Thomas Wozniak

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Thomas Wozniak at the Historikertag 2014 in Göttingen.
Thomas Wozniak at the Historikertag 2014 in Göttingen.

Thomas Wozniak (* 1973 in Quedlinburg ) is a German historian . Wozniak has emerged in the professional world primarily with studies on the history of Quedlinburg and the online lexicon Wikipedia .

life and work

Thomas Wozniak studied Middle and Modern History, Geography and Historical Auxiliary Sciences at the University of Cologne . There he received his doctorate in the summer semester of 2009 under Marita Blattmann and Eberhard Isenmann with a comparative study of Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. From 2009 to 2015 he was a research assistant at the Philipps University of Marburg with Verena Epp and Andreas Meyer . Wozniak has been teaching at the Universities of Cologne, Marburg, Stuttgart and Tübingen since 2009. Since 2015 he has been Ellen Widder's assistant at the Department of Medieval History at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen . In June 2017 he received his habilitation with a thesis on the perception, representation and instrumentalization of extreme natural events and their consequences in chronicles and annals from the 6th to 11th centuries. He received the license to teach medieval history, comparative national history and historical auxiliary sciences. In the 2017/18 winter semester, he taught for Sigrid Hirbodian as a substitute professor for historical regional studies and historical auxiliary sciences at the University of Tübingen. From the 2018 summer semester to the 2019 summer semester, he represented the professorship for historical basic sciences and historical media studies for Irmgard Fees at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . Wozniak is a member of the Association of Historians in Germany , the Medievalist Association and a corresponding member of the Southwest German working group for urban history research.

His work focuses on the history of the medieval city, the history of the Ottonians and Salians , the crusades , the history of the weather and climatic effects in the early and high Middle Ages as well as the historical auxiliary sciences. During the expansion of the roof structure in his birth house in Quedlinburg in 1998, Wozniak came across three lap registers (tax books) from the years 1547, 1548 and 1570. This discovery prompted him to undertake a topographical analysis of urban society in the 16th century. Another main source was a city book, rediscovered around 1830, which contains, among other things, a tax register of 1310 (old town) and 1330 (new town). These two finds were part of the source of his dissertation on Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. In addition, house directories, lists of new residents and city bills were evaluated. More recent research on Quedlinburg had so far mainly concentrated on the early and high Middle Ages. Wozniak, on the other hand, dealt with the late medieval and early modern city of Quedlinburg and its social and economic topography. The focus of the work is "on the comparison of urban development, the economic and social topography as well as the social structure of the city of Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries". With his study, he pursues the objective of providing "the most differentiated possible view of social conditions and the topographical development in Quedlinburg in the early 14th and 16th centuries". On the basis of an “analysis of the topographical development, the financial situation as well as the occupational and social structures”, “the relationships between wealth, residential location, occupation, education and participation in local political power are examined”. The work consists of three main parts. After a detailed introduction (pp. 11–62), the economic and natural foundations of Quedlinburg's development (pp. 63–116), the disruptive factors in urban development in the form of fires, floods, epidemics, riots and political turning points are dealt with (117 -179). The third and most extensive chapter deals with a social-topographical comparison (180–342). This chapter deals with the demographic development, the structure of assets, the social and professional structure, ecclesiastical and spiritual institutions and the educated classes of the population. The appendix contains a new edition of the city book from 1310/30 and numerous tables, especially with information from the tax registers. In his work Wozniak argued that the new town was founded in the 12th century as a textile center and that this explains the emigration of residents from the 14 abbey villages. He spoke out against the older thesis that the new town was created by a haphazard influx. Contrary to what was previously assumed, Wozniak was able to prove for the late Middle Ages that the population of Quedlinburg was subject to significant fluctuations. The total number of households in Quedlinburg was 750 in 1310/30. By 1460 the number rose to 1064 and fell to only 700 between 1525 and 1539. The population of 1460 was not reached again until around 1570. Wozniak sees a new slump in the population for the Thirty Years' War , which was not completely overcome until the second half of the 18th century. The work is considered an important contribution to research into the history of Quedlinburg. In 2014 he published an overview of the history of Quedlinburg from the beginnings of settlement up to the 20th century.

Together with Sebastian Müller and Andreas Meyer, Wozniak published a commemorative publication for Hans K. Schulze . This was intended to celebrate both the 50th anniversary of the doctorate as well as Schulze's 80th birthday in autumn 2012. On this occasion, a ceremony took place on October 8, 2012 in the Hessian State Archives in Marburg . The anthology, published in 2014, contains contributions by 15 authors who are related to Schulze's research on various topics. Wozniak attempted to interpret the cognomen magnus of the Roman-German Emperor Otto I.

Wozniak has authored numerous studies on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia . He was co-editor of an anthology that bundles four articles from the section "Wikipedia and History" of the 50th German Historians' Day in Göttingen with ten other texts on the subject of the online encyclopedia. Wozniak has dealt with the citability of Wikipedia in several articles. In his opinion, articles from Wikipedia should be scientifically citable if three conditions are met. First: the main author must be known by name. Second: The author is responsible for at least 83 percent of the text. Third: The author must be responsible for the correctness of the cited article version. Wozniak works with Wikipedia himself. Since 2003 he has made about 6,000 changes and has written several excellent articles in the process.

Fonts

Monographs

  • Natural events in the early Middle Ages. The testimony of historiography from the 6th to the 11th century (= Europe in the Middle Ages. Treatises and contributions to historical comparative literature. Volume 31). De Gruyter, Berlin 2020, ISBN 3-11-057231-1 .
  • Quedlinburg. Small city history. Pustet, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 3-7917-2605-6 .
  • Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries - a social topographical comparison (= Halle contributions to the history of the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Vol. 11). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-05-006049-1 .

Editorships

  • with Jürgen Nemitz, Uwe Rohwedder: Wikipedia and history. de Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin et al. 2015, ISBN 3-11-037634-2 ( Open access ).
  • with Sebastian Müller, Andreas Meyer: Königswege. Festschrift for Hans K. Schulze on his 80th birthday and 50th anniversary of his doctorate. Eudora-Verlag, Leipzig 2014, ISBN 978-3-938533-53-6 .

Web links

Commons : Thomas Wozniak  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Thomas Wozniak: Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. A social topographical comparison. Berlin 2013, p. 24ff.
  2. ^ Thomas Wozniak: Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. A social topographical comparison. Berlin 2013, p. 11.
  3. ^ Thomas Wozniak: Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. A social topographical comparison. Berlin 2013, p. 12.
  4. ^ Thomas Wozniak: Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. A social topographical comparison. Berlin 2013, p. 45.
  5. ^ Thomas Wozniak: Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. A social topographical comparison. Berlin 2013, p. 79. Critically, Christine Müller in: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 65 (2015), pp. 171–174, here: p. 172.
  6. ^ Thomas Wozniak: Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries. A social topographical comparison. Berlin 2013, p. 45.
  7. ↑ See the reviews of Manfred Groten in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 101 (2014), pp. 81–82; Henning Steinführer : Saxony and Anhalt. Yearbook of the Historical Commission for Saxony-Anhalt 27 (2015), pp. 309–311, here: p. 311; Michael Scholz: Quedlinburg in the 14th and 16th centuries; Quedlinburg. In: Yearbook for the history of Central and Eastern Germany . 61 (2016), pp. 488-493, here: p. 492; Uwe Schirmer in: Journal of the Association for Thuringian History 69 (2015), pp. 339–340; Matthias Meinhardt in: Historical magazine . 306 (2018), pp. 549-550.
  8. ↑ See the reviews of Bettina Vaupel in: Monuments. Magazine for Monument Culture in Germany 25 (2015), no. 3, p. 14; Bernd Feicke in: Harz-Zeitschrift 67 (2015), p. 164; David Nicholas in: Mediaevistik 28 (2015), p. 433 f .; Michael Scholz in: Yearbook for the History of Central and Eastern Germany 61 (2016), pp. 492–493.
  9. ↑ See the review by Claudia Garnier in: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 81 (2017), pp. 272–273 ( online ).
  10. ↑ Thomas Wozniak: How tall was Otto the Great? On the interpretation of the cognomen magnus. In: Thomas Wozniak, Sebastian Müller and Andreas Meyer (eds.): Königswege. Festschrift for Hans K. Schulze on his 80th birthday and 50th anniversary of his doctorate. Leipzig 2014, pp. 95–124.
  11. ↑ Thomas Wozniak: Ten years of fear of contact: The historical sciences and Wikipedia. An inventory. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaften 60/3 (2012), pp. 247–264; Thomas Wozniak: Mandatory citation for Wikipedia articles - and if so, for which ones and how? In: Mittelalter.hypotheses.org of May 17, 2014; Thomas Wozniak: Wikipedia in research and teaching - an overview. In: Thomas Wozniak, Jürgen Nemitz, Uwe Rohwedder (eds.): Wikipedia and historical science. Berlin 2015, pp. 33–53; Thomas Wozniak: 15 years of Wikipedia and history. Trends and developments. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 66/5 (2018), pp. 433–453.
  12. ↑ See the reviews by Tobias Hodel in: H-Soz-Kult , February 5, 2016 ( online ); Dominik Kasper in: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 67 (2017), pp. 273–275 ( online ); Alheydis Plassmann in: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 81 (2017), pp. 448–449 ( online ); Anton Tantner in: Scrinium. Journal of the Association of Austrian Archivists 70 (2016), pp. 188–190 ( online ).
  13. ↑ Thomas Wozniak: Wikipedia in research and teaching - an overview. In: Thomas Wozniak, Jürgen Nemitz, Uwe Rohwedder (eds.): Wikipedia and historical science. Berlin 2015, pp. 33–53, here: p. 48; Thomas Wozniak: Mandatory citation for Wikipedia articles - and if so, for which ones and how? In: Mittelalter.hypotheses.org of May 17, 2014.
  14. ↑ Thomas Wozniak: Ten years of fear of contact: The historical sciences and Wikipedia. An inventory. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaften 60/3 (2012), pp. 247–264, here: p. 264.
personal data
SURNAME Wozniak, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Quedlinburg