Holm Sundhaussen

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Holm Sundhaussen (2008)

Holm Sundhaussen (born April 17, 1942 in Berlin ; † February 21, 2015 in Regensburg ) was a German historian in Southeast Europe.

Live and act

From 1966 to 1972 he studied East and Southeast European History, Slavic and German at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . There he received his doctorate in 1973 with the work The Influence of Herder's Ideas on Nation Building among the Peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy . His habilitation thesis, accepted at the University of Göttingen in 1981, is on the subject of Croatia's economic history in the National Socialist metropolitan area 1941–1945 . From 1988 until his retirement in 2007, Sundhaussen was Professor of Southeast European History at the Eastern European Institute of the Free University of Berlinand from 1998 to 2008 co-director of the Berlin College for Comparative History of Europe .

From 1992 to 1997 he was the spokesperson for the graduate school “The transformation processes in Eastern and Southeastern Europe since the 1980s and their historical foundations”; From 1998 to 2003 he acted as an elected reviewer for the German Research Foundation and from 1998 to 2005 was a member of the selection committee for the award of the Roman Herzog scholarships by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation . Holm Sundhaussen was a member of the scientific advisory boards of several institutions, including the Center for the Study of the Balkans , the Goldsmith University of London, the Balkans Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna (until 2008) and the Heidelberg Center for Euro-Asiatic Studies .

His work focuses on the history of Southeast Europe (focus on the 19th and 20th centuries), in particular nation building and nationalism, ethnic conflicts, economic and social history, social change and cultures of remembrance. He was (co-) editor of several book series and magazines, including research on Eastern European history (until 2012), Balkanological publications (both in Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden) and Südost-Forschungen (Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich). With various projects, u. a. As part of the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe , Sundhaussen has been committed since the 1990s to intensifying historical cooperation between the countries in the region and between Germany and Southeast Europe.

At the end of the 1990s, in the context of the redefinition of area studies, a lengthy debate developed between Maria Todorova (University of Illinois) and Sundhaussen about the Balkans as a historical area. The publication of Sundhaussen's 2007 standard work History of Serbia. 19. – 21. Century in the Serbian language caused a social debate in Serbia in the spring of 2009 about the history of the country and the possibility of representing it correctly by a foreigner.

In the work Yugoslavia and its Successor States 1943–2011 , published in 2012 , Sundhaussen endeavored to write a story beyond national narratives. This was particularly true with regard to the causes of the Yugoslav state collapse and mass violence in the 1990s. Referring to international violence research, the author argued that hatred and violence do not have a nationality, that they are anything but a “Balkan” phenomenon, but can occur wherever anti-violence regulations are overridden by influential actors. He argued similarly in the monograph on Sarajevo published in 2014, in which, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the assassination attempt in 1914, the eventful history of the city from its foundation in 1462 to the present is presented.

In an obituary, journalist Michael Martens wrote of his writings:

“Sundhaussen's books, essays, and debates are full of cautious objections to nationalist or other dumb narratives. That earned him the compliment of being 'anti-Serb' (in Serbia), 'anti-Croat' (in Croatia) and 'antibosniak' (in Bosnia) at the same time. "

Fonts (selection)

As an author

  • The influence of Herder's ideas on nation building among the peoples of the Habsburg monarchy. Munich 1973, ISBN 3-486-43841-7 .
  • History of Yugoslavia 1918–1980. Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-17-007289-7 .
  • Economic history of Croatia in the National Socialist metropolitan area 1941–1945. The failure of a strategy of exploitation. Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-421-06150-5 .
  • Historical statistics of Serbia 1834–1914. With European comparative data. Munich 1989, ISBN 3-486-55011-X ( digitized version ).
  • Experiment Yugoslavia. From the founding of the state to the collapse of the state. Mannheim 1993, ISBN 3-411-10241-1 .
  • History of Serbia. 19. – 21. Century. Böhlau, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77660-4 .
  • Yugoslavia and its successor states 1943–2011. An unusual story of the ordinary. Böhlau, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-205-78831-7 ; 2nd revised edition, 2014.
  • Sarajevo. The story of a city. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-205-79517-9 .

As editor

Essays on the Internet

literature

  • Klaus Buchenau: Holm Sundhaussen (1943–2015). In: Journal of Balkanology . Vol. 51 (2015), pp. 289–292 ( online )
  • Ulf Brunnbauer, Andreas Helmedach, Stefan Troebst (Eds.): Interfaces. Society, Nation, Conflict and Memory in Southeastern Europe. Festschrift for Holm Sundhaussen on the occasion of his 65th birthday (= Southeast European Works. Vol. 133). Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58346-5 (contains an extensive bibliography of Sundhaussen's works).
  • Sabine Rutar: In the sense of an obituary: The history of Yugoslavia by Holm Sundhaussen (* April 17, 1942 - † February 21, 2015) as a legacy. In: Yearbooks for the History of Eastern Europe. Vol. 63 (2015), pp. 256-264.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berlin College for Comparative History of Europe. On: fu-berlin.de.
  2. ^ Center for the Study of the Balkans. On: gold.ac.uk.
  3. ^ Heidelberg Center for Euro-Asiatic Studies. On: heceas.org.
  4. ↑ Dietmar Mueller: Southeastern Europe as a Historical Meso-region: Constructing Space in Twentieth-Century German Historiography. In: European Review of History. 10 (2003), 2, pp. 393-408.
  5. ↑ Rüdiger Rossig : Surrounded by enemies. On: taz.de. June 22, 2009;
    The Sundhaussen interview mentioned there. At: Vreme.com. No. 944, February 5, 2009.
  6. ↑ Nenad Stefanov: Jargon of the actual story: From not understanding u. the stranger. For the discussion about Holm Sundhaussen's history of Serbia in the Serbian public. In: Southeast Europe. 58 (2010), 2, pp. 220-249.
  7. ↑ On the different positions of Serbia see:
    Miloš Ković: Zadatak istorije je da objašnjava. In: Politika online. February 18, 2009.
    Sofija Božić: Istorija Srbije od 19. th 21. veka Holm Zundhausena i srpska naučna zajednica - odjeci i reagovanja. In: Zbornik Matice srpske 88 (2013), pp. 141–161.
    Latinka Perović: Prošlost nije isto što i istorija. In: Politika online. February 2, 2009.
  8. ↑ Michael Martens: He knew the Serbs, the Croats and the Bosniaks. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 24, 2015, page 11 ( online at the Goethe-Institut ).
personal data
SURNAME Sundhaussen, Holm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Southeast Europe historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 2015
Place of death regensburg