Robert William Seton-Watson

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Robert William Seton-Watson

Robert William Seton-Watson (until 1897: Robert William Watson , pseudonym: Scotus Viator ; born August 20, 1879 in London , † July 25, 1951 in Skye , United Kingdom ) was a British historian.

Life

He studied at Oxford University , where he graduated in Modern History in 1902. He then went on to study at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin and at the Sorbonne in Paris. After a trip to Italy he came to Vienna in 1905 , during which time he began to write for the British news magazine The Spectator under the pseudonym Scotus Viator . In his book publications he dealt with the political system of Austria-Hungary , in particular with the disadvantage of the minorities living there. He worked with Henry Wickham Steed (who then reported for The Times from Vienna) and met Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , who was then a member of the Národní strana svobodomyslná in the Austrian Imperial Council .

In his book The South Slavic Question in the Habsburg Empire , which appeared shortly before the First World War , he advocated the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the unification of the Yugoslavs.

When Masaryk came into exile in London in 1915, Seton-Watson got him a teaching position at King's College London . Both together published a weekly magazine called The New Europe from 1916 , which was discontinued in 1920.

Seton-Watson worked for the Intelligence Bureau with the preparation and analysis of the domestic political situation in the enemy states. In the Department of Propaganda in Enemy Countries ( Directorate for Propaganda in Enemy Countries ) of the War Propaganda Bureau , he and Henry Wickham Steed developed a plan for how the morale of the people of the Danube Monarchy could be undermined by means of propaganda. From July 1918 he worked with Steed in the Austria-Hungary department of the Directorate for Propaganda in Enemy Countries of the Ministry of Information in Crewe House under Alfred Harmsworth . Steed and Seton-Watson represented the monarchy as a vassal and possession of Germany. The Habsburg dynasty was "unscrupulous", one had to support the peoples fighting for freedom, in a separate peace the peoples of Central Europe would be condemned to slavery . Steed and Seton-Watson made the Slavic independence movements of the Habsburg Monarchy popular in Great Britain and put pressure on the Foreign Office to recognize the self-determination rights of the Austro-Hungarian peoples , not within the monarchy, but through its dissolution.

Robert William Seton-Watson, bust by Vojtech Ihriský in Ružomberok

From 1915 Seton-Watson taught Eastern European History at the University of London , from 1922 to 1945 as Professor of Central European History (the position was funded by the government of Czechoslovakia ). From 1945 to 1949 he was Professor of Czechoslovakia Studies at Oxford University .

In addition to very good knowledge of German , French and Italian , he also acquired knowledge of Hungarian , Serbo-Croat and Czech / Slovak languages. His political standpoint is described as progressive-liberal .

Honors

Robert William Seton-Watson received honorary doctorates from the universities of Prague (1919), Zagreb (1920), Belgrade and Bratislava (both 1928) and Cluj (1930). In 1932 he was elected a member of the British Academy . He was portrayed in bronze twice (1919 and 1945) by the Yugoslav sculptor Ivan Meštrović .

family

Robert William Seton-Watson was the father of Hugh Seton-Watson (1916–1984) and Christopher Seton-Watson (1918–2007), both of whom were also historians.

Works

Monographs

  • (as Scotus Viator): Racial problems in Hungary , 1908; Reprint 1972
  • (as Scotus Viator): The Future of Austria-Hungary and the Attitude of the Great Powers , 1908
  • Hungarian elections. Contribution to the history of political corruption (with many original documents and an addendum on the recent elections in Croatia) , 1912
  • The southern Slav question and the Habsburg monarchy , 1911, Reprint 1969, German edition: Die Südslawischefrage im Habsburger Reiche , 1913
  • The war and democracy , 1915
  • German, Slav, and Magyar. A study in the origins of the great war , 1916; Reprint 1968
  • The rise of nationality in the Balkans , 1918; Reprint 1966
  • Sarajevo. A study in the origins of the great war , 1926; Reprint 1973
  • A History of the Roumanians. From Roman times to the completion of unity , 1934; Reprint 1963
  • Disraeli , Gladstone and the eastern question . A study in diplomacy and party politics , 1935; Reprint 1971
  • Britain in Europe: 1789-1914; a survey of foreign policy , 1937; Reprint 1968
  • Britain and the dictators. A survey of post-war British policy , 1938; Reprint 1968
  • A history of the Czechs and Slovaks , 1943; Reprint 1965
  • Masaryk in England , 1943

Letters

  • RW Seton-Watson and the Yugoslavs. Correspondence 1906-1941. 2 volumes, 1976.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Wittek: Forever enemy? The image of Germany in the British mass media after the First World War. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-48657-846-4 , p. 88.
  2. ^ Arthur J. May: The Passing of the Habsburg Monarchy 1914-1918 . Philadelphia 1967. Volume 2: 533f.
  3. ^ John W. Mason: The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918 . London / New York 1985, ISBN 0-582-35393-9 . P. 75.
  4. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (see #Literature , p. 659)
  5. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed July 29, 2020 .
  6. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/dec/04/guardianobituaries.internationaleducationnews , http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1567461/Christopher-Seton-Watson.html , http : //www.ssees.ucl.ac.uk/seton.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Seton-Watson, Robert William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scotus Viator; Watson, Robert William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1951
Place of death Skye