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Welcome! » Faculty & Staff » Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius


Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius

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Field Specialties

Modern Europe; Germany, Eastern Europe, and Baltic region; Diplomatic History; World War I; War and Society

Professor Liulevicius specializes in modern German history, with a particular focus on German relations with Eastern Europe. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Peace, and Revolution from 1994-95. He has taught at the University of Tennessee since 1995. Since 2008, he has served as the director of the Center for the Study of War and Society.

His first book, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I, was published in 2000 by Cambridge University Press (and is now available in paperback). This book also appeared in 2002 in German translation as Kriegsland im Osten, published in Germany by Hamburg Edition, the series of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research.

His second book, published by Oxford University Press in fall 2009, is The German Myth of the East: 1800 to the Present. This is a study of the way in which Germans have viewed the lands and peoples of Eastern Europe over the last two centuries and up to the present day. Their perceptions have been a complex mixture of attraction and repulsion, fascinations and fears, covering a spectrum from Romantic sympathies to the racial hatreds espoused by the Nazis. This book argues that this crucial international relationship has been vital to how Germans have defined their own national identity and position in the world. For more information, see: http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199546312

In March 2004, Germany's main magazine, "DER SPIEGEL", published an invited article by Dr. Liulevicius, entitled "Der vergiftete Sieg: Wie der erste Krieg im Osten Hitlers mörderisches Weltbild prägte" [The Poisoned Victory: How the First World War in the East Shaped Hitler's Murderous Worldview"], in its series on the First World War, and reprinted the piece twice afterwards, in a special issue and in a book.

He has published articles on current international affairs in the Baltic region, military occupations, the phenomenon of "elective ethnicity" in northeastern Europe, and other topics of war and society. Encyclopedia articles of his on different aspects of the Eastern front appeared in the new German Encyclopedia of the First World War and the French Larousse encyclopedia. Other articles of his on World War I have also been translated, appearing in Italian, French, and German.

He has presented many papers at international conferences, including the 19th International Congress of the Historical Sciences at the University of Oslo, Norway in 2000, the University of Alberta, the German Military Historical Association Conference in Augsburg, Germany, the University of Genoa in Italy, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the University of Greifswald, Germany, and the Nordost Institut in Lüneburg, Germany. In the United States, he has presented at conferences at Columbia University, Yale, Georgetown University, and Indiana University. He has presented twice at the American Historical Association (AHA) Conference (in San Francisco and in Philadelphia), and at German Studies Association meetings in Houston, Washington, San Diego, and New Orleans.

Dr. Liulevicius has given invited talks about his research at Princeton University, Georgetown University, the University of Washington, University of Missouri at Kansas City, Auburn University at Montgomery, the University of Aarhus in Denmark, the University of Heidelberg in Germany, at the University of Toronto, and at the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte (Library of Contemporary History) in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2003, he gave a keynote address at the fifth Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe, "The Baltic World as a Multicultural Space" at the University of Turku, Finland. In May 2004, he was invited to give a public address at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. He presented a paper at the 2004 German Historikertag in Kiel, Germany's most important historical conference. In 2005, he gave two invited seminar talks at the Ecole des Haute Etudes in Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. In 2008, he gave a keynote address at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City.

The Teaching Company of Chantilly, Virginia, has produced three taped lecture courses by Dr. Liulevicius in its "Great Courses Series", available on audiotape, CD, download, and DVD. The first, a 24-lecture course, is entitled "Utopia and Terror in the Twentieth Century" and examines the dictatorships, ideologies, and violent trajectory of the age. The second, a 36-lecture course, is entitled "World War I: The Great War", and covers the military, social, and cultural history of this first "total war". It was praised in a review in Audiofile magazine for its “stunning clarity”. His third course, also of 36 lectures, is “War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe, 1500-2000”. For more information, see www.teach12.com.

Professor Liulevicius is President-Elect of the international Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (A.A.B.S.) and currently serves as a vice president of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (A.S.N.) and on its convention program committee for its annual meetings at Columbia University. He serves on the editorial board for the Adam Matthew Publications World War I documents project.

Professor Liulevicius is director of the History Department’s Center for the Study of War and Society, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2009. The Center, founded by Dr. Charles Johnson, is active in public service education on the human experience of conflict. For more information and current activities of the Center, see http://web.utk.edu/~csws/.

In 2001, Dr. Liulevicius won both the University’s Award for Professional Promise in Research and Creative Achievement and the History Department’s Leroy P. Graff Award for Faculty Excellence. In 2003, he was awarded the Provost's Excellence in Teaching Award and won the first new award in the humanities, the University of Tennessee College of Arts and Sciences Award for Research and Creative Achievement in the Arts and Humanities for 2003-2006. He was twice awarded the Hendrickson Professorship in the College of Arts and Sciences, 2005-2009, and in 2009 was awarded a Lindsay Young Professorship.
In 2005, Dr. Liulevicius was awarded a year-long national fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities (N.E.H.) for his research.

His undergraduate courses include The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany; History of Modern Germany, 1800 to the Present; World War I: Causes, Ordeal, and Consequences; War and Culture in Modern Europe; Nationalism Past and Present: Models of Belonging; History of Austria: From Habsburg Empire to European Union; Germany Faces Eastern Europe, 1800-2000; and Contemporary Europe, 1900 to the Present. His Honors Western Civilization courses have focused on topics ranging from the Utopian tradition to comparative nationalisms. In 2006, the University of Oregon’s Center for Educational Policy Research College Board Advanced Placement Best Practices Course Study designated his undergraduate course in German history 1800-2000 (History 335) as “one of the top examples of best practices in a national study of European History courses” with “specific elements of this course being designated as exemplary”.

His graduate seminars include European Diplomatic History, 1800-2000; War and Society in Modern Europe; Topics in the History of Modern Germany; German Ideas of Eastern Europe; Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century; The First World War; Ideology, Violence, and the Modern State; Dictatorship and Diplomacy; Propaganda; and the Research Seminar in European History.

In terms of his work with graduate students, Dr. Liulevicius at present is directing several doctoral students. Jake Hamric is currently completing a dissertation entitled “The German Temple Society: Culture, Religious Nationalism, and Ideology in Palestine, 1861-1918”, and was UT’s first winner of a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) doctoral research fellowship for archival research in Germany. Tracey Hayes, who is currently completing her dissertation entitled “Soldiers, Rabbis, and the Ostjuden under Occupation, 1914-1918” was UT’s first winner of a Fulbright doctoral research fellowship for archival research in Poland and Germany. Troy Dempster is currently working on his dissertation entitled “Wolfgang Kapp: The German Fatherland Party, the 1920 Putsch, and the Evolution of Right-Wing Extremism, 1917-1920”. Jordan Kuck, winner of UT’s J. Wallace and Katie Dean Graduate Fellowship, is currently at work on his dissertation on the Latvian dictatorship of Karlis Ulmanis in the interwar period. Dr. Liulevicius has directed nine master's theses. Currently, Kathryn Campbell Julian is working on a thesis concerning relations between the German Democratic Republic and Hungary in the Cold War, and won a fellowship for the summer study of Hungarian at Indiana University.

Education

  • Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 1994
  • B.A. University of Chicago, 1988

Selected Publications

Books

  • The German Myth of the East: 1800 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

  • War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

  • Kriegsland im Osten. Eroberung, Kolonialisierung und Militärherrschaft im Ersten Weltkrieg. German language edition of War Land on the Eastern Front, trans. Jürgen Bauer, Fee Engemann, Edith Nerke (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, 2002). See: http://his-online.de/edition/programm/081.htm

Articles

  • (Forthcoming) “Das Besatzungsregime von Ober-Ost im Vergleich in Besatzungserfahrungen in Europa (1914-1945), ed. Nicolas Beaupré et al. (Klartext, 2008) [translation in German of 2006 article from Histoire et Societes].

  • (Forthcoming) “German-Occupied Eastern Europe” in The Blackwell Companion to the First World War, ed. John Horne (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2010). 
     
  • “Building Nationalism: Monuments, Museums, and the Politics of War Memory in Interwar Lithuania” in Nordost-Archiv, vol. XXII ( 2008) : 230-47.

  • "German Military Occupation and Culture on the Eastern Front in World War I", in The Germans and the East, ed. Charles Ingrao, et al. (Purdue University Press, 2008) : 201-208. 

  •  “Precursors and Precedents: Forced Migration in Northeastern Europe during the First World War” in Nordost-Archiv, vol. XIV (2005) : 32-52.

  •  “Die deutsche Besatzung im ‘Land Ober Ost’ im Ersten Weltkrieg”, in Besatzung. Funktion und Gestalt militärischer Fremdherrschaft von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Günther Kronenbitter, Markus Pöhlmann, and Dierk Walter(Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006): 93-104.

  • “Das Land Ober Ost im Ersten Weltkrieg: Eine Fallstudie zu den deutsch-litauischen Beziehungen und Zukunftsvorstellungen”, in “Kollaboration” in Nordosteuropa. Erscheinungsformen und Deutungen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Joachim Tauber (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006): 118-127.

  • “Der Osten als apokalyptischer Raum. Deutsche Fronterfahrungen im und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg” in Traumland Osten. Deutsche Bilder vom östlichen Europa im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Gregor Thum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006): 47-65.

  • “Von ‘Ober-Ost’ nach ‘Ostland’?” in Die vergessene Front. Der Osten 1914/15: Ereignis, Wirkung, Nachwirkung, ed. Gerhard P. Groß (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006): 295-310.

  • “Les dimensions sociales de l’occupation militaire: la domination allemande en Europe du Nord-Est pendant la Première Guerre mondiale”, in Histoire et Societes: Revue Européenne D’Histoire Sociale, No. 17 (January 2006): 20-31.

  • “Elective Ethnicity: The Phenomenon of Chosen National Identity in the Modern Baltic World” in The Baltic World as a Multicultural World: Sea, Region and Peoples, ed. Marko Lehti (Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2005): 155-163.

  • “L'Invasion comme voyage: l'occupation allemande sur le front de l'Est durant la Premiere Guerre mondiale” in 1914-1945 L’Ère de la Guerre: Violence, Mobilisations, Deuil. Tome 1 1914-1918, ed. Anne Dumenil, Nicolas Beaupré, Christian Ingrao (Paris: Agnes Viénot Editions, 2004): 183-205.

  • "Der vergiftete Sieg: Wie der erste Krieg im Osten Hitlers mörderisches Weltbild prägte" [The Poisoned Victory: How the First World War in the East Shaped Hitler's Murderous Worldview"], in Der Spiegel, No. 10, March 1, 2004: 130-38.

  • "Representations of War on the Eastern Front, 1914-1918" in Power, Violence and Mass Death, ed. Joseph Canning, Hartmut Lehmann and Jay Winter (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004): 191-204.

  • "L'esperienza di soldati e civili nella Grande Guerra: la gente commune sul fronte orientale, 1914-1918" ["Soldiers' and Civilians' Experience of World War I: Common People on the Eastern Front, 1914-1918"] in Storia e Memoria: Rivista semestrale. Istituto Ligure per la storia della Resistenza e dell'età contemporanea, Vol. 9 (1) (November, 2000): 91-103.

  • "As Go the Baltics, So Goes Europe," Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 39.3 (Summer, 1995): 387-402.

  • "Is Kaliningrad Really Lithuania Minor?: The Baltic Crucible of National Identities," Hoover Working Paper Series in International Studies (January, 1995).

  • Entries on "Ober Ost," "Besetzter Osten" [Occupied Eastern Europe], "Ostpreußen" [East Prussia], in Enzyklopädie des Ersten Weltkrieges, ed. Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, and Irina Renz (Schöningh, 2003). Entry on “Military Occupations” in Jay Winter and John Merriman, eds., Encyclopedia of Europe, 1914-2000 (forthcoming).

Selected Honors and Awards

  • Lindsay young Professorship, 2009-10
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2005-2006
  • Hendrickson Professorship in the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tennessee, 2005-2007
  • University of Tennessee College of Arts and Sciences Award for Research and Creative Achievement in the Arts and Humanities, 2003-2006
  • University of Tennessee Provost's Excellence in Teaching Award, 2003
  • University of Tennessee Award for Professional Promise in Research and Creative Achievement, April 2001
  • University of Tennessee Department of History LeRoy P. Graff Award for Faculty Excellence, April 2001
  • Title VIII Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1994-95
  • D.A.A.D. (German Academic Exchange Service) Dissertation Research Fellowship, Freiburg, Germany,1991-92
  • National Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, 1988-1994
  • William Penn Graduate Fellowship, the University of Pennsylvania, 1988
Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius

Contact Information

Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
Associate Professor of History
Director, Center for the Study of War and Soceity
Lindsay Young Proessor
915 Volunteer Boulevard
6th Floor, Dunford Hall
Knoxville, TN 37996-4065

Office: (865) 974-7320
Fax: (865) 974-3915
E-mail: vliulevi@utk.edu