Harald Heppner

Harald Heppner (born June 23, 1950 in Graz ) is an Austrian historian. Between 2011 and 2015 he was head of the Institute for History at the University of Graz .

education

Heppner attended elementary school and grammar school in Graz and between 1968 and 1969 did military service in the Austrian Armed Forces . He began studying history and the Russian language at the Karl Franzens University in Graz in 1969 and received his doctorate in philosophy in 1975. In 1983 he wrote his habilitation thesis in the field of Southeast European history.

Scientific career

From 1971, during his studies, Heppner worked as a research assistant at the Historical Institute of the University of Graz. After receiving his doctorate in 1975, he became an assistant at the Institute for History and completed research stays in Bucharest in 1978, in Moscow in 1980, in Sofia in 1985 and in Paris in 1992. He was appointed associate professor in 1997, with a focus on Southeast European history, Central European relations, the history of the Danube-Carpathian region and the long 18th century.

From 1994 to 2001, Heppner was chairman of the Austrian Society for Research in the 18th Century. For the period 2001 to 2012 he took over the chairmanship of the Southeast German Historical Commission (from 2005 Commission for the History and Culture of Germans in Southeast Europe) and in 2006 was appointed Chairman of the Military History Advisory Board of the Science Commission at the Federal Ministry for National Defense. In 2008 he took over the position of Vice President of the Austrian Society for Research in the 18th Century. He is also an honorary member of the “Center for European Integration” of the European Union and the Institute for History at the Romanian Academy of Sciences.

Since 2016 he has held the position of chairman of the Society for Research in the 18th Century in Southeastern Europe, which was founded at the Karl-Franzens-University (www.sog18.org).

Private

Heppner is married and has two adult sons.

Awards

Honorary doctorate from Timişoara University (2001)
Honorary doctorate from the University of Cluj-Napoca (2007)
Honorary doctorate from Sofia University (2015)

Works (selection)

As an author:

The Image of Russia in Austrian Public Opinion 1848–1856. Graz 1975.
Austria and the Danube Principalities 1774–1812. A contribution to the Habsburg Southeast European policy. Graz 1985.
Everyday life in the Balkans. 14th to 16th century. A bibliographical attempt. Krems 1989.
Understand travel and history. Guide to a new worldview. Vienna 2007.

As editor:

Capitals in Southeast Europe. History, function, national symbolism. Vienna 1994.
The route leads across Austria ... On the history of traffic and communications from and to Southeastern Europe (18th century to the present). Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1996.
Capitals between the Sava, Bosporus and Dnieper. History, function, national symbolism. Vienna 1998.
with Olga Katsiardi Herring: The Greeks and Europe. External and internal views through the ages. Vienna 1998.
Chernivtsi. The story of an unusual city. Cologne / Vienna 2000.
Slovenes and Germans in the common area. New research on a complex topic. Munich 2002.
with Peter Švorc and Michal Danilák: Vel'ka politika a malé regióny. Prešov / Graz 2002.
with Roumiana Preshlenova: Public without tradition. Bulgaria's departure into modernity. Frankfurt am Main 2003.
with Alois Kernbauer and Nikolaus Reisinger: A lot of new things in the past. Traces from the 18th century to today. Vienna 2004.

with Wolfgang Schmale: fortress and innovation. Yearbook of the Austrian Society for Research in the 18th Century. Bochum 2005.

with Nikolaus Reisinger: Styria. Change of landscape in the long 18th century. Vienna 2006.

with Mathias Beer, Gerhard Seewann and Stefan Sienerth: Danubiana Carpathica (= Yearbook for History and Culture in the German Settlement Areas of Southeast Europe. Vol. 1). Munich 2007.

with Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik: fear of the Turks and fortress construction. Reality and myth. Frankfurt am Main / Vienna 2009.

The village in your head. Memories from the Romanian Banat. Munich 2009.

with Peter Urbanitsch and Renate Zedinger: Social Change in the Habsburg Monarchy. Bochum 2011.

with Elmar Schübl: Universities in times of upheaval. Vienna / Berlin 2011.

with Eva Posch: Encounters in Europe's Southeast. The Habsburg Empire and the Orthodox World in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Bochum 2012.

with Peter Švorc: Vel'ka doba v Malom priestore. Zlomové zmeny v mestách stredoeurópsko priestoru a ich dosledky (1918–1929) / Big time in a small space. Upheavals in the cities of Central Europe and their effects. Prešov 2012.

with René Kegelmann and Stefan Sienerth: Village and Literature (= Danubiana Carpatica. Vol. V). Munich 2012.

with Harald Gröller: The Paris suburb contracts in the public eye. Vienna / Berlin 2013.

with Christian Promitzer and Siegfried Gruber: Southeast European Studies in a Globalizing World. Zurich / Münster 2014.

Danubiana Carpathica. Vol. 8: Main topic "The development of the Carpathians". Munich 2015.

with Rudolf Gräf, Nicolae Bocşan and Daniela Mârza: Looking towards the Center. Society and History in Europe. Cluj 2014.

The fatal error. For the analysis of failures in politico-military contexts. Berlin 2014.

with Florian Bieber: Universities and Elite Formation in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Münster / Vienna 2015.

with Mira Miladinovic Zalaznik: Province as a way of thinking and living. The Danube-Carpathian region in the long 19th century. Bern / Frankfurt 2015.

Transylvania and the First World War (anthology). Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2015

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Heppner, Harald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian historian
DATE OF BIRTH	June 23, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH	Graz