Book Award Connects UT Professor to Influential Roster of Historians
UT history Associate Professor Victor Petrov joined a celebrated group of scholars in his area of study this year as his recent book Balkan Cyberia earned the 2024 Barbara Jelavich Book Prize.
“I am ecstatic. The Jelavich Award is one of the major awards in Eastern European history,” said Petrov. “Many of the historians who most formed my thinking when I was in my graduate career were winners of this award. It feels a bit surreal to now be in their company.”
Barbara Jelavich was a distinguished and internationally respected scholar who published several works focusing on the same region that interests Petrov. The prize is awarded annually by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies for a distinguished monograph published in the previous year on any aspect of Southeast European or Habsburg studies since 1600, or 19th- and 20th-century Ottoman or Russian diplomatic history. Past winners include historians Holly Case, Mary Neuburger, Larry Wolff, Pieter Judson, Deborah Coen, Tara Zahra, and Anastasia Karikasidou.
Petrov’s book, subtitled “Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age Behind the Iron Curtain,” uses the Bulgarian computer industry as an example of how the socialist international economy grew in the 1960s. The Bulgarian electronics industry rose to prominence and its technical workforce influenced progress around the world—an impact still seen today.
“Many Bulgarian and other Eastern European engineers and technicians emigrated west and had a big impact on Silicon Valley or other western technological hubs,” said Petrov. “Others set up companies that are with us today: Kaspersky or AVG anti-virus programs; Bolt ridesharing or food delivery (outside the USA); Skype; games such as The Witcher 3, Disco Elysium, or Metro. These all have prehistories in the fact that Eastern Europe did have a thriving technological and computer community during the Cold War too.”
Examining this impact also adds international chapters for larger stories in the history of computing.
“It helps us see both the global nature of computing and its development beyond the old narrative of genius young men in US garages,” said Petrov. “It shows the complicated nature of innovation, failure, and infrastructure that make our age today truly the information age.”
Receiving the award inspires Petrov to continue and expand his research initiative. As his book shines a light on the broader historical picture of technological progress, he looks to broaden his connections for studies at UT and beyond.
“It allows me to, in a way, definitively close a chapter—on computing history—and move into other fields, adjacent but not quite the same,” he said. “I also hope it will help me gain visibility outside the histories of Bulgaria or the Balkans more broadly, and the histories of computing, and allow me to forge new connections with both students and scholars.”
By Randall Brown