The Lev Kopelev prizes were virtually awarded to the leaders of the Belarusian opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo.
All laureates of the Lev Kopelev are the successors of the traditions of the humanist and writer Lev Kopelev, who died in 1997 and spent the last years of his life in Cologne after the Soviet authorities deprived him of his Soviet citizenship in 1981.