František Graus

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František Graus (born December 14, 1921 in Brno , † May 1, 1989 in Basel ) was a Czechoslovak historian .

Life

Because of his Jewish descent, he was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in November 1941 , and from there to the Auschwitz concentration camp in autumn 1944 . In Theresienstadt he and his girlfriend belonged to the relatively large illegal communist cell. He worked here in the so-called Talmudic Hundred, which had to catalog the seized Hebrew books from Jewish libraries.

After the war he studied history at the University of Prague and received his doctorate in 1948. In 1951 he completed his habilitation. From 1953 to 1969 he was a full professor of medieval history at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague. After the Prague Spring , he emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1969, where he was initially a visiting professor at the University of Konstanz and then from 1970 to 1972 as a full professor of medieval history at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen . From 1972 to 1989 he was a full professor for Medieval History at the University of Basel .

In addition to important and research-stimulating monographs on social and structural history, Graus has presented important studies on questions of historical tradition formation, summarized in the magistral work Living Past. Tradition in the Middle Ages and in the ideas of the Middle Ages (Cologne / Vienna 1975). Another research focus of Graus was the history of the Jews and other marginalized groups in the Middle Ages. From 1953 to 1969 Graus was editor-in-chief of Československý časopis historický (Czechoslovak historical magazine) . Graus was also a member of the Constance working group for medieval history .

Graus was awarded numerous scientific honors and memberships for his research. In 1958 he received the National Prize of Czechoslovakia. The University of Giessen awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1968 . Graus had developed important findings and new approaches in the Konstanz working group in the last third of the 20th century. In the working group itself, however, was viewed as a scientific outsider.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

  • People, rulers and saints in the Merovingian Empire. Studies on the hagiography of the Merovingian period. Prague 1965.
  • Structure and history. Three popular uprisings in medieval Prague (= lectures and research. Special volume 7). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1971 ( online )
  • Living past. Tradition in the Middle Ages and in the ideas of the Middle Ages. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1975, ISBN 3-412-11875-3 .
  • The nation-building of the Western Slavs in the Middle Ages. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1980, ISBN 3-7995-6103-X .
  • Pest - Geissler - murder of Jews. The 14th century as a time of crisis. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-35622-6 ( review ). 3rd edition 1994.
  • Selected articles 1959–1989. Thorbecke, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-7995-6655-4 .

Editorships

  • Mentalities in the Middle Ages. Methodological and content-related problems (= lectures and research. Vol. 35). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1987, ISBN 3-7995-6635-X ( online ).

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Stefan Weinfurter : Locations of Medieval Studies. The Konstanz working group as reflected in its meetings. In: Peter Moraw , Rudolf Schieffer (Ed.): The German-speaking Medieval Studies in the 20th Century. Ostfildern 2005, pp. 9–38 ( digitized version )
personal data
SURNAME Graus, František
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Graus, Frantisek
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1989
Place of death Basel