Jörg Baberowski

Professor
Jörg Baberowski
PhD
Jörg Baberowski, 2012
Born 24 March 1961
Academic work
Discipline Historian
Institutions Humboldt University of Berlin

Jörg Baberowski (born 24 March 1961 in Radolfzell am Bodensee) is a German historian and Professor of Eastern European History at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost experts on the history of Stalinism, particularly Stalinist violence, genocide and terror against the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe.[1] Baberowski has also served as Director of the Historical Institute and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy I at the Humboldt University.

Background

Baberowski was born in Radolfzell am Bodensee, West Germany. He grew up in a Catholic working class and social democratic family. His grandfather was Polish; the Baberowski family thus belonged to the Ruhr Polish minority, Polish immigrants to the rapidly industrializing areas of the Ruhr Valley.[2] Baberowski's wife is Iranian-born and fled to Germany following the Iranian Revolution.

Career

As a pupil he joined the Communist League of West Germany, but later distanced himself from his earlier views. He studied history and philosophy at the University of Göttingen between 1982 and 1988, and was notably influenced by Manfred Hildermeier. As a student he also learned Russian, and he wrote his master's thesis on "political justice" in the last years of the Russian Empire.

From 1989, he worked as a researcher in eastern European history at the Goethe University Frankfurt and earned his doctorate there in 1993 with a dissertation titled Autokratie und Justiz im Zarenreich ("Autocracy and Justice in Czarist Russia"). He joined the Institute of Eastern European History at Tübingen in 1993, and earned his Habilitation in 2000 with the dissertation Auf der Suche nach Eindeutigkeit, which was published as a book titled Der Feind ist überall. Stalinismus im Kaukasus. He has conducted archival studies in Azerbaijan, Finland, Russia and other countries.

He was appointed to a chair in Eastern European History at the University of Leipzig in 2001, before joining the Humboldt University as a Professor of Eastern European History in 2002. He has also been director of its Institute of History.[3]

At the Leipzig Book Fair in 2012, he won the Leipzig Book Prize in the category of nonfiction/essay writing for his book Verbrannte Erde. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt.[4]

Baberowski is a member of the academic advisory boards of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, the Centre Against Expulsions and the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, and of academic advisory boards of publications of the Goethe Institute and the 15th January Committee.

In response to the refugee crisis in Europe in 2015, Baberowski called for a more restrictive policy toward refugees in Germany and criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel's approach.[5]

Times Higher Education and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have noted that Baberowski has been the victim of harassment and stalking on the Internet by extremist far-left students who hero worship Leon Trotsky and who belong to the youth group of the far-left fringe Socialist Equality Party; this happened in response to Baberowski having invited British historian Robert Service to lecture at his institute.[6][7] According to the Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution published by German authorities, the Socialist Equality Party is an extremist organisation that is under observation by German authorities and listed as such in the chapter on far-left extremism.[8]

Selected works

  • Autokratie und Justiz. Zum Verhältnis von Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Rückständigkeit im ausgehenden Zarenreich 1864-1914, Frankfurt/M. (Klostermann) 1996, ISBN 3-465-02832-5.
  • Zivilisation der Gewalt. Die kulturellen Ursprünge des Stalinismus (2003)
  • Der Feind ist überall. Stalinismus im Kaukasus, Munich (DVA) 2003, ISBN 3-421-05622-6.
  • Der rote Terror. Die Geschichte des Stalinismus, Munich (DVA) 2003, ISBN 3-421-05486-X.
  • Der Sinn der Geschichte. Geschichtstheorien von Hegel bis Foucault, Munich (C.H. Beck) 2005, ISBN 3-406-52793-0.
  • Jörg Baberowski und Anselm Doering-Manteuffel: Ordnung durch Terror. Bonn (Dietz) 2006, ISBN 3-8012-0368-9.
  • Moderne Zeiten? Krieg, Revolution und Gewalt im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-36735-X.
  • Verbrannte Erde. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt, Munich (C.H. Beck) 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-63254-9.
  • Räume der Gewalt. Frankfurt am Main (S. Fischer) 2015, ISBN 978-3-10-004818-9

References

  1. ↑ Wohin steuert Russland? Peter Voß fragt Jörg Baberowski, 3sat
  2. ↑ Diese radikalen Studenten
  3. ↑ Jörg Baberowski, Humboldt-Universität Berlin - Lehrstuhl Geschichte Osteuropas
  4. ↑ Jörg Baberowski erhält Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse, Humboldt University press release.
  5. ↑ Jörg Baberowski: Ungesteuerte Einwanderung Europa ist gar keine Wertegemeinschaft. In: FAZ.Net, 14. September 2015 (online). Simon Strauss: Jörg Baberowski über Gewalt „Natürlich kann auch ein Analphabet einen Asylgrund haben“ In: FAZ.Net, 20. September 2015 (online). Jörg Baberowski: Der externe Standpunkt. Deutschland verwandelt sich in eine Tugend-Republik. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung vom 27. September 2015.
  6. ↑ "‘Professor hunters’ dig in on the digital battlefield," Times Higher Education, 27 August 2015
  7. ↑ "Mobbing, trotzkistisch," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  8. ↑ "Linksextremismus". Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution 2017. Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. 2018. p. 131.
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