Włodzimierz Borodziej

Włodzimierz Borodziej (2009)

Włodzimierz Borodziej (born September 9, 1956 in Warsaw ; † July 12, 2021 ) was a Polish historian who specialized in contemporary history .

Life

He finished his studies in 1979 at the University of Warsaw . In 1984 he received his doctorate from the same university. The habilitation took place in 1991 on the subject of Poland in international relations 1945–1947 / Polska w stosunkach międzynarodowych 1945–1947 . In 2004 he received the title of professor in human sciences. From 1999 to 2002 he was Vice Rector of the University of Warsaw.

In 2002 he received the Viadrina Prize from the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) together with Janusz Reiter , Markus Meckel and Rudolf von Thadden . In April 2010 he was awarded the Carl von Ossietzky Prize for Contemporary History and Politics by the City of Oldenburg . In 2016 he was elected as a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences .

From 1998 to 2011 Borodziej was co-editor of the journal for East Central Europe Research .

From October 2010 to September 2016, Borodziej and Joachim von Puttkamer headed the Imre Kertész College - Eastern Europe in the 20th Century. Historical experience in comparison at the University of Jena . In 2016 he was elected to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences . In 2017 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena.

Borodziej died in July 2021 at the age of 64 after a long illness.

controversy

In an in 2 May 2008 Rzeczpospolita published articles historian threw Bogdan Musiał Borodziej ago, his scientific career to a great extent to the support of the Polish state security service SB to have owed. Wiktor Borodziej , his father, was therefore a senior self-service officer and had the son's career among other things. funded by posting to the German-Polish Textbook Commission, which was controlled by the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party and the SB. This was followed by further publications in the Polish media on Borodziej's connections to the SB. His father was responsible for espionage and actions in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s.

The connection made in these publications between the secret service past of Włodzimierz Borodziej's father and his own scientific career led to protests within German and Polish academia and the press. In the Rzeczpospolita issue from 2-4. In an open letter on May 2, 2008, 63 Polish historians described the article from May 2, 2008 as an “emotionally charged attack, presumably due to personal reasons.” Equating people active today with the biographies of their family members aroused the worst associations in them.

Nevertheless, the right-wing conservative Gazeta Polska published a full-page article on November 17, 2009 with further material on the alleged connection between Borodziej and the SB, in which other people from Borodziej's family and professional environment were accused of collaborating with the SB. Accordingly, his mother also worked for the SB, as did his doctoral supervisor and the two reviewers of his dissertation. The SB had also repeatedly instructed the passport authorities to ensure that Borodziej received his travel documents in good time for the appointments in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, the author did not provide any evidence for a collaboration between Borodziej and SB.

Publications (selection)

Terror i polityka. Policja niemiecka a polski ruch oporu w GG 1939–1944. Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, Warsaw 1985, ISBN 83-211-0718-4 .
Od Poczdamu do Szklarskiej Poręby. Polska w stosunkach międzynarodowych 1945–1947. Aneks, London 1990, ISBN 0-906601-77-0 .
with Hans-Henning Hahn , Igor Kąkolewski: Polska i Niemcy. Krótki przewodnik po historii sąsiedztwa. Federacja Polskich Domów Spotkań, Warsaw 1999, ISBN 83-910344-0-2 .
The Warsaw Uprising in 1944 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-10-007806-3 .
History of Poland in the 20th century . With a foreword by Ulrich Herbert . CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60647-2 ( limited preview in Google book search).
with Maciej Górny : Nasza wojna. 2 volumes (Volume 1: Imperia. 1912-1916. Volume 2: Narody. 1917-1923. ). Grupa Wydawnicza Foksal / Wydawnictwo WAB, Warsaw 2014-2018, ISBN 978-83-280-0941-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 978-83-280-0940-0 (vol. 2).
- German: The forgotten world war. Europe's East 1912–1923. 2 volumes. wbg Theiss, Darmstadt 2018, ISBN 978-3-8062-3820-4 .