1. Overview
Anne Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American and Polish journalist and historian, renowned for her extensive writings on the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Applebaum's work critically analyzes authoritarianism and champions democratic values, often drawing from her deep understanding of post-communist transitions, the challenges facing Western democracies, and the dangers of disinformation, nationalism, and populism. She has held significant roles in prominent media outlets and academic institutions, consistently advocating for open societies and human rights.
2. Early Life and Education
Anne Elizabeth Applebaum was born in Washington, D.C. on July 25, 1964, into a Reform Jewish family. She is the eldest of three daughters of Harvey M. and Elizabeth Applebaum. Her father, a Yale alumnus, served as senior counsel at Covington & Burling, specializing in Antitrust and International Trade Practices. Her mother was a program coordinator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Applebaum has noted that her great-grandparents immigrated to North America from what is now Belarus during the reign of Alexander III of Russia.
Applebaum attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. She then enrolled at Yale University, where she studied Soviet history under Wolfgang Leonhard during the Fall 1982 semester. In the summer of 1985, as an undergraduate, she spent time in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg), an experience she credits with significantly shaping her perspectives. She graduated from Yale in 1986 summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and literature, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Following her undergraduate studies, Applebaum received a two-year Marshall Scholarship to attend the London School of Economics, where she earned a Master of Science degree in international relations in 1987. She also pursued studies at St Antony's College, Oxford, before embarking on her journalistic career.
3. Journalism and Media Career
Applebaum's journalism career began in 1988 when she moved to Warsaw, Poland, as a correspondent for The Economist. During this pivotal period, she reported on major geopolitical events, including the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which she drove from Warsaw to Berlin to cover, and the broader fall of communism across Eastern Europe. She characterized the end of the Cold War not merely as a geopolitical shift, but as a profound moral verdict by history.
In 1991, she returned to England to continue working for The Economist. She later served as the foreign editor and subsequently deputy editor of The Spectator, and then as the political editor of the Evening Standard. In 1994, she published her first book, Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe, a travelogue exploring the rise of nationalism in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.
From 2002 to 2006, Applebaum was a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post, where she also served as a columnist for seventeen years. In 2001, she notably interviewed then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. In November 2019, The Atlantic announced that Applebaum would join the publication as a staff writer starting in January 2020. She was also a columnist for Slate.
4. Academic and Think Tank Activities
Anne Applebaum has held significant affiliations with numerous academic institutions and think tanks, contributing to research and analysis on democracy, geopolitics, and disinformation. She was an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
From 2011 to 2016, she established and directed the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute, an international think tank and educational charity based in London. During her tenure, she managed a two-year program investigating the relationship between democracy and economic growth in countries like Brazil, India, and South Africa. She also initiated the Future of Syria and Future of Iran projects, focusing on future institutional changes in these nations. Additionally, she commissioned a series of papers on corruption in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
In collaboration with Foreign Policy magazine, she co-founded Democracy Lab, a website dedicated to countries transitioning towards or away from democracy. This initiative later evolved into Democracy Post at The Washington Post. Applebaum also spearheaded "Beyond Propaganda," a program launched in 2014 that examined 21st-century propaganda and disinformation, anticipating later global discussions on "fake news".
In 2016, she departed from the Legatum Institute due to its stance on Brexit following the appointment of a Euroskeptic CEO. She then joined the London School of Economics as a Professor of Practice at the Institute for Global Affairs, where she continued her work on disinformation and 21st-century propaganda through a program called Arena. In the autumn of 2019, she relocated this project to the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
Applebaum is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy and the Renew Democracy Initiative. She was also a member of the international board of directors for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), where she co-led an initiative to counter Russian disinformation in Central and Eastern Europe. She has also served on the editorial boards of The American Interest and the Journal of Democracy. In January 2022, she was invited to testify before the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs on "Bolstering Democracy in the Age of Rising Authoritarianism."
5. Major Works and Publications
Anne Applebaum is the author of several highly acclaimed and influential books, primarily focusing on the history of communism, authoritarianism, and the challenges to democracy.
- Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe (1994)
- This travelogue explores the rise of nationalism in the post-Soviet states of Europe.
- Gulag: A History (2003)
- グラーグ--ソ連集中収容所の歴史Gurāgu-Soren shūchū shūyōjo no rekishiJapanese
- A comprehensive historical account of the Soviet prison camp system, for which she won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
- Gulag Voices: An Anthology (2011)
- A collection of testimonies from survivors of the Gulag.
- Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 (2012)
- 鉄のカーテン--東欧の壊滅1944-56Tetsu no Kāten-Tōō no kaimetsu 1944-56Japanese
- Examines the establishment of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II.
- From a Polish Country House Kitchen (2012)
- A culinary book reflecting her personal life in Poland.
- Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine (2017)
- ウクライナ大飢饉--スターリンのホロドモールUkraina dai-kikin-Sutārin no HorodomōruJapanese
- A detailed history of the Holodomor, the man-made famine in Ukraine under Stalin.
- Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (2020)
- 権威主義の誘惑--民主政治の黄昏Ken'i shugi no yūwaku-Minshu seiji no tasogareJapanese
- Part memoir and part political analysis, this book explores why some individuals and societies are drawn to authoritarianism. It became a Der Spiegel and New York Times bestseller.
- Wybór (Choice) (2021)
- Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World (2024)
- This work analyzes the modern landscape of global authoritarianism.
6. Analysis of Authoritarianism and Democracy
Anne Applebaum's work is characterized by a consistent and critical examination of authoritarianism, particularly in the context of the Soviet Union and Russia, and a steadfast defense of democratic values and civil society. Her analyses often highlight the social impact of political trends and the development of civil society.
6.1. Soviet Union and Russia
Applebaum has been a prominent critic of Russia and Vladimir Putin's regime since the early 1990s. She views the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall as a moral turning point, shaping her subsequent three decades of work. In 2000, she drew connections between then-new Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Soviet leader Yuri Andropov and the KGB. By 2008, she began describing "Putinism" as an anti-democratic ideology, even when many still perceived Putin as a pro-Western pragmatist.
She has been a vocal critic of Western conduct regarding the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. In a March 2014 article for The Washington Post, she argued that the United States and its allies should not enable a "corrupt Russian regime that is destabilizing Europe," emphasizing that Putin's actions violated international treaties. She also called for a robust campaign to counter Moscow's "lies" regarding Crimea and questioned whether Ukraine and Central European countries should prepare for "total war" with Russia.
In a 2014 review for The New York Review of Books, Applebaum posited that the most significant story of the preceding two decades might not be the failure of democracy, but rather "the rise of a new form of Russian authoritarianism." She has consistently debunked the "myth of Russian humiliation," asserting that the expansion of NATO and the European Union has been a "phenomenal success." Leading up to the 2016 United States presidential election, she wrote about connections between Donald Trump and Russia, arguing that Russian support for Trump was part of a broader campaign to destabilize the West through disinformation. In December 2019, she wrote in The Atlantic about "right-wing intellectuals" who, critical of their own societies, have begun to support "right-wing dictators who dislike America." In November 2022, Applebaum was among 200 U.S. citizens sanctioned by Russia for "promotion of the Russophobic campaign and support for the regime in Kiev."
6.2. Central Europe
Applebaum has extensively written on the history of Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Poland. In her book Iron Curtain, she contended that the most crucial and challenging task for post-communist states in Central Europe was the reconstruction of civil society. In another essay, she argued that the modern authoritarian obsession with repressing civil society traces its roots back to Vladimir Lenin. She has also penned essays on the Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, the dual Nazi and Soviet occupation of Central Europe, and why it is inaccurate to define "Eastern Europe" as a single, monolithic entity.
6.3. Disinformation, propaganda and fake news
In 2014, Applebaum, alongside Peter Pomerantsev, launched the "Beyond Propaganda" program at the Legatum Institute, which focused on examining disinformation and propaganda. She has personally experienced the impact of disinformation, detailing a 2014 Russian smear campaign against her while she was extensively reporting on the Russian annexation of Crimea. She noted how dubious material posted online was subsequently recycled by ostensibly pro-Russian websites in the United States. Applebaum has argued that social media platforms like Facebook bear a responsibility for the spread of false stories and should actively work to "undo the terrible damage done by Facebook and other forms of social media to democratic debate and civilized discussion all over the world." She has also been a member of the advisory panel for the Global Disinformation Index.
6.4. Nationalism
Applebaum has expressed strong concerns about the rise of nationalism and its potential impact on Western democratic order. In a March 2016 Washington Post column titled "Is this the end of the West as we know it?", she warned that the world could be "two or three bad elections away from the end of NATO, the end of the European Union and maybe the end of the liberal world order." She endorsed Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in July 2016, stating that Donald Trump was "a man who appears bent on destroying the alliances that preserve international peace and American power."
Her views on the fragility of Western institutions led to interviews with Swiss and German newspapers in late 2016 and early 2017. Applebaum has consistently argued that the international populist movement, often labeled as "far right" or "alt right," is fundamentally not conservative in the traditional sense. She posits that these populist groups across Europe share "ideas and ideology, friends and founders," and unlike Burkean conservatives, they aim to "overthrow the institutions of the present to bring back things that existed in the past-or that they believe existed in the past-by force." She has highlighted the danger of a new "Nationalist International," a coalition of xenophobic, nationalist parties such as Law and Justice in Poland, the Northern League in Italy, and the Freedom Party in Austria, which she believes have a plan to cripple the European Union.
7. Personal Life
In 1992, Anne Applebaum married Radosław Sikorski, a prominent Polish politician. Sikorski has held several high-ranking positions in the Polish government, including Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marshal of the Sejm (speaker of the Polish parliament), and a member of the European Parliament. As of 2023, he has again served as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The couple has two sons, Aleksander and Tadeusz.
Applebaum acquired Polish citizenship in 2013, holding dual citizenship with the United States. In addition to English, she is fluent in both Polish and Russian.
8. Awards and Honors
Anne Applebaum has received numerous prestigious awards and honors throughout her career for her significant contributions to journalism and historical literature.
- 1992: Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust Award
- 2003: National Book Award Nonfiction, finalist for Gulag: A History
- 2003: Duff Cooper Prize for Gulag: A History
- 2004: Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Gulag: A History
- 2008: Estonian Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana third class
- 2008: Lithuanian Millennium Star
- 2010: Petőfi Prize
- 2012: Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland
- 2012: National Book Award Nonfiction, finalist for Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956
- 2013: Cundill Prize in Historical Literature for Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956
- 2013: Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military Literature for Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956
- 2017: Doctor of Humane Letters Honoris Causa from Georgetown University
- 2017: Honorary Doctorate from National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
- 2017: Duff Cooper Prize for Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, making her the only author to win the prize twice.
- 2017: Antonovych Prize
- 2018: Lionel Gelber Prize for Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine
- 2018: Honorary Fritz Stern Professor at University of Wrocław
- 2019: Premio Nonino "Maestro del nostro tempo" ("Master of our Time")
- 2019: Order of Princess Olga, third class
- 2021: National Magazine Awards finalist in categories "Essays and Criticism" and "Columns and Commentary"
- 2021: Premio Internacional de Periodismo de EL MUNDO
- 2022: Order of Princess Olga, second class
- 2024: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade)