Norman Davies

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Norman Davies (2018)

Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born June 8, 1939 in Bolton , Lancashire , England ) is a British - Polish historian of Welsh origin . His work focuses on the history of Poland , in addition, he became known in the English-speaking world with extensive overall presentations of the history of Europe , especially the British Isles .

academic career

Davies studied at Magdalen College of the University of Oxford History by Kenneth Bruce McFarlane, Alan JP Taylor and John Stoye. After stays in Grenoble and Oxford , Davies wanted to do research in the Soviet Union for a dissertation , but did not receive a visa. As a replacement, he then went to the Jagiellonian University in Kraków . Here he researched the history of the Polish-Soviet war ; Since this war as such was denied by the communist Polish rule and science at the time, it camouflaged the work entitled “British Foreign Policy towards Poland 1919–1920”. After doing his doctorate in 1973 in Krakow, the English text appeared under the title White Eagle, Red Star. The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 . After returning from Poland, he studied at St Antony's College in Oxford and did his doctorate with Harry Willetts , professor of Russian history and translator of Solzhenitsyn's texts .

From 1971 Davies taught Eastern European history at the University of London ( School of East European and Slavonic Studies, SSEES ); from 1985 to 1996 as full professor. A permanent professorship at Stanford University , which had already been contractually agreed in 1986 , was denied to him by a narrow majority decision, due to unspecified scientific shortcomings in his work.

Davies has also taught as a visiting professor at numerous universities around the world. Since 1996 he has been retired and a fellow at Wolfson College , Oxford. One of his students is Roger Moorhouse.

Works

Norman Davies (2007)

The work that Davies made known in the English-speaking world was a two-volume comprehensive account of Polish history published in 1981 under the title God's Playground , which is still considered a standard work today. Against the background of the events in Poland at the time, a one-volume, more essayistic history of Poland appeared in 1984 under the title Heart of Europe . In Poland Davies became suddenly popular with God's Playground , although - or precisely because - the Western work could only appear in samizdat at that time.

In the 1990s Davies published two monumental volumes on the history of Europe (1996) and the British Isles (1999). In both of them he aims to revise entrenched fixations in historical studies and to bring the history of the “peripheries” to the fore on an equal footing.

Unlike in Poland, where the last two volumes also became bestsellers, Davies was hardly noticed and translated in German-speaking countries for a long time. It was not until 2000 that a translation of Heart of Europe appeared for the Frankfurt Book Fair , at which Poland was the guest country at the time. In 2002 Davies wrote together with his former assistant Moorhouse Wroclaw . The flower of Europe , a story that appeared simultaneously in German, Polish and English. Davies' book on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 was also promptly translated into German.

In the later work Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory (2006) Davies tried to correct the perception of the Second World War in the western world . He showed the decisive role of the Eastern Front and the Soviet Union in the German defeat as well as the amoral-totalitarian character of the Stalinist Soviet Union. The alliance between Stalin and Hitler in 1939 allowed both of them to divide Poland between themselves within a few weeks (see Attack on Poland and Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland ) and then to occupy it by mutual agreement for almost two years.

criticism

His partially polemical position brought Davies the accusation of anti-Semitism and historical revisionism by Lucy Dawidowicz and Abraham Brumberg and, under the pressure of the Anti-Defamation League in 1986, led him to a contractually agreed permanent professorship at Stanford University with a majority of one vote the faculty assembly was withdrawn at short notice. The official justification emphasized that this was not because of his political position, but because of scientific deficiencies ("manner and substance of his academic interpretation of historical events occurring some 40 years earlier"). Davies then sued the university for political discrimination, breach of contract and damage to reputation; the lawsuit was dismissed in 1989 and again in 1991 because the court declared that it had no jurisdiction over visiting professors.

The American historian Theodore K. Rabb accused Davies of having given too much space in his book Europe: A History of the cooperation of Jews with Polish security forces in violent attacks and expulsions after the war and thus negated the uniqueness of the Holocaust .

Johannes Hürter criticized Davies' book Europa im Krieg in 2010 . The book offers little new and does not do justice to Davies' self-claim of innovative analysis.

Honors

Norman Davies has received several honors and awards, including from the British Academy , and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society . He was particularly honored in and by Poland. In 2004 he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus 1st class, honorary doctorates from the universities of Krakow , Lublin and Gdansk , membership in the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU) in Krakow and honorary citizenship in Lublin and Krakow. He was appointed to the advisory committee of the European Association of History Educators (EUROCLIO) and was awarded the third class of the Order of the Cross of Mary of the Republic of Estonia in 2008 and the International Bridge Prize in 2009. In 2012 he received the Order of the White Eagle . In 2013 he received the Erasmus Medal of the Academia Europaea , of which he has been a member since 2011. On July 4, 2014, he received Polish citizenship . He emphasized that you could be Poles and Europeans as well as Poles and British.

Fonts

  • 1972: White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919–1920 . London: MacDonald, ISBN 0-356-04013-5 (New edition 2004, London: Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7 )
  • 1977: Poland, Past and Present. A Select Bibliography of Works in English .
  • 1981: God's Playground. A History of Poland. Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795 , Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present . Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-925339-0 / ISBN 0-19-925340-4 .
  • 1984: Heart of Europe. A Short History of Poland . Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-285152-7 (German under the title: In the heart of Europe. History of Poland. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-46709-1 ). Reviews u. a. in time and in sight points .
  • 1991 (with Antony Polonsky ): Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939-1946 . Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-49128-9
  • 1996: Europe. A history . Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-820171-0 . Review in New Criterion .
    • German: The great catastrophe - Europe at war 1939–1945 . Droemer, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-426-27496-5 . Review in the FAZ.
  • 1999: The Isles. A history . Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513442-7 .
  • 2001: Smok Wawelski nad Tamizą. Eseje, polemiki, wykłady , ed. v. Andrzej Pawelec. Warszawa: Znak, ISBN 83-240-0015-1 .
  • 2002 (with Roger Moorhouse): Microcosm. Portrait of a Central European City. London: Jonathan Cape, ISBN 0-224-06243-3 (German under the title: Breslau. The flower of Europe. History of a central European city . Droemer-Knaur, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-426-27362-4 )
  • 2004: Rising '44. The Battle for Warsaw. ISBN 0-333-90568-7 (German udT uprising of the lost. The battle for Warsaw 1944. Munich: Droemer, ISBN 3-426-27243-1 )
  • 2006: Europe at War. 1939-1945: No Simple Victory . Houndmills: Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-69285-3 (German under the title: The Great Catastrophe. Europe at War 1939-1945 . Droemer, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-426-27496-5 )
  • 2006: Europe East and West: A Collection of Essays on European History . London: Jonathan Cape, ISBN 0-224-06924-1 .
  • 2011: Vanished Kingdoms. The History of Half-Forgotten Europe . Allan Lane, London, ISBN 978-1-84614-338-0 .
    • 2013: German: Disappeared empires. The history of forgotten Europe . Theiss, Darmstadt, ISBN 978-3-8062-2758-1 .
  • 2015: Trail of Hope: The Anders Army, An Odyssey Across Three Continents (Osprey Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4728-1603-0 )
  • 2017: Beneath Another Sky: A Global Journey into History . Allen Lane, ISBN 978-1-84614-831-6 (German udT Ins Unknown: A trip around the world through time and space. Wbg Theiss, Darmstadt 2020)

Individual evidence

  1. a b N. Davies, Disappeared Realms , p. 17.
  2. ^ Robert Lindsey: Scholar says his views on jews cost him a post at Stanford. In: New York Times . March 13, 1987, accessed February 24, 2020 .
  3. State appellate court upholds Stanford in Davies case. Stanford University , September 5, 1991, accessed February 24, 2020 .
  4. ^ A b Anne Applebaum: Against the old clichés. A review of Europe: A History by Norman Davies. In: The New Criterion . May 1997, accessed February 24, 2020 .
  5. a b Johannes Hürter : Superlatives of contemporary history. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . January 14, 2010, accessed on February 24, 2020 (review of “Europe. A history” or the German translation “The great catastrophe. Europe at war 1939–1945”).
  6. ^ Current Fellows and Members. Royal Historical Society , accessed on February 24, 2020 (English, overview page with links to partial lists). Direct download of the PDF list for letter "D"
  7. ^ Members of the Faculty of History and Philosophy. Polska Akademia Umiejętności, accessed June 8, 2017 (Polish).
  8. Postanowienie Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 6 listopada 2012 r. o nadaniu orderów. November 6, 2012, accessed October 7, 2019 (Polish).
  9. ^ Membership directory: Norman Davies. Academia Europaea , accessed November 3, 2017 .
  10. Prof. Norman Davies received Polish citizenship , wp.pl (Polish)
  11. Adam Krzeminski: The playground of God. In: The time . October 19, 2000, accessed on February 24, 2020 (Review of In the Heart of Europe. History of Poland ).
  12. Klaus Ziemer: Norman Davies: In the heart of Europe. In: see points . Retrieved on February 24, 2020 (Review on In the Heart of Europe. History of Poland ).

Web links

Commons : Norman Davies  - album with pictures, videos and audio files