Professor Emeritus Awarded International Prize for Scholarship

Photo Submitted

Professor Emeritus Evan Burr Bukey (left) Receives the Vogelsang Prize in Vienna

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Evan Burr Bukey, professor emeritus of history in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the 2014 Karl von Vogelsang National Award for History and Social Sciences by the Austrian government. Bukey received the award Friday, April 25, at the Federal Ministry of Science and Research in Vienna.  

“To receive Austria's highest award for academic scholarship came as both a shock and great honor,” Bukey said. “I am most grateful to scholars in the United States and Europe who helped make this possible, particularly my colleague and friend Dr. Kurt Tweraser who throughout four decades has provided much-needed aid and assistance in understanding the complexities of his native Austria.”

An international jury of distinguished scholars in intellectual, social and political history chose Bukey for his life-long contributions to historical scholarship. The judges emphasized his innovative approach to problems of the recent past and his skill in transmitting his findings to wider public.

“This award pays homage to Bukey’s essential publications on the role of Austria in the Nazi regime,” said Reinhold Mitterlehner, Austria’s economic minister, who also noted that Bukey’s research covers areas sensitive to Austrian history, allowing a more comprehensive and objective view of the events of the past. 

Bukey is an award-winning author of three books. His first, Hitler’s Hometown: Linz, Austria, 1908-1945 (Indiana University Press, 1986), was praised for demonstrating the flexibility of interwar Austrian politics at the grass roots. Hitler's Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era, 1938-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2000) opened new avenues for research on National Socialism. His most recent, Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria (Cambridge University Press, 2011), considers the issue of marriages between Jews and non–Jews and their children after 1938. He received the National Jewish Book Award in 2000 and the Austrian Cultural Prize in 2001.

The Vogelsang Prize is awarded every two years by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science, Research and Economy. Other winners include Larry Woolf of New York University, Pieter M. Judson of Swarthmore College and John Boyer of the University of Chicago.