The ceremony took place on December 22, the day Dmitriy Zimin, founder of the Enlightener Awards (Prosvetitel Prize in Rissian), died. The event was held in three cities — Berlin, Moscow and Tel Aviv — connected with the broadcast stream to the YouTube channel of "Novaya Gazeta. Europe". The tragedy in Ukraine precludes the celebration, but it does not cancel the importance of the work of scientists and science popularizers around the world — to support them and to thank them, the finalists and guests gathered for a teleconference from different cities around the world.

The Enlightener's commitment to humanistic ideals has remained unchanged since its founding, including the notion of human life being the highest value, which is especially important after February 24. It is now impossible to talk about enlightenment without an ethical and political context, so this year's jury presented a special Award, the PolitProsvet Award, for a book that focuses on the current social and political processes and helps to understand their nature.

The 2022 Enlightener Prize winners are:

in the nomination "Humanities" — the book by Mikhail Maizuls "Imaginary Enemy. Non-Christians in Medieval Iconography” (Alpina non-fiction, 2022);

in the nomination "Natural and exact sciences" — the book by Olga Filatova "Cloudy, Killer Whales are Possible" (Alpina non-fiction, 2022).

The 2022 Enlightener.Translation Prize winners are:

in the nomination "Humanities" — Douglas Smith's book "The Russian Mission. The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union from Destruction” (CORPUS, 2021); the award was given to translator Evgenia Fomenko and editor Maria Nesterenko;

in the nomination "Natural and exact sciences" — Doug McDougall's book "Why Do We Need Geology. A Brief History of the Past and Future of Our Planet”; the award was given to translator Evgeny Ponikarov, editors Pavel Plechov and Irina Borisova.

The 2022 PolitProsvet Prize winner is:

book by Evgenia Lezina “XX Century: Study of the Past. Transitional Justice Practices and the Politics of Memory in Former Dictatorships. Germany, Russia, Countries of Central and Eastern Europe” (NLO, 2021).

Since its beginning in 2016 the Enlightener Prize with the support of the Zimin Foundation has been awarded for the best non-fiction books in Russian and for the best non-fiction books translated into Russian. Literature can be nominated for the Award regardless of the country of its author or publication: this year the Organizing Committee is waiting for applications from Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, America, Germany, and other countries where books in Russian are published. The circulation and mode of publication do not matter — even works published only in e-format can be nominated for the Award.

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