Jan Peters (historian)

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Jan Peters (born July 11, 1932 in Berlin ; † June 30, 2011 ) was a German historian .

Life

Peters was born as the son of the physicist Hans-Jürgen Cohn-Peters (1905–1982; Jürgen Peters for short) and the social welfare worker Ruth (née Steinitz, 1903–1984). His father, son of the Königsberg professor and astronomer Fritz Cohn , joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1932 through his future brother-in-law, Wolfgang Steinitz . As a child and adolescent, Jan Peters lived in exile with his parents. They emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1935 . His father found work in the Physics-Technical Institute of Kharkov with Fritz Lange , the former director of the institute in Berlin , who had also emigrated in the meantime . In August 1938 Jan Peters went to Sweden with his parents and sister Monica (* 1937) .

It was not until June 1948 that Peters returned to Germany, to the Soviet zone of occupation . He attended high school in Blankenfelde from 1948 to 1952 . From 1952 to 1956 he studied history at the Humboldt University in Berlin . Between 1956 and 1962 he worked as an assistant at the Historical Institute of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald . In 1961 he received his doctorate there for Dr. phil. The subject of his dissertation was rural poverty in Swedish Pomerania , its social development and political significance.

From 1962 to 1964 Peters worked in the Swedish editorial office of the GDR foreign broadcaster “ Radio Berlin International ” and from 1967 to 1970 as the first director of the GDR cultural center in Stockholm . In between he worked from 1964 to 1966 in the "Office of the Working Group of Social Science Institutes and Facilities of the German Academy of Sciences" as a specialist in history.

From 1970 to 1991, Peters was a research assistant at the Institute for Economic History founded by Jürgen Kuczynski at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and at times editor-in-chief of the Yearbook for Economic History . In 1975 he completed his habilitation at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald on German anti-fascist emigration in Sweden (“Exilland Sweden”, dissertation B ). Peters, who had spent almost ten years in emigration to Sweden as a child and teenager, felt committed to this topic. As head of the GDR's cultural center in Stockholm at the end of the 1960s, he also had the opportunity to interview Swedish contemporary witnesses and Germans who had not returned. As early as 1974 he published articles in the magazine "Contributions to the History of the Labor Movement" about the support of the German anti-fascists by the Swedish Red Aid and the national organization of the KPD in Sweden.

From 1978 Peters was part-time honorary professor in Greifswald, from 1994 professor at the Historical Institute of the University of Potsdam for "History of the Early Modern Age with a Focus on Social History". Between 1992 and 1996 he headed the working group "East Elbe manor" in Potsdam, financed by the Max Planck Society . In 1997, Peters retired. From 1993 to 2003 Peters was co-editor of the journal " Historische Anthropologie ". From 1997 he was project manager, from 1999 chairman of the association "East Elbian manor and culture of rural society".

From 1987 to 1990, Peters was a board member of the Association Internationale des Musées d'Agriculture (AIMA, International Association of Agricultural Museums). He was also a board member of the Brandenburg Historical Commission , member of the international advisory board of Historisk Tidskrift (historical journal, Stockholm), advisory board member of the " Journal for Agricultural History and Agricultural Sociology " and co-editor of the series "Self-testimonies of the Modern Age".

Research items

In addition to dealing with German-Swedish relations and Swedish history, he was particularly interested in historical, popular self-testimonies and the social and mental history of the early modern period. A main focus was on the comparative consideration of the functioning of early modern agricultural societies.

Peters gave the edition of a mercenary diary (“A Mercenary's Life in the Thirty Years War”, 1993; new edition as: “ Peter Hagendorf ”, 2012) as well as editions of farmers' diaries (“Märkische Bauerntagebücher des 18. und 19. Century”, 1989) and “Self-testimonies writing farmers ”(“ With plow and goose quill ”, 2003).

After reunification in 1990, Peters devoted himself to researching the East Elbe agricultural and social history in particular as part of the Max Planck working group “East Elbe manor as a socio-historical phenomenon”.

Honors

  • René Kuczynski Prize (2008) for his book Märkische Lebenswelten

family

Fonts

As an author
  • The rural poverty in Swedish Pomerania . On the social development and political significance of the poor and landless rural producers in Western Pomerania and Rügen 1630–1815 . Dissertation, University of Greifswald, Philosophical Faculty, 1961.
  • Branting and the Swedish Social Democracy . Hjalmar and Georg Branting in Swedish History . German Science Publishers, Berlin 1975.
  • 600 years of Blankenfelde, Zossen district . Council of the community, Blankenfelde 1975.
  • The old Swedes. About Viking warriors, peasant rebels and hero kings . Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1981; 2nd, revised edition 1986.
  • Country of exile Sweden. German and Swedish anti-fascists 1933–1945 . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1984.
  • 600 years of Wilsnack . From the beginning to 1700 . City Council, Bad Wilsnack 1984.
  • Wolfgang Steinitz's path as a political scientist. In: Klaus Steinitz, Wolfgang Kaschuba (eds): Wolfgang Steinitz. I was incredibly lucky. A life between science and politics. Berlin (Karl Dietz) 2006, pp. 9-62 ISBN 3-320-02905-3
  • Märkische Lebenswelten. Social history of the Plattenburg-Wilsnack rule, Prignitz 1550–1800 . Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2007.
  • People and opportunities. A historian's life in the GDR and other dream countries . Steiner, Stuttgart 2011.
As editor
  • Twice Stockholm-Berlin in 1946. Letters on return: Jürgen Peters and Wolfgang Steinitz . Reclam, Leipzig 1989.
  • with Hartmut Harnisch, Lieselott Enders : Märkische Bauerntagebücher of the 18th and 19th centuries. Testimonials from dairy farmers from Neuholland (= publications by the Potsdam State Archives. Vol. 23), Böhlau, Weimar 1989.
  • A mercenary life in the Thirty Years War . A source on social history . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1993; New edition: Peter Hagendorf - diary of a mercenary from the Thirty Years War (= rule and social systems in the early modern times. Vol. 14). V&R unipress, Göttingen 2012.
  • Conflict and control in manorial societies. About resistance and domination behavior in rural social structures of the early modern period . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1995.
  • Estate as a social model. Comparative considerations on the functioning of early modern agricultural societies . Oldenbourg, Munich 1995.
  • Manorial societies in a European comparison . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1997.
  • With plow and goose quill. Farmers who write personal testimonies. An anthology (= personal testimonies of modern times. Vol. 12). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2003.

literature

  • Michael F. Scholz : Would you like some Scandinavian experience? Post-exile and remigration. The former KPD emigrants in Scandinavia and their further fate in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07651-4 , p. 314 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ René Kuczynski Prize 2008 to Jan Peters for his book: “Märkische Lebenswelten”.
personal data
SURNAME Peters, Jan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cohn-Peters, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 2011