Karl Schlögel
Blackbox Russia?
Neuhardenberg Speech
The renowned historian and eloquent essayist Karl Schlögel is one of the most informed of the experts with a comprehensive knowledge of the cultures and societies of Eastern Europe. He has researched the history of Russia and Ukraine in the modern era, Stalinism and the Russian dissident movement, and has examined theoretical problems related to the historical narratives. From 1995 until the conferral of his Emeritus status in 2013, he held a professorship at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), where he lectured on the history of Eastern Europe.
In 2025, Karl Schlögel was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade; the ceremony was held in St Paul's Church in Frankfurt/Main. The jury stated that its decision was based on the fact that Karl Schlögel had sharpened our insights into Ukraine and had confronted a blind spot of German perception.He had urgently warned against Vladimir Putin's policy of aggressive expansion and his authoritarian-nationalist claims to power. His works were a combination of writing empirically on history and recounting his personal experiences as a researcher and as a flâneur, as a modern era archaeologist who had already explored cities and landscapes in Central and Eastern Europe before the end of the Iron Curtain. His exhortation: there can be no peace in Europe without a free Ukraine.
After Karl Schlögel's lecture, Theo Koll will be talking to the speaker as well as other, as yet to be confirmed, discussion participants.
