Last week a bit of journalism history was made.

Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Not a game changer to anyone other than her, you might say.

However, for journalists Alexievich’s award is worth noting because hers is the first Nobel in the 21st century, and perhaps of Nobel history, to be awarded for work in journalism.

In an interview with a freelance journalist featured on the Nobel Prize website, Professor Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy which awards the Nobel Prize, credited Alexievich with creating a new kind of literary genre.

“That’s part of her achievement,” Danius said.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is more likely to recognize authors of prose and poetry. Philosophical works also have garnered attention. And nonfiction has not gone unrepresented or unnoticed, of course.

Alexievich joins Sir Winston Churchill and Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen awarded in 1953 and 1902, respectively, for their nonfiction contributions. Both, however, were recognized for history.

And not to say that many of the Nobel Laureates in literature did not work as journalists during their careers. Canadian writer Alice Munro, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013, studied journalism and English in college. Gabriel García Márquez, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, worked as a journalist in his native Colombia during a time of conflict, his work in journalism prompting his move to Europe in part to escape the attention of a military dictator.

Munro and García Márquez received their Nobel recognition for their careers in prose, however.

In describing Alexievich’s work, Danius noted the journalist from Belarus conducts thousands of interviews, talking to children, women and men to do what Danius describes as “mapping the post-Soviet individual.”

Alexievich has criticized those in power including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, fulfilling the Finley Peter Donne quote many journalists point to as a edict of their profession: “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 56 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992, 36 of whom were murdered. Among the most famous reporter killed was Anna Politkovskaya found shot to death in her apartment building. Politkovskaya was known for her work in investigating the Russian military in Chechnya. Journalists in Belarus have been arrested and jailed.

Alexievich’s books include “War’s Unwomanly Face” about Soviet women who served on the front lines in World War II, “Voices from Chernobyl” about the aftermath of the nuclear disaster and “Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War.”

Danius describes Alexievich as giving her readers “a history of the soul.”

Not bad for a profession about which researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center, as recently as 2013, “found the public image of journalists and their perceived contribution to society has declined,” according to the research center’s website pewresearch.org.

Svetlana Alexievich may give us pause to rethink such views.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press