded to the Russian writer Lyudmila Yevgenyevna Ulitskaya, who has been living in exile in Berlin since March 2022. She is considered one of Russia's most important contemporary writers. She expresses her critical attitude towards the then Soviet and now Russian regime in novels and stories that reflect not only the Russian tragedy of the 20th century, a century of tyranny and genocide. Ukrainian cartoonist Sergiy Maidukov is awarded this year's special prize. Since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, his illustrations depicting the everyday life of war in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine have been printed in various newspapers around the world.
He experienced the war himself: Erich Maria Remarque. Because of his traumatic experiences at the front and due to several injuries, the Osnabrück native became a fanatical opponent of any warlike conflict.
During his convalescence in a military hospital, he began to put memories from the First World War into writing. These notes eventually led to the publication of his first two books, "Die Traumbude" and "Im Westen nichts Neues." The latter became a worldwide success due to its basic pacifist and humanist tenor. Remarque's books were soon translated into more than 65 languages and still find an audience of millions worldwide. His attitude as a "militant pacifist" and his importance as a writer prompted the city of Osnabrück, together with the university, to offer a Peace Prize in 1991.
The prize is awarded to authors who deal with the topics of "inner and outer peace" and to personalities whose journalistic commitment to peace, humanity and human freedom is exemplary. The Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize is awarded every two years. The main prize is endowed with 25,000 euros, and a special prize, which is also awarded, is endowed with 5,000 euros.
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