Gerald Stourzh

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Gerald Stourzh, 2008

Gerald Stourzh (born May 15, 1929 in Vienna ) is an Austrian historian who deals primarily with modern history from the 18th to the 20th centuries, especially the history of North America , the history of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Republic of Austria , the history of political ideas , the constitutional history and especially the history of human rights busy. As a professor he taught at the Free University of Berlin from 1964 to 1969 and from 1969 until his retirement in 1997 at the University of Vienna .

Life

Gerald Stourzh was born in 1929 as the child of Herbert and Helene Stourzh (née Anderle) in Vienna. Both parents were bourgeois liberal academics (father Protestant, mother Catholic); he himself is evangelical. As Richard Georg Plaschka wrote about him in a laudation in 1991, "Something is awake from his evangelical ancestors, from his evangelical legacy, when, faced with a fundamental question, he even shrugs shoulders to indicate: Here I am."

His mother, a gynecologist , received her doctorate in 1915. The father, who studied philosophy and also did his doctorate, was a civil servant of the Lower Austrian provincial government, the inclination to philosopher and political writer. As early as 1934, Herbert Stourzh warned of the dangers of "national bestialism", as he called National Socialism . After the annexation of Austria , Herbert Stourzh ran into problems with the Gestapo , which began investigating him in 1940. He probably only escaped severe harassment through his death from cancer in 1941. His father's anti-racism and anti-national socialism had a strong influence on Gerald Stourzh throughout his life.

As Gerald Stourzh wrote in 2009, he owes two precious things to his parents: “Firstly, the absolute respect for scientific, intellectual work in intellectual honesty; and secondly, the unconditional respect for the human person, for the primacy of the individual over individual wholes, whether state or class or people or race. "

In 1947 he graduated from a humanistic grammar school in Vienna. Stourzh studied history for eight semesters, initially at the University of Vienna . For the summer semester of 1949 he went to the University of Clermont-Ferrand and for the academic year 1949/50 to the University of Birmingham . In Vienna he was impressed by the lectures a. a. by Heinrich Benedikt and Hugo Hantsch , but he was influenced by important books, such as by Friedrich Meinecke and Josef Redlich, more than the university professors mentioned. In 1951 he received his doctorate at the University of Vienna under Benedikt with the thesis The Development of the First Chamber in the Austrian Constitution . Stourzh's interest in constitutional and legal history has accompanied him throughout his life. Two of his paternal and maternal ancestors were judges.

In 1951 he received an invitation from the political scientist Hans J. Morgenthau , who teaches at the University of Chicago and whom he had met in Austria, to go to the University of Chicago as a research assistant to the Center for the Study of American Foreign, which was newly founded by Morgenthau Policy. Stourzh was the only historian in this institute to write a book on Benjamin Franklin , the first United States envoy to France at the time of the American Revolution. As a result of his doctorate in Vienna, his position was upgraded to that of a “Research Associate”, first to the rank of instructor and then an assistant professor. Initially engaged for a year, Stourzh finally stayed in Chicago until the summer of 1958 - from 1951 to 1953 as a Research Associate, from 1953 to 1954 as a William Rainey Harper Fellow in the Department of History, from 1954 to 1956 again as a Research Associate at the university. from 1956 to the end of 1957 as Research Associate at the American Foundation of Political Education, and again at the university in 1958. During these years Stourzh also pursued studies at the university in history and political science as well as in the "Committee on Social Thought", u. a. with Professors Leo Strauss (Machiavelli seminar), Friedrich von Hayek (Tocqueville and liberalism seminars), Quincy Wright (International Relations) and Hans Rothfels (nationality problems in Central Europe). One of Stourzh's most impressive historians was William T. Hutchinson, little known in Europe, in whose seminar on American historiography Stourzh wrote a paper on Charles Beard that was published in 1957.

The most important output of the Chicago years was Benjamin Franklin and American Foreign Policy , published by the University of Chicago Press in the spring of 1954, before the author's 25th birthday. It received the American Institute of Early American History and Culture award in 1955 for the best book published in 1954 in the field of early American history. The award certificate states, among other things, “... you have given us his wisdom where he would most want us to have it, in our relation with the rest of the world. It is fitting that you, born and educated in Austria, should have crossed the Atlantic to teach this lesson. " The Franklin book was presented as a habilitation thesis at the University of Vienna in 1962. Additional proceeds from the Chicago years include several publications by the American Foundation of Political Education, of which Stourzh was co-editor. In addition, the first version of a book on Alexander Hamilton was created ; however, it was not completed until a few years later due to work - during a research stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1966/67 and while he was a professor at the Free University of Berlin. The book was published under the title Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of ​​Republican Government by Stanford University Press in 1970.

After rejecting a one-year guest professorship at the University of California, Berkeley , Stourzh returned to Vienna in June 1958 to set up the Austrian Society for Foreign Policy and International Relations , of which he remained Secretary General until January 1962. In 1962 he completed his habilitation in modern history at the University of Vienna and, at the suggestion of Bruno Kreisky, joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs , where Stourzh took on the position of the Council of Europe . As early as 1963, Stourzh was offered a professorship for modern history from the Free University of Berlin with a special focus on American history, combined with the management of the department for American history at the newly created John F. Kennedy Institute of this university. Stourzh remained at the Free University, interrupted by a research stay at Princeton , until 1969, when he took up a professorship for modern history at the University of Vienna (successor to Friedrich Engel-Jánosi ), where he remained until his retirement in 1997. Although through numerous lectures in the USA and through a research stay at Churchill College at Cambridge University in 1976, Stourzh's research activities in Vienna focused on the nationality problems in the Habsburg Monarchy around the period 1848–1918 with the most important Result of the book The Equal Rights of Nationalities in the Constitution and Administration of Austria 1848-1918 (1985) as well as the history of the creation of the State Treaty and the neutrality and the end of the East-West occupation of Austria from 1943 to 1955. The most important result was one between 1975 and in 2005 the history of the State Treaty, which was published under various titles and which was continuously expanded to five editions (see catalog raisonné). Since the 1990s, building on earlier work, he has been concerned with the history of human and civil rights in the western world.

Stourzh was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1967/68 . Since a research stay in 1976 he has been an Overseas Fellow at Churchill College at Cambridge University .

Stourzh married the lawyer Christiane Klingsland in Vienna in 1962, a committed feminist who campaigned for women's rights throughout her life. There are three daughters from the marriage, Verena, Theresa and Katharina. Christiane died in 2004. Since 2011 he was married to Prof. Marie-Luise Deskovic (* August 8, 1937 - † January 10, 2016).

Gerald Stourzh is also an artist of high musicality (for example, as a young man he played the cello with other chamber music). His joy in acting, which went back to his high school days in the tribulations of the 1940s, brought him back to the stage in Johann Nestroy's 'Torn' in the 1990s (the same people played the same play again after 50 years!), With a charitable one Purpose could be connected. In his youth, Stourzh also wrote an interpretation of Albert Camus' short story 'The Fall'.

Works (selection)

by Stourzh as the author:

  • Benjamin Franklin and American Foreign Policy. University of Chicago Press 1954, 2nd ed. 1969.
  • Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of ​​Republican Government. Stanford University Press 1970.
  • From the right of resistance to constitutional jurisdiction. Graz 1974.
  • Brief history of the Austrian State Treaty. Styria, Graz 1975, ISBN 3-222-10862-5 . Second adult Edition under the title History of the State Treaty 1945–1955. Styria, Graz 1980, ISBN 3-222-11282-7 . Third edition. ("Study edition" with an "Afterword 1985") Graz 1985, ISBN 3-222-11621-0 . Fourth, completely revised and significantly expanded edition. under the title About unity and freedom. State treaty, neutrality and the end of the East-West occupation of Austria 1945–1955. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 1998, ISBN 3-205-98383-1 . Fifth, revised edition with a bibliographical afterword under the same title, Böhlau, Wien a. a., 2005, ISBN 3-205-77333-0 .
  • The equality of nationalities in the constitution and administration of Austria 1848-1918. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-7001-0680-7 .
  • Paths to Fundamental Rights Democracy. Studies on the conceptual and institutional history of the liberal constitutional state. Böhlau, Vienna a. a., 1989, ISBN 3-205-05218-8 .
  • From empire to republic. Studies on Austrian consciousness in the 20th century . Edition Atelier, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-900379-50-5 .
  • Justification and threat to human rights in European history. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2928-9 .
  • 1945 and 1955: key years of the Second Republic. StudienVerlag, Innsbruck 2005, ISBN 3-7065-4160-2 .
  • From Vienna to Chicago and Back. Essays on Intellectual History and Political Thought in Europe and America. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2007, ISBN 978-0-226-77636-1 .
  • Traces of an intellectual journey. Three essays. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-205-78358-9 .
  • The extent of Austrian history. Selected studies 1990–2010. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 2011, ISBN 978-3-205-78633-7 .
  • The modern isonomy. Protection of human rights and democratic participation as a system of equality. Vienna u. a. 2015. ISBN 978-3-205-20095-6

with Stourzh as co-editor and co-author:

  • With Anna Maria Drabek and Mordechai Eliav, Prague / Chernivtsi / Jerusalem: The Austrian State and the Jews from the Age of Absolutism to the End of the Monarchy . Studia Judaica Austriaca, Vol. 10, Eisenstadt 1984, ISBN 3-85374-071-5 . (in it: Stourzh: Were the Jews considered to be the nationality of Old Austria? )
  • With Margarete Grandner: Historical roots of social partnership. Oldenbourg, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-486-52971-4 . (therein: Stourzh: On the institutional history of industrial relations and social security - an introduction )
  • With Friedrich Koja: Switzerland-Austria. Similarities and contrasts. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 1986, ISBN 3-205-08902-2 . (therein: Stourzh: Changes in Austrian Consciousness in the 20th Century and the Model of Switzerland )
  • With Erhard Busek: National diversity and common heritage in Central Europe. Oldenbourg, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-486-55883-8 . (including: Stourzh: The Anton Gindely Prize for the History of the Danube Monarchy and The Idea of ​​National Equality in Old Austria )
  • With Birgitta Zaar: Austria, Germany and the Powers. International and Austrian aspects of the “Anschluss” from March 1938. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7001-1714-0 . (therein: Stourzh: The Foreign Policy of the Austrian Federal Government towards the National Socialist Threat )
  • With Richard G. Plaschka and Jan Paul Niederkorn: What does Austria mean? Content and scope of the term Austria from the 10th century until today. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1995, 2nd unchanged edition. 1996, ISBN 3-7001-2232-2 . (therein: Stourzh: Shock and consolidation of the Austrian consciousness. From the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy to the Second Republic )
  • With Barbara Haider and Ulrike Harmat: Approaches to European Historiography. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3070-8 . (therein: Stourzh: Instead of a preface: Europe, but where is it? )
  • With Arnold Suppan and Wolfgang Mueller: The Austrian State Treaty. International strategy, legal relevance, national identity. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3537-8 . (therein: Stourzh: The Austrian State Treaty in the Global Decision-Making Processes of 1955 )

Honors

literature

  • Thomas Angerer, Birgitta Bader-Zaar, Margarete Grandner: Foreword. In: Thomas Angerer, Birgitta Bader-Zaar, Margarete Grandner (eds.): History and law. Festschrift for Gerald Stourzh on his 70th birthday. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-205-99082-X , pp. 9-16.
  • Angelo Ara: Review by: Gerald Stourzh: Paths to Fundamental Rights Democracy. In: Rivista Storica Italiana . Vol. 104, 1992, pp. 876-884 (in detail also on the person).
  • John W. Boyer: Foreword. In: Gerald Stourzh: From Vienna to Chicago and Back. Chicago 2007, ISBN 978-0-226-77636-1 , pp. XI-XIV.
  • Wolfgang Mantl: Gerald Stourzh and the rule of law. In: Wolfgang Mantl: The Austrian constitutional state between Habsburg tradition and European future. In: Savigny-Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte. German Department, Vol. 122, 2005, ISSN  0323-4045 , pp. 377-380.
  • Richard Georg Plaschka: Gerald Stourzh for his 60th birthday. In: Emil Brix, Josef Leidenfrost, Thomas Fröschl (eds.): History between freedom and order. Gerald Stourzh on his 60th birthday . Styria, Graz 1991, ISBN 3-222-11870-1 , pp. 13-24.
  • Award of an honorary doctorate in law to Mr. o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. phil. Gerald Stourzh . Graz University Speeches, Vol. 41, Kienreich, Graz 1991.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Richard Georg Plaschka: Gerald Stourzh for his 60th birthday. In: Emil Brix, Josef Leidenfrost, Thomas Fröschl (eds.): History between freedom and order. Gerald Stourzh on his 60th birthday . Styria, Graz 1991, p. 24.
  2. ^ Herbert Stourzh: German man or German monster? In: The Christian corporate state, Austrian weekly books. No. 44, pp. 13-14 (Oct. 7, 1934), reprinted in: Gerald Stourzh (Ed.): Herbert Stourzh: Against the Current. Selected writings against racism, fascism and national socialism 1924-1938. Vienna 2008, pp. 63–67, here 63.
  3. ↑ Gerald Stourzh: Traces of an Intellectual Journey: Three Essays . Böhlau, Vienna 2009, p. 16.
  4. ↑ Gerald Stourzh, Human Rights and Genocide. In: Ders .: Traces of an intellectual journey. 3 essays. Böhlau, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-205-78358-9 .
  5. ↑ For this and the following cf. the autobiographical essay “Traces of an intellectual journey” in the book of the same name by Gerald Stourzh (Vienna 2009), pp. 13–59.
  6. ↑ On the paternal grandfather Alois von Stourzh, most recently district vice-president in Korneuburg, see entry in the Austrian Biographical Lexicon. Regarding the maternal great-grandfather, last senior judge at the Hungarian Hradisch district court in Moravia, see Gerald Stourzh: From my great-grandfather's portfolio, A Moravian legal career in the 19th century. In: Ders .: The extent of Austrian history. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2011, pp. 125–138.
  7. ^ Reprinted in: Gerald Stourzh: From Vienna to Chicago and Back. Chicago 2007, pp. 100-130.
  8. ↑ In a congratulatory letter on the occasion of this award, the director of the University of Chicago Press wrote: "I think this award is more significant than the Pulitzer Prize." (Copy of the letter dated April 25, 1955 available in the estate of Hans J. Morgenthau, Library of Congress , Washington DC) This led to the erroneous statement three decades later that this book had been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (attached to a statement on Kurt Waldheim's dissertation, published in the volume Kurt Waldheim's Wartime Years. A Documentation. Vienna 1987, P. 165).
  9. ^ Robert A. Goldwin, Ralph Lerner, Gerald Stourzh (Eds.): Readings in World Politics. Oxford University Press, New York 1959; Robert A. Goldwin, Ralph Lerner, Gerald Stourzh (Eds.): Readings in American Foreign Policy. New York 1959; Robert A. Goldwin, Gerald Stourzh, Marvin Zetterbaum (Eds.): Readings in Russian Foreign Policy. OuP, New York 1959; Gerald Stourzh, Ralph Lerner (Eds.): Readings in American Democracy. OUP, New York 1959; 2nd revision. Edition, ed. v. Gerald Stourzh, Ralph Lerner and HC Harlan, OUP, New York 1966.
  10. ^ Wolfgang Mantl: Gerald Stourzh and the rule of law. In: Wolfgang Mantl: The Austrian constitutional state between Habsburg tradition and European future. In: Savigny-Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte. German Department, Vol. 122, 2005, p. 379, note 33
  11. ↑ a b catalog raisonné
  12. ↑ Gerald Stourzh Lectures
personal data
SURNAME Stourzh, Gerald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian historian and political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna