Why Study Modern European History at UEA?

The MA in Modern European History offers you the opportunity to work with a group of historians of modern Europe who continue UEA’s long-standing reputation as a major centre for the study of the continent. There is a particular and distinctive concentration of expertise in the history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. This provides an ideal environment for students interested in the dilemmas and challenges faced by the great autocratic dynasties of Russia, Germany and the Habsburg Empire from the mid-19th century onwards. We also cover the dramatic and devastating consequences of social and political change not just for these countries, but for the Balkans and for Europe as a whole. Students also examine the collapse of the dynastic empires and the re-shaping of Europe at the end of the First World War, and the causes and consequences of the two most dramatic episodes in the ‘short twentieth century’: the Bolshevik and Nazi revolutions. While you will be expected to concentrate your studies on one country, there is ample scope to pursue more comparative approaches to the history of Europe, particularly around themes such as nationalism and national identity, political mobilisation, or violence and genocide.

Content and Structure of the Course

The MA, which can be taken either as a one-year full-time programme or a two-year part-time degree, aims to equip students with the advanced skills and intensive subject knowledge they need to proceed to further independent research. This preparation is provided by three main elements. The first is the dissertation, the completion of which will provide all MA students with the experience and expertise to go on to doctoral study should they so wish. The second is a core module, in either Russian or German history, which runs over both semesters, all of which reflect the challenges these countries experienced in coming to terms with the modern age.

Core Modules

Modernity in Russia focuses in particular on the revolutionary period in Russia and the manifold problems that Russian society and culture confronted in the transition to modernity.

OR

Germany 1880-1940: Tradition and Modernity examines how far the dramatic history of Germany in this period can be explained in terms of the persistence of powerful pre-modern forces, or whether , from the later 19th century, Germany confronted an escalating crisis of modernity that culminated in the collapse of democracy and civil society in the 1930s.

Optional Modules

Students also take a supplementary module, which runs either weekly for a semester or fortnightly over the whole year.

Reading Modern European History may take a variety of forms and will be responsive to students’ particular needs and interests. It currently explores the first half of the twentieth century through the study of personal narratives and memoirs and their value as historical sources.

The culmination of the programme is a dissertation on an approved topic of your own devising. It is undertaken mainly in the second half of the degree and supervised by one or more members of the School.

Opportunities to acquire or enhance a reading knowledge of a relevant modern European language for the Modern European History strand are also provided to those intending to extend their research beyond the Masters degree.

Course Tutors and Research Interests

Cathie Carmichael: nationalism, ethnicity, ethnic cleansing and violence, especially in the Balkans, and the comparative study of genocide

Laurence Cole: the Habsburg empire 1750-1918, especially nationality relations in the Dual Monarchy, and Austria’s relations to Italy and Germany

Ian Farr: society and politics in Germany 1815-1945, especially Imperial Germany and Germany’s regions

Tony Kemp-Welch: international relations since 1945, Soviet politics and Poland under Communism

Matthias Neumann: Imperial Russian and Soviet society, especially the culture of Stalinism

Peter Waldron: later Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union and their relationships with eastern Europe