Prior to the mid-thirteenth century, the territories now defined as Eastern Europe have only episodically retained the attention of western historians. It was only at the end of the Middle Ages that westerners began to conceptualize the existence of an east European area. The idea of Central Europe is even younger. As a consequence, the interests of history faculty in this region range chronologically from medieval Bulgaria or Serbia to sixteenth-century Bohemia, and from the Habsburg Empire to twentieth-century Germany and Soviet Russia. Equally diverse are the approaches to the history of the region, ranging from archaeology to social and cultural history. The department has a strong concentration of faculty and resources in Jewish history and the history of war in Central and Eastern Europe.
Faculty
Seth Bernstein (Soviet/Eurasia, digital humanities)
Florin Curta (archeology, early Slavs, medieval Bulgaria, Moravia, Kievan Rus)
Norman Goda (Holocaust, Nazi Germany, twentieth-century diplomacy)
Mitchell Hart (modern Jewish history, racial thought, history of social science)
Related faculty:
Michael Gorham (Russian Studies)
Willard Hasty (German, Medieval Studies)
Resources
UF has excellent library collections of primary sources for medieval and modern Balkans, from Soviet periodicals. It also has one of the country’s best Judaica collections on Central and East European Jewry (for more information, see Price Library of Judaica at the University of Florida). The library also has extensive holdings in the Germanic field. There are also approximately 75 journals in the area of Germanic languages and literatures (for more information, see UF Library Holdings in Germanic and Slavic Studies.)
Seminars
Graduate course offerings in recent years that have focused on East or East Central Europe:
East Central Europe in the Middle Ages
Holocaust Studies
Twentieth-Century Europe
Historiography of Race and Religion
Between Europe and Asia: Russia
Religion and Reform, 1400-1750
Europe since 1763
Modern German History
Habsburg Monarchy
East-Central Europe in the Twentieth Century
Readings, Early Modern Europe
Digital Methods and Stalin’s Great Terror
Affiliated centers and programs
Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Center for Jewish Studies
Center for European Studies