Frankfurt (Oder), 02.11.2022:
On Wednesday, November 2, the Senate and the Board of Trustees of the European University Viadrina Foundation Frankfurt (Oder) elected the historian of Eastern Europe Prof. Dr. Eduard Mühle as President. Appointment and handover of office are expected to take place at the beginning of the summer semester 2023. Until the handover of office, Prof. Dr. Eva Kocher will lead the European University Viadrina as acting president.
Prof. Dr. Eduard Mühle was deeply moved by the vote of the electoral assembly and expressed his gratitude for the great trust placed in him. “University and science policy have been very familiar to me since my first professional years, the humanities an academic vocation, and Poland and Eastern Europe very close to me for decades, both professionally and privately – so Viadrina is exactly the right place for me to take on responsibility as university president. At the helm of the Viadrina, working to ensure that this special university in this special place becomes even more visible as a place of attractive teaching, innovative research, international cooperation and socially relevant transfers, and makes an even more effective academic-scientific contribution to overcoming current crises and upcoming tasks for the future, is a task that is as exciting as it is challenging, and one to which I will devote all my energy,” says Prof. Dr. Eduard Mühle.
About Prof. Dr. Eduard Mühle:
Prof. Dr. Eduard Mühle received his doctorate in Münster in 1990 after studying in Paderborn, Jerusalem, Münster and London and research stays in Kyiv, Leningrad, Novgorod and Moscow. He was subsequently head of the Executive Board Department of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and personal advisor to the then DFG President Hubert Markl, as well as head of the International Department in the Secretariat of the German Rectors’ Conference. From 1995 to 2005 he was Director of the Leibniz Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Central Europe (Herder Institute) in Marburg. In 2004, he habilitated at the University of Marburg and one year later was appointed to the Chair of History of East Central and Eastern Europe at the University of Münster. From 2008 to 2013, he was Director of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. The internationally widely networked historian is, among other things, the recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award of the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) and a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Arts in Krakow. In 2021, he received the Lux et Laus Medal of the Polish Medievalists’ Association for outstanding services to German-Polish cooperation and the study of the Middle Ages. As a visiting professor and senior visiting fellow, he has taught and conducted research in Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton and Prague. His research has most recently focused on medieval Poland, the history of the Slavs and Slavic discourse, German modern perceptions of the European East, and the history of German-Polish neighbourhoods.
Image 1: Prof. Dr. Eduard Mühle, elected President of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) after his election on 2 November 2022 (Source: EUV / ©: René Matschkowiak)