15 July 2026 (Wednesday) 4:00 PM
Thomas Mann Memorial Museum
Conversation with historian and essayist Karl Schlögel (Germany)
Moderator: Povilas Dikavičius
Karl Schlögel (born 1948) is a German historian and expert on Eastern and Central Europe. He studied philosophy, sociology, Eastern European history and Slavic studies. In 1990, he became Professor of Eastern European History at the University of Konstanz. From 1995 until his retirement in 2013, he taught at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).
For more than four decades, combining empirical historical research with personal experience, Schlögel has explored the era of the Soviet Union, Stalinist terror, the cities and landscapes of Central and Eastern Europe, the culture of everyday life, migration processes, Russian imperial aggression and Ukraine’s struggle for survival. He was among the first intellectuals to warn about the aggressive policies of Putin’s regime following the annexation of Crimea. Schlögel regularly travels to Ukraine in order to witness the consequences of war firsthand. He emphasizes that wars are not decided solely on the battlefield and reminds audiences that peace in Europe is possible only with a free Ukraine.
In his most recent work, Auf der Sandbank der Zeit. Der Historiker als Chronist der Gegenwart (On the Sandbank of Time. The Historian as Chronicler of the Present, 2025), he reconsiders the role of the historian in the context of today’s crises and war.
Schlögel’s academic and publicist work has received numerous awards, including the Sigmund Freud Prize of the German Academy for Language and Literature (2004), the Munich History College Prize (2016), the Leipzig Book Fair Prize (2018), the Gerda Henkel Prize (2024), and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (2025). He is also a member of the Order Pour le mérite. He lives in Berlin.
His book Terror and Dream: Moscow 1937 was published in Lithuanian in 2013 (translated by Valdemaras Kvietkauskas, Tyto alba).
Povilas Dikavičius heads the Vilnius branch of the German Historical Institute Warsaw. His research focuses on the history of Early Modern Europe. He completed his doctoral studies in comparative history at Central European University in Budapest and Vienna.
The event is organized in cooperation with the Vilnius branch of the German Historical Institute Warsaw.